Comments (1)

By pigwhisperer, April 6, 2010

While browsing this other blog I like called Information is Beautiful, I came across the work of graphic artist Stefanie Posavec. According to David McCandless, the blog’s author and designer, Posavec’s work “is concerned with the unveiling of things unseen.” One of Posavec’s projects: to visualize the structure of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. Being an amateur book diagrammer myself, I was intrigued. [Warning: Nerd Alert] After I read any novel I particularly like, I try to diagram its structure, making charts or graphs or weird timelines. These drawings are basically unintelligible to anyone but me, of course. When I’m stuck on my own work I do the same kind of drawing, hoping that a visual representation will help me fix whatever it is in the structure that’s baffling me. Sometimes it works. Often it doesn’t, but a) it’s fun to do and b) doing it makes me feel like I’m actually working. So when I saw Posavec’s diagrams of On the Road, I immediately got a huge crush on her. I mean, these illustrations are BEAUTIFUL. In a Literary Organism, she makes lines divide into chapters, blooms into paragraphs, sprouts are sentences. All are color-coded according to the book’s key themes. There are other graphic representations of the book’s rhythms, sentence structures, and word usage.

Here’s a blog with high-res images of Posavec’s work. And here’s her website.

Comments (0)

By pigwhisperer, April 6, 2010

Para vocês que falam Português, tem uma ótima entrevista com o escritor Carlos Herculano Lopes. Ele escreveu vários livros, entre eles: A Dança dos Cabelos, Memórias da Sede, Sombras de Julho, e Coração aos Pulos. O seu romance mais recente, O Vestido (Romance. São Paulo: Geração Editorial, 2004), baseado no poema “Caso do Vestido” de Carlos Drummond de Andrade, foi adaptado para o filme de Paulo Thiago em 2004.

Eu tive a oportunidade de falar com o Carlos alguns meses atrás, quando ele me entrevistou para um artigo no jornal Estado de Minas. Veja aqui a entrevista com Carlos no YouTube.

E, porque não posso resistir, aqui está o Caso do Vestido do outro Carlos!

Comments (0)

By pigwhisperer, March 30, 2010

The current issue of The Sun features photos from Kristin Capp, a really talented photographer who took a series of photos in Itaparica, Brazil. See more of her work– including photos of Itaparica, Salvador, and Brasilia– here.
Abraços,
Frances

Comments (0)

By pigwhisperer, March 28, 2010

My dear friend Deanna Fei’s debut novel will be released this week, April 1, by the Penguin Press! It is an incredible book. Here are the great reviews it’s gotten so far:

Advance Praise for A Thread of Sky

Lin Yulan, a revolutionary and leader of the Chinese feminist movement, reluctantly returns to her homeland after a self-imposed exile for a guided tour of “the new China” with her two daughters and three granddaughters in an effort for the nearly estranged women to reconnect. Each woman arrives in China with her own agenda, and each discovers that some shameful secrets are simply too heavy to bear alone. This powerful, intricately woven first novel is a meditation on grief and recovery, strength and vulnerability, and the urgency to leave one’s mark on the world. A very promising debut.
- INDIEBOUND

A Thread of Sky is a lyrical journey through the heart of contemporary China, and the family of women who make the pilgrimage across these pages are as complicated, broad-ranging, and fascinating as the country itself. Deanna Fei is one to watch.
-ANN PATCHETT

A remarkable debut by a gifted young novelist… A wonderful book!
-ANITA SHREVE

This had me at the first page. Fei’s debut novel is both intensely enjoyable and, I think, important. This novel charts the cost of that famous Asian silence, as a family takes in the price of it across several generations. But it is also an intimate portrait of that famous ‘new China,’ as much of a surprise to Chinese Americans as it is to the rest of us. Truly a book for our times.
- ALEXANDER CHEE

Fei stakes a claim in Amy Tan territory with this satisfying tale.
-BOOKLIST

Deanna Fei writes gracefully and with powerful insight and feeling about love and loss, homelands and promised lands, and the various roles of women in family and society. The reader follows her passionately searching characters to China with a brimming heart, and with admiration for a first novelist so full of promise.
-SIGRID NUNEZ

With its mother-daughter conflicts, a feminist message, and an exploration of Chinese roots, this novel will appeal to fans of Amy Tan as well as readers who generally enjoy… Julia Alvarez, Gish Jen, and Gus Lee.
-LIBRARY JOURNAL

A dazzling, heart-pulling debut. With gorgeous lyricism and rare power, Deanna Fei maps an intricate constellation of loss and love that illuminates the lives of three generations of women. The novel is a startling achievement, braided with history and hope and deep empathy, and it introduces readers to one of the most gifted and captivating storytellers of her generation.
-BRET ANTHONY JOHNSTON

Comments (0)

By pigwhisperer, March 21, 2010

It’s jaca season again. Yum. There is nothing like opening a ripe jaca (or jackfruit as it’s called in English) and eating the meaty yellow bulbs surrounding its seeds. They are delicious: sweet, a little tangy (their acid leaves a tingling sensation in your mouth), and really fragrant. If a jaca is really ripe, then it’s much TOO fragrant for some, smelling a little like rotten fruit.

