In the end, the coveted gorgeous, green-eyed star, who began her TV career as Eduarda in the Quatro por Quatro (Four by Four) novela (soap opera), made it clear that money was no object as her fee—for an undisclosed amount—was donated to an institution that treats children with cancer.

The radiant beauty of Luana adorns the magazine's cover and receives more detailed attention in a 20-page spread, just a small sample of the 1000-plus poses captured by photographer Paulo Rocha in Ilhabela, São Paulo's own little island paradise. "This is the prettiest photo essay we have ever done," boasts Paulo Lima, Trip's director.

Luana Elídia Afonso Piovani, who is also known as Luli, Lueli, or simply Lu, was born on August 29, 1976 in Jaboticabal, a little town in the interior of São Paulo state.. The siren's fans were a bit shocked recently when they turned on their TV sets to see that their blonde dream had become a breathtaking brunette, which, by the way, is her natural color.

This latest change wasn't Luana's idea. It was a professional consideration, taken so she could play the daughter of Luíza Brunet, another stunning dark-haired beauty on Globo TV's novela Anjo Mau (Naughty Angel).

Trip is confident that Piovani will help the magazine reach its new goals: to transform itself from a bimonthly into a monthly, more than double its circulation from 45,000 to 120,000 copies, and increase the number of pages per issue from 100 to 124.

Luana's exposure is being served up with an article about surfing on an Amazon tributary, an interview with Skank's Samuel Rosa, and a profile on a former Rio Mafia boss.

The state of Alagoas exploded. Fifteen thousand people took to the streets in the capital of Maceió to demand that governor Divaldo Suruagy step down. The military police confronted the Army in the streets, 13 people were hurt—four of whom were hit by bullets, and Suruagy asked for a six-month leave of absence. The only surprise in all of this was that it took so long for the fuse to ignite the powder keg.

After all, the northeastern state of Alagoas has been in a state of chaos for many years. The government is $1.7 billion in the red. Public servants—50,000 of them—haven't received their salaries in nine months. Police have been on strike demanding a raise in salaries that have not been paid in six months. Firings in the private sector have been doled out at a clip of 3,000 pink slips a month.

Justice minister Íris Resende and military chief of staff Alberto Cardoso were hurriedly sent to Alagoas by President Cardoso, who had been urged to intervene in the state earlier, but hoped to solve the problem without any drastic federal action. Only after meltdown did Fernando Henrique free emergency funds to help pay back salaries. Talking to an aide, the President commented: "Armed power is not allowed to go on strike. There is no problem while they are only complaining about their salaries. But what happens when they get organized for a rightist coup? I am getting extremely worried."

While the Alagoas crisis was the most momentous and threatening, unrest in the civil and military police had already spread to 15 of the 26 Brazilian states by mid July. In Recife, state of Pernambuco, the daily homicide rate tripled, eight banks were robbed, stores were looted, automatic teller machines were broken and youth gangs were running wild through the city after a one-week police strike. Traffic rules were not being obeyed in this city of 2 million. The 3,000 Army troops sent there couldn't do the job of the 18,000 officers on strike. Hospitals have been flooded with gun-shot wounds and pharmacies have been raided by bandits looking for prescription drugs. In high-crime neighborhoods, public transportation was halted and some movie theaters temporarily closed their doors.

The police demand is always the same: better salaries. To attain their goals police hold public demonstrations, camp in strategic places and go on strike. In an act of supreme irony, in Rio Grande do Sul the officers protested by chanting Geraldo Vandré's "Pra Não Dizer Que Não Falei de Flores" (So No One Will Say I Didn't Talk About Flowers), the song that after being banned by the military regime was adopted by students and workers during parades that were always repressed with bombs, gunshots and dogs by these same police. In one of the most stirring moments, the song says, "Who knows makes the hour, do not wait for it to happen."

The cops' rebellion started last June in Minas Gerais when the civil police went on a strike. A clash between troops and police resulted in one death and governor Eduardo Azeredo caved fast, giving the strikers a 48.2% pay increase that Minas could ill afford. Commenting on the general situation, Rio's daily Jornal do Brasil editorialized: "On strike, threatening governors, often with their pistols drawn, the police are creating a climate of instability."

The states have dealt with the authority crisis in different ways. In São Paulo, for example, governor Mário Covas offered a 34 percent raise to the military and civil police. While the military seemed happy with the increase, the civil police were holding the line in demanding an 88.68% raise. Thanks to support from the population—camped police have been fed and applauded by civilians—and their weapons, police have been able to obtain what no other workers category has in the past three years: salary hikes.

