Tales of the Bat

He traveled the world but was afraid of gifts

Pike was a cameraman. He constantly traveled following film productions, TV series or documentary crews. He was a hard worker, he had a crazy schedule. He worked during the week day or evening and on weekends in the same schema. Not a Workaholic , but his profession required him  24/7 availability, if he wanted good relations with this ‘market’. Pike had a home, he was single man and never dreamed of being a father, he was immune to the virus of creating family and have his heir, a fact of life in metropolis Toronto.

Pike one day received something strange. Between his house the front door and  screen door, it was left there on the floor a plate of desserts packed with special paper, fancy and gently sealed. Pike was so scared that he placed the object directly into the trash.

That Thursday summer night he thought it was a bad taste joke. “Who in their right mind would put a dish on the door of my house?” he thought. But days later the same thing happened again, and always on Thursdays gifts were found there.

After returning from productions in Asia or Europe Pike sometimes would open his door and stumbled on something that some anonymous person had left him. Tired of this situation he decided to find out who made these secret gifts, Pike bought a video camera which was secretly installed in a small and obscure corner of his front balcony. Perfectly hidden the equipment has been tested by Pike, who installed the camera and connected to his own personal computer, recording low-resolution images for every second that he was not at home.

Pike was happy and confused to be close to finally discover who was doing that. The expectations were overwhelming. The trip this time was to Quito, Peru, he always wondered how people could breathe in supreme attitudes, as in Quito. He was happy to once again know a new place, but the cameraman was very apprehensive when he returned to find something at his front door in Toronto. A Hungarian friend of his said it could be a gift of a new neighbour, something cultural, but Pike wondered then why the gifts were anonymous. Another friend, this time it was a Brazilian friend who said it could be a voodoo that someone had done for him and that he should not open it, or it could even be a dessert for him to enjoy, but Pike did not want to find what was inside, he just wanted to know why that person insisted on putting those dishes at his front door.

After a week in Quito, which he loved and recorded some beautiful images from, and  where Pike also chewed coca leaf, which helped him to work at that extreme altitude, but when returning home he was wondering if his hidden camera had recorded something. He was desperate to get home. The cab that brought him from the international airport of Pearson, which cost him $ 60 Canadian dollars, including tip, he got out, walked up the stairs at his home – it was around the 4pm – he opened the door and came face to face with a box. He walked inside his home carrying small box in his right hand, pulling his  suitcase on wheels with his left hand, Pike went directly to the second floor where he booted up his computer and began to check the recorded pictures. He looked directly on images recorded  on Thursday. Bull’s eye. Now he could finally see who was putting the presents, the last of them a box, it was a woman. He was dumbfounded. He imagined all rioters, a customer who felt he had usurped, some crazy person on his street, everything but a woman.

The images he had captured of her showed him that she was careful, because she was tiptoeing, the anonymous woman did not wanted to be seen or heard while putting the mysterious  gift  at his doorsteps. He noted the small window of the entrance door, she bent down and opened the little screen door then she place it on the floor.

She was an adult, tall, dark hair and skinny, he could not see her face or the colour of her hair. Pike saw and reviewed the images until the moment when the character left the box and closed the door. It became even more curious after he learned that the gift came from an anonymous woman. He opened a beer and ate some snacks, because he did not cook at all. Then he slept for a few hours to recover from the trip. When he woke up he decided to review the images to see if she had returned. He finally found something even more curious, the woman was his neighbour, he did not even know he had a neighbour. Pike only realized this at first because the camera captured images of the head of a person leaving the house next to his and her head passes over a small  separating wall and then closes the door,  Pike’s next door. The person was living next to him. He was terrified … He thought to himself “That crazy person lives beside me and doesn’t live a message on the gift?I have to face her”, but Pike was afraid she was a psychopath. He contained himself.

As she always had this on Thursday he decided to catch her ‘red-handed’ and that’s what he did.

He waited seven days and prepared to meet that  woman. She bought a baseball bat and created a shortcut on your phone to call police in case of being attacked. While waiting, Pike read and reread a text he had written to tell the crazy person. All right now, everything was prepared to face the no more anonymous figure.