Jacas came to Brazil from India. I suppose the Portuguese brought them and they’ve been around ever since. We have thousands of trees on the farm. The jaca is the largest tree-borne fruit in the world. They can apparently reach 80 pounds in weight and up to 36 inches long and 20 inches in diameter. The fruit’s skin is prickly and has a really sticky, milky sap when cut open. If the sap gets on your hands (and it usually does if you’re eating the fruit) you can’t just wash it off, but must use oil (olive oil, canola, etc.) to rub it off.

There are two kinds of jaca trees here: dura (hard) and mole (soft). A jaca dura tree produces fruit whose pulp is, you guessed it, harder than the mole’s pulp. It is impossible to tell just by looking at a tree which kind it is. I’ve tried and tried. You basically have to eat the fruit off the tree to know. There are great debates here (no, really, there are) about which kind of jaca is best–mole or dura. Mole is sweeter but has to be consumed right away. Dura lasts longer, and can be made into jam. I guess if you’re a die-hard mole lover, you subscribe to the “live in the moment” philosophy of life. While dura lovers like to take their time, enjoy things slowly, make things last as long as they can. I’m like our pigs–I like jacas any way I can get them.

Here’s a nice article about the jackfruit.

Comments (0)

By pigwhisperer, March 18, 2010

A wonderful review of The Seamstress in The Independent, a UK newspaper. The book’s paperback version was released by Bloomsbury in February of 2010. Here’s the review’s full text:

“Although this is Frances de Pontes Peebles’ first novel, her prose flows with the assuredness of a natural storyteller’s. Each sentence of her epic narrative is stitched with meaning and insight, and the reader’s imagination is woven into the novel from the very first paragraph

We begin in 1935 in Recife, Brazil, where the married Emilia lives in the largest house in an area of newly built estates. She is living a life which at one time she could only dream of. But dreams, as she will learn, come at a price.

As orphaned children, Emilia and her deformed sister Luiza were brought up in a hillside village under the care of their Aunt Sofia. They worked as seamstresses, yearning to find a thread to take them away to a world elsewhere. Interwoven with their personal adventures is a slice of the fraught Brazilian history of the 1920s and 1930s: the economy is fast unravelling, and unrest and a clamouring for the rights of women are spreading as people attempt to fabricate feasible lives for themselves. The challenge facing Emilia and Luiza is how not to compromise their loyalties to themselves, and, most crucially, to each other.”

Here’s a link to the actual review. Many thanks to Bloomsbury for offering the book in the UK!

Comments (0)

By pigwhisperer, March 13, 2010

One of our goals this year was to open up overgrown areas. In these cleaned areas, we’ll plant coffee seedlings this May. Our coffee plants like shade, so we keep as many trees as possible. The photo above is a picture of recently cleaned area of the farm. We’re so excited about all of the trees and planting space! If you look closely, you can spot Lorenzo in the background. This particular area is on a steep incline very far up the mountain. It was a tough hike to get there, and by the end Lorenzo and I were both looking for excuses to stop and catch our breath.

Um dos nossos objetivos este ano era a abertura de zonas de mato brabo. Nessas áreas limpas, vamos planta mudas de café em maio deste ano. Nossas mudas de café gostam de sombra, então tentamos manter todas as árvores no local. A foto acima é um retrato de uma área recentemente limpa. Estamos encantados com as árvores e o espaço! Se você olhar de perto, você pode ver nosso cão Lorenzo. Para chegar nesta área subimos uma ladeira valente. Foi uma caminhada difícil, e no final Lorenzo e eu estávamos procurando desculpas para parar e tomar fôlego.

Comments (0)

By pigwhisperer, March 12, 2010

“One of the Butterflies” by W. S. Merwin, from The Shadow of Sirius.

The trouble with pleasure is the timing
it can overtake me without warning
and be gone before I know it is here
it can stand facing me unrecognized
while I am remembering somewhere else
in another age or someone not seen
for years and never to be seen again
in this world and it seems that I cherish
only now a joy I was not aware of
when it was here although it remains
out of reach and will not be caught or named
or called back and if I could make it stay
as I want to it would turn to pain.

We lost one of the dogs this week. Negão, an old boy (somewhere between 14 and 16 years), and probably the best dog I’ve ever encountered. He was ferociously loyal and dignified (not a jumper or a licker). He allowed very few people to ever rub his belly. He was famous for his temper–if he didn’t like someone there was no winning him over. But if he chose you as a friend he was sweet and attentive and playful. Farm dogs tend to be a bit rougher than city dogs. We rely on our dogs to protect the property, to sniff out any potential dangers while we hike, to warn us of any foreign presence (man or beast) that shows up. Once, on the road bordering our farm, a man walked quickly towards James and tried to shake his hand. Negão misinterpreted this neighborly gesture as a threat–a stranger was coming too close too fast. He lunged and growled. We held him back. To strangers he was intimidating but to us he was a protector and a friend. I know, a dog is a dog and every life must run its course. But we’ll miss him very much. Cão feroz. Amigo fiel.