Analysts see two main inequities in wages earned by police and the armed forces: the huge gap between what commanders and the rank and file make, and the substantial difference in salaries paid for the same job in different states. While a police officer starting his career makes $1,000 a month in the federal capital of Brasília—the best salary in Brazil—he gets only $160 in Paraíba—the state that pays the least. And in the state of Piauí, for example, officers earn up to 20 times more than their subordinates, making possible a salary variation from $200 to $4,000. In the Armed Forces, where the starting salary is $270, officers make 10 times more than the rank and file. The Armed Forces troops are not happy either and many people are wondering if, inspired by their colleagues in the police forces, they will not soon be taking to the streets to ask for a pay raise.
 

There is still more than a year left before Brazil's presidential election, but the campaign is in full swing despite the fact there is only one candidate running at this time: the present occupant of Brasília's Palácio da Alvorada, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Some signs that Cardoso wants to win at any cost:

1. FHC chose two politicians from the opposition for his cabinet. Eliseu Padilha from Rio Grande do Sul's PMDB (Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro—Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement) is the new Transportation minister. Íris Resende, from the same party, who has worked against Cardoso on the constitutional amendment that guaranteed the President's reelection, is now the Justice minister.

2. Willing to ensure that some needed constitutional reforms will be done by year's end, Cardoso from the PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira — Brazilian Social Democracy Party) has chosen Bahian representative Luís Eduardo Magalhães from the PFL (Partido da Frente Liberal—Liberal Front Party) to be the government's leader.

3. The President has launched Brasil em Ação (Brazil in Action), a program comprising 42 big federal projects.

4. In a semi-secret encounter with São Paulo's former mayor (and a presidential hopeful) Paulo Maluf, the President seems to have received assurances that the PPB (Partido Progressista Brasileiro—Brazilian Progressive Party) politician will forfeit his candidacy this time. Instead he will run for governor of São Paulo with some kind of backing or at least neutrality from Cardoso.

5. During a recent visit to New York for an address to the United Nations, FHC met former president Itamar Franco, another presidential hopeful. Cardoso would not like to run against the man who chose him for Finance minister, the post that catapulted him to the presidency. He has been encouraging Itamar to seek Minas Gerais's governorship.

All these closed-door meetings and alliances, while paving the way for a continued stay in Brasília for Cardoso, are also creating disputes and animosity among FHC's older and closer allies.

In São Paulo, Governor Mário Covas, who belongs to Cardoso's party and would like to be governor again, didn't hide his dissatisfaction with the president's approach to Maluf. In Minas, an Itamar candidacy would be in opposition to governor Eduardo Azeredo, who would like to be reelected and is, you guessed it, from the PSDB, the President's own party. And in Rio, another tucano (toocan)—the common term for PSDB politicians—governor Marcello Alencar seeks reelection while Cardoso woos Rio's former mayor César Maia, who also seeks the state's governorship.

To prevent bickering among allies, a cabinet member very close to the presidency has suggested: "There is only one way to solve this dilemma. In states where there are opposing candidates who belong to the government coalition, the president will have his own platform in which you will have all the candidates that support him."
 

During the 30 months of his presidency, Fernando Henrique Cardoso has visited 26 nations and made 30 foreign trips, some of them repeat visits to one country. The latest, when he addressed a United Nation's special session on the world environment in June, was to the U.S., a country he has already visited four times. Argentina has been his favorite destination, compiling six trips. Uruguay was his destination three times and twice he visited Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Cardoso has also paid single visits to Angola, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Macao, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, and Venezuela.

Taking a cue from the presidency, all three (branches of government) have spent record time in the air last year. The federal government spent more than $500 million on plane tickets ($218 million) and travel allowances in 1996. First on the list as the biggest spender was the Lower House, the Chamber of Deputies, whose 513 members spent $7.8 million on plane tickets alone. The popular congressional practice of flying is greatly aided by the fact that every representative and senator gets four free round-trip tickets a month: three for the congressman's hometown and a fourth to Rio, the city that ceased being Brazil's capital in 1960. The 81 senators, meanwhile, ran up a bill of $1.1 million in plane tickets, while the Foreign Ministry cadre cashed in at $3.6 million.
 

Despite several alibis—including a videotape and newspaper clippings placing him far from the scene of the crime in the state of Ceará—José Rainha Júnior, the leader of the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra—Landless Rural Workers' Movement), was condemned to 26 years in prison by a jury of seven people (three of whom voted against the guilty verdict)in the little town of Pedro Canário in the state of Espírito Santo. It was there that farmer José Machado Neto and military police officer Sérgio Narciso da Silva were slain in June 1989.

The prosecution wasn't able to prove that Rainha was present when the crimes were committed, and no witness for the accusation showed up for the trial. The jury based its verdict on transcripts of police interviews with witnesses. Apparently, Justice wasn't blindfolded in the 22,000-resident town where 360 rural properties guarantee the survival of the population. With its policy of occupying unproductive lands, the MST seems to have made many enemies in the city.