He sat near the front door, grabbed his iPhone, turned on the camera remotely, and waited there sitting on the floor. After waiting almost an hour she appeared, but this time she opened the screen door. Pike promptly opened his door … She was got by surprise frightened, she sat down and smiled. Pike began to speak the text that was written by him, he also had his finger on the phone shortcut button to call police, the baseball bat on the other hand, but Pike realized that the redhead woman, traits of strong East European, very attractive, did not understand what he was saying and opened her arms to him in sign of ‘I’m not understanding’. Pike asks her name, she began to speak a language he did not understand, but slowly she said in English “I’m your new neighbour, good to meet you to.”

Her name was Anna, she was Russian and had moved a few months ago to that house and wanted to make friends with her neighbour, but never saw him. The Russian decided to make candy and leave them at Pike’s front door along with a note inside that said ‘From your new neighbour Ana‘. A friend of Ana said by telephone after they met at Pike’s front door, he said that Anna was just passing through the city to study English, spoke French (from France) fluently, so she tried to communicate with Pike at the first day, but acknowledged Pike did not spoke that language, he was accustomed to the French spoken in Quebec. They talked, he thanked in his broken French Quebecoir and invited her for a beer, but she just wanted to meet him and then she left. Pike felt like a fool, he hung up his surveillance camera, opened the gift box that she had left and red the note she had left him, along with chocolate cookies and went to sleep.

The note said ‘I’ve tried to contact you several times, I know that you are secluded person and does not like to mingle with your neighbours, it is a shame because I would like to have a glass of wine with you before returning to Moscow, kisses, Ana‘.

Tales by Morcego

Marco Mauricio, 30, was such a proud hard worker. He was a bricklayer, he had a teaching diploma, but was filled with the profession for not earning enough to make at least two trips per year to Santos, he was from Sao Paulo.

Disillusioned he migrated to Toronto, Canada where he began working hard as a bricklayer, he loved his new job and didn’t  wonder about returning to Sao Paulo, Marco was called  The Machine because he loved working 10, 12, even 16 hours shift. You know when you go to a restaurant and you see someone eating with pleasure, delirious with each bite or a new piece of fried-chicken? Yeah, he was like about his  work. He had no time to live or socialize with friends.

He was unmarried, but he thought about living with somebody or marrying, as he was feeling lonely. Pornography wasn’t helping anymore and nor the massage parlors. He needed company, but there was one problem: he so long ago dedicated his life to his job that he  had forgotten how to smile at a girl.

The ‘boy’ wanted to meet something else, but his mind was bugging him to find someone. He didn’t speak much English, but the body language of a labourer sometimes works, if you know what I mean. During a Saturday night, after his working shift, he went out with his co-workers to a disco, he was frustrated with the idea of ​​having to stare and smile at a girl, yet he was there, dressed in a suit, long silk shirt, leather shoes – the boss, Italian by birth, gave him for his services for more than five years. He was impeccable.

Bulls-eye, a redhead  tall-as-this room-door girl with brick red hair and white skin like paper … He smiled immediately and almost  lost his head because of the wide smile that went from ear to ear. Her name was Marcia, she was Russian. They talked the talk of those who are considering all possible physical body movements with each other, the  conversation was not important … The two barely spoke English, but it did not matter, they were burning … They exchanged affection, kisses, phone number.

On Sunday Marco could not think of anything else, his desperation was immense, he wanted to talk to Marcia, but could not give the impression of being totally crazy about her.

Monday morning he was at the job site  to work, arrived early as usual  but did not sleep well. He started at 7 AM, at 8 he wasn’t the same , his boss noticed and said “You’re not well, go home!” But “The machine” did not listen to his boss, he was stubborn. half-hour later he walked up the scaffold, it was thinking about the Marcia’s skin, he tripped over a brick, he thought of her while he was falling, thinking about  her hair and watching the sky around him as he fell headlong into a pick, he died smiling.

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, North America’s largest documentary festival, conference and market, proudly returns for its 18th annual edition from April 28 to May 8, 2011. Showcasing the best Canadian and international documentaries, Hot Docs is set to welcome delegates, filmmakers and audiences to Toronto for this 11-day event. This year, Hot Docs will screen over 199 documentaries from 43 countries on 16 different screens across Toronto.

This year is something of a game-changer for Hot Docs,” says executive director Chris McDonald. “We are expanding the number of film presentations by one third, we are screening in new neighbourhoods across the city, and we will be providing more direct financial support to filmmakers. The doc-making marketplace has changed dramatically, and so has our role within it. We are not just screening great work, we are helping to finance and distribute films in a meaningful way. Stay tuned for the announcement of a major new international initiative in the coming weeks. Until then, we look forward to sharing a staggering array of quality docs with our unbeatable Toronto audiences at this year’s Festival.”