Comments (0)

By pigwhisperer, March 1, 2010

We harvested our first head of broccoli today. Isn’t she a beauty? We sauteed her in some fresh chicken broth, garlic, and a little bit of anchovy paste. Delicious! Next up, cauliflower.

Colhemos nosso primeiro brócolis hoje. Ele é lindo, não é? Cozinhamos o brócolis com caldo de galinha, alho, e um pouco de pasta de anchova. Uma delícia!

Comments (1)

By pigwhisperer, February 24, 2010

Our coffee trees flowered in late November. It’s now February and, thanks to some great summer rains, our beans are turning into big boys (and girls).

About 6-8 weeks after a coffee flower is fertilized, cell division occurs to make a tiny coffee fruit. It’s as big as a pin head at this stage, but depending on climate, it can grow pretty rapidly. Coffee beans should ripen 30-35 weeks after flowering, turning from green to red. If this calculation is correct, that means our harvest will start at the end of June. This is much earlier than previous years, when we’ve started picking as late as August. But when I was a kid, June was always harvest time. Hopefully, we’re returning to our normal cycle.

Here’s a great little animated diagram of coffee bean development. I’ve linked to this before, but it’s so good, I can’t help but do it again.

Agora em português!
Nossos pés de café floresceram no final de novembro. Graças umas chuvas fortes esse verão, os nossos grãos de café estão ficando graúdos.

Cerca de 6-8 semanas após uma flor de café é fertilizado, ocorre uma divisão celular e nasce um fruto de café pequeno. (É tão grande como uma cabeça de alfinete.) Dependendo das chuvas, esse pequeno grão pode crescer rapidamente. Grãos de café devem amadurecer 30-35 semanas após a floração. Se este cálculo está correto, isso significa que nossa colheita começará no final de junho. Nos anos anteriores, começamos colhendo em agosto! Mas na minha infância, junho sempre foi o tempo de colheita. Pode ser que estamos retornando ao nosso ciclo normal.

Aqui está um link que mostra desenvolvimento do grão de café .

Comments (1)

By pigwhisperer, February 14, 2010

For Valentine’s Day, some excerpts of letters between Franz Kafka and his fiancé, Felice Bauer. They had a five-year relationship carried out mostly through letters, and were engaged twice.

Hoje é Dia dos Namorados nos EUA. Para comemorar, trechos da correspondência de Franz Kafka com Felice Bauer. Eles eram noivos para 5 anos e, durante seu noivado, tiveram uma correspondência de mais de 700 páginas. (Só achei trechos das cartas em inglês, infelizmente.)

In 1912, Kafka wrote to Bauer about how she had become inseparable from his work, and also how anticipation of her writing kept him awake at night. He wrote:

“Lately I have found to my amazement how intimately you have now become associated with my writing, although until recently I believe that the only time I did not think about you at all was while I was writing. In one short paragraph I had written, there were, among others, the following references to you and your letters: someone was give a bar of chocolate. There was talk of small diversions someone had during working hours. Then there was a telephone call. And finally somebody urged someone to go to bed, and threatened to take him straight to his room if he did not obey, which was certainly prompted by the recollection of your mother’s annoyance when you stayed so late at the office. — Such passages are especially dear to me; in them I take hold of you, without your feeling it, and therefore without your having to resist.

Eleven days later, Kafka wrote to her:
“Fraulein Felice!
I am now going to ask you a favour which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test that even the kindest person could be put to. Well this is it: Write to me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday — for I cannot endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them.
For instance, I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. But for this very reason I don’t want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life; and that’s why I don’t want to know that you are fond of me. If I did, how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?”

Comments (0)

By pigwhisperer, February 12, 2010

Suma de Letras has released “La Costurera” in Spain. I’m very excited to see the book translated into Spanish, and love Suma’s cover artwork. For all of you Spanish speakers, I’ve included Suma’s book summary below. Felicidades!

A editora espanhola Suma de Letras lancou “La Costurera” na Espanha. Estou super feliz para ver o livro traduzido para o espanhol, e adorei a nova capa. Para vocês que falam espanhol, incluir o resumo do livro da Suma. Que felicidade!

Una saga épica sobre la vida de dos hermanas
en el Brasil de principios del siglo XX

Frances de Pontes Peebles nos demuestra con su novela la importancia de los lazos familiares, inquebrantables incluso en la distancia y en la adversidad. Su cuidado estilo, su sensibilidad y su facilidad para contar grandes historias de sagas familiares, le han servido además para que numerosos medios la comparen con Gabriel García Márquez e Isabel Allende.