After all, the Bobbit episode does have its Brazilian connection. Lorena, whose name inspires terror in men of all persuasions, is in real life from Peru. In John Bobbit Uncut, the uncensored, X-rated version of John Bobbit's life, however, the disgruntled wife gets a Portuguese accent thanks to the interpretation of a very patriotic Brazilian porno actress, Veronica Brazil. Brazil is the woman, who feeling betrayed by her husband, decides to extirpate the root of infidelity by cutting off his fornicating penis.
Competing with 17 American companies including such giants as IBM and Unisys, the Brazilian firm Ensec has won the bid to install the security system in New York's World Trade Center garage, the same place that was hit in 1993 by a car-bomb that killed five people and injured 250. The $2.6 million contract was signed after a careful checkup of the company in Brazil, including consultations with Brazilian clients of the firm. The feat is just one more item on Ensec's resume. The security system at the White House's Old Executive Building was also installed by the Brazilian company.
Guaraná, Amazon's natural energizer, has been selling as a smart drug in London and New York. Bought in powder form or in capsules the product is being ingested in huge doses with vodka. The recommended dosage for reaching a blast is 20 guaraná capsules for a bottle of vodka. The biggest consumers of guaraná are the clubbers, who are abandoning ecstasy in favor of a product that's cheaper, guarantees similar effects and is strictly legal.
In Brazil, until now, fans of the liquid kind of guaraná, the only typical Brazilian soft drink, had only one real choice, the Antarctica guaraná. Several smaller companies have launched the so-called tubaínas, a poorer cousin of the guaraná, and the Brahma company had its version of the Amazon beverage, but real lovers of the infusion would only have the Antarctica rendition of it. After years of testing 2000 different formulas and having spent $30 million in this process, Brahma is giving it another try. Why all this interest? In the soft drink market, guaraná only loses to Coca-Cola.
The Miss Brazil contest has changed somewhat in the last few years. Up until the 70's, the competition drew a lot of media attention, being televised live to the whole nation.The winner used to adorn the cover of the variety magazines. There was little of the old charm when Renata Bessa Soares, 18, was crowned the most beautiful Brazilian last April. At Rio's Scala club where the contest was held there were no TV cameras nor any sponsor. And the show had to end hurriedly at 9 PM so it wouldn't interfere with the daily highlight of the club: a show with mulatas.
The leftist-leaning PT (Workers' Party) is fast learning how to raise money the capitalist way. After the launching of the PT Visa Card in partnership with Bradesco bank, party leaders are thinking about creating a telebingo TV show and transforming the annual meetings of the party into a festival. The idea is to multiply by ten times the party's present income.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, French author Jules Romain's Les Hommes de Bonne Volonté with its 4959 pages and 14 volumes is the most extensive book ever written. Gaúcha (from Rio Grande do Sul) writer Tânia Jamardo Faillace, 56, is ready to beat this record. She has just registered at Rio's Biblioteca Nacional her O Beco da Velha (The Old Lady's Dead End Street) with 7748 pages in 19 volumes. It took her 10 years to write this saga with a gallery of 200 characters who portray Porto Alegre's society during the 70's. Faillace is not in a hurry. She's been "showing the eggs like a proud mother hen" to friends, but hasn't started the search for a publishing house yet.
Nobody beats the Carioca ( from Rio) ingenuity. Robbers from the "marvelous city" have created the ultimate car hold-up.You need three people. While two of them stick a weapon to the driver's head, in front of the car, the third thief is driving a ... wheelchair, thus preventing any escape.
A pioneer project in Latin America, Rio has just opened its first gay resort. It's located on an island 40 miles off the coast of Rio. At this stage the place has accommodations for 20 couples only. All employees at the hotel are gay, but the policy of the resort is to accept any person independent of their sexual preference. The project was opened on time for the Gay International Congress to be held in the city in June.
Spike Lee, who has been to Rio's Film Festival a few years ago, can't believe the situation of Blacks in Brazil. "You say you have no prejudice, but if you are black there, you're relegated to the last rung of society." So said the movie director in a recent interview to daily Folha de São Paulo and continued, "Brazil assumes the façade of one blood one people, but the White Brazilian is the one who has the power. To me this seems like a remnant of slavery." Lee has also revealed that Dori Caymmi is the arranger for a new song for Clockers, his next movie.
Exile Collor
among usArmed with a Social Security card and a Driver's License, Fernando Collor de Mello, 45, the impeached ex-president of Brazil, is spending his next two years in Miami. The decision to come to the US was made after the ex-president's 100-day-around-the-world vacation. "I'm back on the public road," he said in his first interview since being impeached. Even though he is forbidden from being voted in for any public post until the year 2,000, Collor said that he is ready to participate in national debates about the country. He has also announced that he will start writing a book in which he promises to reveal "minute details, names and affiliations" of those who participated in his administration. His intention, Collor says, is to prove that he has not taken part in "any prank that some people wanted to do in the incestuous relationship between the state and certain sectors." Miami seemed an obvious choice: it has Maceió's (Collor's hometown) climate and is the most Brazilian of any foreign city.
Since returning to New York from a trip to Brazil, Malcolm Forbes Jr., Forbes magazine editor- in-chief and president of Forbes Inc, has been active in search of partners to invest in Brazilian businesses. The Forbes June 19 issue will carry a special section on Brazil in which the publication will make the point that Brazil is no Mexico. According to Malcolm, the country is living in an exceptional moment and he didn't hide his enthusiasm with the "new government's seriousness".