The 2011 Festival will feature 199 official selections and retrospective titles in ten programs, as well as eight films by young filmmakers aged 14 to 18 screening in this year’s Doc It! showcase, and films selected as finalists in the International Documentary Challenge. In addition to screenings, international buyers and industry professionals will attend the Festival to participate in a full slate of conference and market events. These events include the world-renowned Hot Docs Forum and a vast number of other market and networking opportunities.

More info at www.hotdocs.ca

Troféu da copa do mundo daFifa, está em Toronto, Canada: http://bit.ly/cusAPj via @addthis

Rethinking Multiculturalism: Brazil, Canada and the United States

January 29 and January 30, 2010

Location: Conference Centre, 5th Floor, York Research Tower

“Rethinking Multiculturalism: Brazil, Canada and the United States” is organized by the Chair in Multiculturalism,Department of Equity Studies, York University, in collaboration with the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC), the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples the Michael Baptista Lecture, and the Brazilian Studies Seminar.

An icon of the Brazilian music, Gal Costa will perform for the first time in Canada at Massey Hall, on November 15^th

Toronto, ON, October 20^th, 2009 – Gal Costa is a true icon of the Brazilian Tropicalia movement in music. With more than 30 recordings spanning a career of 40 years, she will be making her Canadian debut at Massey Hall, on November 15^th, after the past successful Toronto run of her fellow Tropicalistas Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. Gal’s one night performance in Toronto is preceded by four nights at the legendary Blue Note Jazz Club, in New York, and closes her North American tour.

The grace and style of Gal, her signature voice, heard in every delicate, yet forceful note, symbolizes one of the world’s most passionate places. A Brazilian musical legend, Gal will be singing the music of Brazil’s greatest composers, and she will be joined by Romero Lubambo, a master in his own right, on Brazilian guitar.

A fundamental presence in the Tropicalia movement, Gal, as she is called in her home country, has been part of Brazil’s leading group of singers since the 1960s. At the age of 19, in 1964, Gal initiated her performing career with Caetano Veloso in the presentation of the opening of the Teatro Vila Velha in Salvador, Brazil. The show, called “Nós, por exemplo”, brought together the founding members of a movement that would become iconic in Brazilian music history: Caetano Veloso, his sister Maria Bethânia, Gilberto Gil, and Gal Costa (still under her name Maria da Graça). The show would spark an artistic relationship that would mark a generation.

She gained international exposure in the 1980s, touring Japan, France, Israel, Argentina, the United States, Portugal, Italy, among others. Gal Costa continues to be a viable and active artist in the 21^st century, issuing new recorded material. However the repackaging of her previous work, which is becoming renowned in the category of Brazilian classics, is currently hitting the market by storm. Gal’s newest recording, Live at the Blue Note, features the consummate Brazilian diva performing a selection of Bossa Nova songs in an intimate setting at this New York legendary club in 2006. Delicate, yet with an underlying tough sexiness, Gal Costa’s voice is the perfect vehicle for such Bossa classics as “Corcovado” and “Garota de Ipanema”.

Romero Lubambo, guitar

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1955, Romero Lubambo studied classical piano and music theory as a young boy. From the time he played his first notes on the guitar at age thirteen, he devoted himself to that instrument. Lubambo graduated from the Villa-Lobos School of Music in Rio in 1978, as an outstanding student of classical guitar.

The rhythms and melodies defining Brazilian music and American jazz fascinated Lubambo. He taught himself through intense research and practice, developing exceptional skill, versatility and fluency in both jazz and Brazilian idioms. In 1985, Romero left Brazil for New York, where he became very popular, not only for his authentic Brazilian sound, but also for his command of a variety of styles. After reconnecting with fellow Brazilians Duduka da Fonseca and Nilson Matta, their impromptu sessions eventually led to the formation of Trio da Paz, a Brazilian Jazz trio widely recognized for their innovation, creativity and dynamic intensity. The group has become a major force in revitalizing and evolving the rich Brazilian musical legacy. Since their successful debut album “Brazil from the Inside” Trio da Paz has continued to break new ground with their special blend of traditional Brazilian rhythms and jazz improvisation.

Romero has also established himself as a composer and performer on his own critically acclaimed recording projects and collaborations with many outstanding artists, including Diana Krall, Herbie Mann, Wynton Marsalis, Grover Washington Jr., Vernon Reid, Flora Purim and Airto Moreira, Sadao Watanabe, Paquito D’Rivera and Harry Belafonte among many others.

