25.3.09

One of my favorites.


One of my favorites., originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

Aaron: "And what did you think about Sarah Palin? Did you hear about Sarah Palin last year."
My Xhosa Host Mother in Langa, whos name means "successful" but is a whopping 14 letters long and I couldn't possibly spell it correctly so I won't even try: "I won't say anything. That's your country. That's your mess."

That doesn't even compare to the responses I received in Brazil. Deni said something along the lines of "that woman is absolutely crazy," and when I explained how fucked America would have been with her as president to Kika, my mother in Curitiba, she responded that she thanks god everyday that Palin isn't calling the shots right now. You should have seen the look on her face when I explained aerial wolf hunting.


Langa is intense. I have to be home by 7 every day, because the township is pretty sketch after dark, and we have to take a series of little minivans to get around to anywhere, but my host family feeds me and Avery very well, and her four year old grandson is possibly the most entertaining and intelligent little bugger I've ever met.

22.3.09


, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

It is difficult for me to express just how much I wanted to see penguins on a beach. It was a pilgrimage of sorts. When I was down in the dumps last November dealing with a ton of school work and a ton of stress, the thought of seeing penguins on a beach kept me going, and alas, my waiting is officially over after a wonderful trip down to Cape Point and Boulder Beach last weekend. THEY WERE SO ADORABLE.

Today I leave for the township of Langa for a week and a half. After that, I've got about a week to backpack along the southern coast of South Africa, only to make it back to Cape Town in time for my flight to Vietnam. I'm going to miss hearing the Call to Prayer bellow through the streets of the Bokaap, although I'm excited to actually live outside of the City Bowl and see more of the city. I know I say this often, but the internet situation is unknown; I've just uploaded a kajillion photos to flickr, so check that out while you are waiting to hear more word of me.

21.3.09

This is a photo of Kate Sokol from last Sunday, a wonderful excursion down to Cape Point.

18.3.09

LET IT BE KNOWN.

It looks to be almost certain that on Friday, Portland Oregon will be announced as the site for a new MLS team to play starting in April 2011. That gives me about nine months after graduation to get settled back in Portland to be there in PGE Park just in time for our opening match against the hated Seattle Sounders. Coupled with the ascension of the Blazers in recent years, it's going to be a great couple years for Portland sports. I can't wait to rent an apartment in north portland and bike downtown every day to work, timbers games, coffee shops, house shows, concerts in basements, voodoo doughnuts, and the like. All I have to do is score a sweet job fighting gentrification or promoting alternative transportation; everything about my idealized perfect portland life is falling into place.


I'm still in Cape Town, and the city is still beautiful. I never have time to get in depth about things I'd like to blog about, like how this is a ridiculous place for a city, or how neoliberalism sucks and is transforming the way cities exist in the 21st century (in especially profound ways for cities in the global south), how much people overlook ecology, and the generally problematic exportation and adoration of American suburbs in cities around the world. Nevertheless, I am well, and I have another couple days with my family in the Bokaap before we move out to families in Langa, a township on the periphery of town. I then have a week vacation to myself, and as of right now, I'm thinking I'm going to follow the aforementioned Amanda Garant on the backpacker's express "BazBus", and see how far around the coast I can make it before I have to hightail it back to Cape Town for a flight to Vietnam.

Last night, we celebrated St Patricks Day at a jazz club, and came back to our houses in the Bokaap and watched a fire burn along the edge of Table Mountain, with the city in the foreground covered in smoke. Scary, but beautiful. Photos are following; I'm terrified to take my camera anywhere with the risk of mugging, so I might wait until we get to Langa or perhaps even Vietnam to start extensively uploading photos of penguins, Cape Point, Valhalla Park, and anywhere else my travels take me. Keep in touch dear reader, I am only an email away at ambrown at macalester dot edu, and I would love to hear from you.

16.3.09

The Zen of Amanda Garant.

We climbed Lion's Head at sunset to catch the view of both the sunset over the ocean and the moonrise over the city to the east, and Amanda, in one of her many spiritual moments where she stands alone with a giant smile on her face while taking in the incredible scenery, managed to stand in the perfect spot to get a really nice photo.

Cape Town under the mountains and moonlight

This picture reminds me of all those nights up on Pittock Mansion, with Alex Leeding, where we would see how many streets and roads we could identify while looking down on beloved Portland, counting off all the streets that we could recognize, watching Sandy and Burnside and the interstates snake through the city, eating voodoo doughnuts, even if its one in the morning there's still traffic on the streets somewhere. Sometimes, it is only in the dark that we can see the patterns and the different ways we live in and interact with the urban environment. In Cape Town, it's particularly pronounced: it's so easy to see the environmentally protected Table Mountain, jutting from the urban landscape above the city and the oceans, and how so much of Cape Flats in the horizon is set up to allow people to get in and out of the tiny, concentrated downtown of Cape Town that hugs its sharp, nonnegotiable natural boundaries. Of course, with a little extra knowledge of the area, you could also see how in the Cape Flats in the horizon, the areas with fewer lights are the Townships, the informal settlements without adequate street lights, or you could talk about the development patterns and the city by the alignment of major roads.

