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.