Samba Toronto presents Gal Costa in Concert

$49.50 to $69.50 (now on sale)

Massey Hall (capacity 2.700)

7:30 pm

Sunday November 15, 2009

Tickets available at: Massey Hall & Brazil Remittance

Performing acts: Opening act by Filo Machado & Sambacana; Main performance by Gal Costa & Romero Lubambo

Buskerfest is the biggest concentration of street performers from around the world in an event in Saint Lawrence Market, Front St., Toronto. Musicians, artisans, entertainers, food, freaks, tricks and too much to miss. It starts on August 27th and ends on the 29th. last year there were clowns, sword eaters, magicians, suspended by balloon acrobats, comedians, and a mesmerize crowd. For more information about it, click here.

Space Cowboy swallows a sword on his three meters high monocycle. Photo: Sandro Miranda

It’s lamentable when an individual is overloaded with self-confidence, safety and ignorance. On-line transactions are not fraudulent free, moreover; your bank account and your credit card password are vulnerable. Remember yourself about it.

I’ll explain it.

I have invariably been using on-line PayPal payment system, which is connected to my bank account – as the majority of users of this specific kind of service – in the case the user wants have money out of his account. The credit card is also connected to my PayPal, so I’m able to pay some bills or my via internet, that’s the basic to be able to function on PayPal system. All right?

There are no systems 100% fraud free. On August 10 or 12 somebody tried to hack my PayPal account to get my numbers; bank account, creit card.

How do I know?

At 11:30 PM I noticed 5 news emails from PayPal related to supposedly payments made via that service when I was checking my emails, my heartbeat stopped… I didn’t died though.

Those were emails related  to fraudulent actions on my PayPal account, five in total. I called PayPal, Visa and President’s Choice to confirm I didn’t make any transaction, explaining when was my last transaction.

PayPal representative didn’t hesitate and immediately  verified the complete process, my account was put to stand by as he was sending me an info through email detailing what to do in this scenario. CIBC representative  putted  my credit card on hold, and later he cancelled it, after verifying possible transactions done without my permission. Fast and precise, as all costumer service department should be.

President’s Choice representative told me that that issue wasn’t related to PC and they couldn’t verify any matters, the problem was from a third party isolating PC from any responsibility…  I disliked that answer.

I asked PC representative about any transaction, money transfer done that night; he said verification would only occur the next day due to bank hours… I felt terrible…

Well, I told myself: ‘Nothing happened, it was just a mistake’, but I was wrong. After two days I found out I had less money on my bank account when I checked an ATM expecting to get some bills to have an ice cream… I didn’t like the surprise. I called PC again and I was told I had be responsible for fees related to the fraudulent action on my PayPal, four to be precise.

I got mad;

PC was charging me for something I was not responsible for.

I ‘stood up’ and I call PayPal requesting the complete transactions should be faxed to my bank account representative, and they did it without arguing. Took me some time to get a fax number from PC, after that everything was solved. My fees were waved.

It was a long, but productive experience.

Change your password once awhile.

If something like that happen to you, don’t let it go. Fight for your rights.

I was not delighted about the PC’s costumer service help. I have to say I enjoy my online account with them, it is free, no annual fees, that’s a price for that though, there is no account manager to give a phone call.

Starting the June 13th was easy. But there was too many assignments to shoot. I so decided to go slow. First of all we took our son to Central Island in Toronto. A a promising beautiful day, then within the island there was the ‘Dragon Boat Race‘, but I was running to check naked true about riding your bike for a good cause, and I was late.

I decided to take a short cut to get some photos from the riders that scream ‘less gas more ass’, and I was lucky. I got to them at Bloor st. at 1:45pm. It was interesting to see people turning their eyes to the cyclists, clapping, smiling, laughing, criticizing them, some joining them through the streets of Toronto.

That was the World Naked Bike Ride in Toronto and was fun, to violence, no arrests, only people naked on their bikes – they wear helmet though.

The naked true; bike riders take theyr clothes for a good cause 'less gas, more ass'

After that assignment I went to the Village of Yorkville Park, part of Luminato celebrations,   to listen to some of the best Brazilian guitarists.

Luciana Souza and Romero Lubambo playing at the Luminato's Brazilian Guitar Marathon, Village Yorkville Park

After that I was almost done, I met with Felipe for some hours and my Saturday was gone.