The view from my window. Bokaap, Cape Town, South Africa.

This is the view from my bedroom window. Somebody call Andrew Sullivan.

14.3.09

Cape Town


Cape Town, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

I just uploaded around fifty photos to flickr, go check 'em out.

More to come on African Urbanism, Table Mountain, and 90 Rand bottles of wine.

8.3.09

Ordem e Progresso.


on the river, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

In reflecting on the past few weeks in Brazil (and comparing those weeks to the urbane, majestic landscape I find here in Cape Town, South Africa) I can't help but think of the phrase Ordem e Progresso that is proudly displayed across the Brazilian flags I saw flapping in the wind along buildings on Paulista Avenue or enthusiastically waved at soccer games and Carnaval. While "Order" and "Progress" are two concepts that admittedly aren't obvious when seeing either the utter chaos that defines Sao Paulo's pace or the grim realities of life in the favelas, there is some sort of inherent logic to the way the country is modernizing and preparing itself for the next century's commerce and culture. Who stands to benefit from the reinforcement of this "Order" and "Progress?" How are the various actors shaping their country's own order and progress? These questions are especially relevant in Curitiba, a self-proclaimed sustainable ecotopia that makes its money from auto manufacturers and provides ample public transportation so long as you are wealthy enough to afford land inside city limits.

I climbed Table Mountain yesterday, and the view was spectacular. Who on earth thought to build a city on this windswept, jagged peninsula at the edge of the continent?

Hope everyone had a good founders day.

5.3.09

Curitiba, Parana State, Brazil

I have arrived in Cape Town, and am currently trying to simultaneously pick up ground on lost sleep and use Table Mountain and the Ocean to oreint myself to the city. While I figure that all out in our hostel for the next few days before we move in with my host family, here is a pretty picture of Curitiba and the coastal mountains that seperate the city from the ocean.

4.3.09

Saudade.

This is where I was living in Curitiba.

New York, New York, USA - Jan 19 to Jan 29
São Paulo and Curitibas, Brazil Jan 30 to Mar 4

Cape Town, South Africa Mar 5 to Apr 10
Hanoi, Vietnam Apr 11 to May 15th
Twin Cities this summer! (confirmed.)


Am I seriously already leaving Brazil?

2.3.09

Carnaval 2009


Carnaval 2009, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

Backlogged...


Tchao, São Paulo, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.

I hate the "OMGZORS I AM A LAME BLOGGERRRRR <3333" entries, as I´m sure you do too. At least my "i´ll get around to blogging eventually" posts come with photos!

But in all seriousness, to prove that I have been furiously scribbling notes in my DSG notebook (don´t ask) about topics related to urbanity and my travels, and to prove it to you, here´s a list of interesting things I may blog about before my flight to Afrique du Sud on Wednesday morning. I assure you that my extensive blogging soon to come will provide much enjoyment and pleasure, and at the very least, a decent set of procrastination for my friends in Minnesota, who I hear just received a gigantic dumping of snow from a blizzard.

1) Carnaval as a sanitized spectacle, stripped of most significant meaning yet still bewilderingly incredible to watch and partake in.
2) Reforma Agrária in Brazil, and my thoughts on challenging the entire system of landownership through which I am familiar with.
3) The phrase "Consuming Culture" (I´ve been thinking about this one for a while, it´ll be a highlight of this blog when it gets cranked out.
3a) Coffee, and milk: how are they different in Brazil, and how is this related to everything from agricultural policy, an ugly history of imperialism and Starbucks?
4) The relationship between São Paulo and Curitiba, the city in which I am studying now. This one will also be a top entry, really.
5) My host family. This blog entry will be a lot less analytical, but they are absolutely, definitely worthy of a few posts of their own. We live outside of the pristine city of Curitiba near unpaved dirt roads, João and Gabriel are both tweens that are simultaneously wonderful and exhausting, their single mom works 65 hours a day at three different jobs, and their extended family of 25 all live on the same block, and there is only one cousin who speaks any english whatsoever. I am, for what its worth, friends with all of them on Orkut, which is pretty much if you put facebook, myspace, a pornography website and a bunch of bright flashing obnoxious colors in a blender and created the ultimate social networking website (which is, of course, owned by Google).
6) The shape of Curitiba. The linear city? Also, the role of starchitects, urban planners, and the "planning elite" who quite literally get to shape the city in placemaking, sustainability, and empowering everybody else. Oscar Niemeyer´s museum, with this huge floating eye, is pretty awesome, but to what purpose?

That is all for now. It is almost four in the morning and I need to finish this ethnography paper. Saudé! Also, a shout out to my loveliest friend Rachel Fortuna; she is having a rough week and you should send your thoughts to her and her beloved dog Macy.