Ironically, the unusually stiff sentence may be the salvation for Rainha. According to Brazilian law, anyone condemned to more than 20 years is automatically eligible for a retrial. The sentence has mobilized the country and the MST leader is awaiting a new trial scheduled for September 16.
 

Fast, what's the name of Brazil's President? If you do not know, don't feel too bad. Almost a fifth of Greater Rio's population—19.3% to be exact—do not know that Fernando Henrique Cardoso is their President. Among this group, normally assumed to have a higher degree of political awareness than the rest of the country, 30.3 percent are unaware that Marcello Alencar is their governor and another 31.5 percent cannot identify Luiz Paulo Conde as Rio's mayor. Among the wrong names cited as President was Getúlio Vargas, who killed himself in the presidency in August 1954.

The findings are part of a just-released report by the CPDOC (Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação da Fundação Getúlio Vargas—Getúlio Vargas Foundation's Research and Documentation Center). As for the people interviewed, 97 percent own a TV set, 71 percent watch the news at least five times a week, and another 15 percent watches at least twice a week. "It is as if people disconnected from politics, showing no interest in the subject," commented historian Dulce Pandolf, one of the scientists involved in the research.
 

Brazilian war vessels seem to have become one of the favorite means for smuggling foreign goods into Brazil. Two cases proving just that have been disclosed on national TV. First there was the Júlio de Noronha navy ship that went to London to take part in a NATO war game and came back home filled with computers, TV sets, and home appliances, everything smuggled. Then, a video-tape made inside Brazil's only aircraft carrier, the Minas Gerais (built in 1907), showed servicemen on duty actively peddling smuggled wares.

"It didn't happen," said Navy minister, Mauro César Pereira. Confronted with the TV images, he changed his line to, "The Federal Revenue Service will start inspecting the ships."

With an eye toward securing a U.N. seat together with the nine permanent members of that international body, Brazil has changed an almost 30-year-old policy of not adhering to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso has sent congress a proposal to change the Brazilian position. Brazil, which for over two decades has developed a secret nuclear program (a nuclear test silo was even built in Serra do Cachimbo in the state of Pará), has always argued that accepting the terms of the agreement would hinder the country's efforts to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes.
 

IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística—Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) has just released its preliminary census numbers, revealing that there are 156,804,333 Brazilians, much less than the 208 million demographers had forecast in the 50s when Brazilian women had an average of six children and the population was increasing at a rate of 2.99%. The number of children per woman has fallen to two. Even in the 80s it was expected that Brazil's population would reach up to 192 million people. During the so-called economic miracle of the 70s, Brazil was growing 2.48% a year. During the 80s, also known as the lost decade, this rate fell to 1.93%. Today it has dropped to 1.3% and in big cities the decline has been even more dramatic.

In São Paulo the growth rate is only 0.3% and in Rio it is even lower at 0.2%, comparable to Germany's population growth. The biggest reversal occurred in the Northeast, where 15 years ago women had an average of 5.8 children. Thanks to a series of government and NGO campaigns, this number has dropped to three. And there's more: Brazilians are not as young as they used to be. The population's average age is now 23 years. In 1980 it was 19.

Rainy clouds on the horizon? The Planning ministry doesn't believe so. Projections made by their technicians and released in late July talk about an even rosier 2007. By then the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita should be $7,500, double of what it is today, and the GDP should reach $1.3 trillion. As for unemployment, it will have fallen to 4%.
 

With 600,000 Brazilian immigrants, the United States continues to be the favorite spot for Brazucas, the name Brazilians in the US give themselves. They represent more than one third of the 1,560.162 Brazilian expatriates, whose numbers increased by 17% over last year's.

The data come from the second Census of Brazilians Overseas, conducted by Brazil's Foreign ministry and using not-so-reliable information sent to Brazil by 29 foreign consulates. In Chicago, for example, there was a 50% increase in one year, with the Brazilian population jumping from 10,000 to 15,000. The Itamaraty (the Foreign ministry) itself recognizes that the apparent explosion might be related to a more accurate way of counting heads. But the increase also points to the fact that Chicago has become a magnet for Brazucas, together with New York with an estimated 200,000 Brazilians, and Boston with 150,000.
 

Lacking faith in conventional medicine, former President, general João Baptista Figueiredo, 79, had his vertebral column operated on by Rubens Faria, 43, an electronic engineer who says that he incorporates the body of doctor Adolph Frederick Yerperssoven, better known as Dr. Fritz. Fritz, born in 1874 in Dantzig, East Prussia, now Gdanski in Poland, has become well-known among Brazilians after being "incorporated" by two other famous late mediums: José Pedro de Freitas, the Zé Arigó, and doctor Édson Cavalcanti de Queiroz .

From 1948 to 1971, when he died in a car accident, Arigó, a semi-illiterate peasant from Congonhas do Campo, state of Minas Gerais, performed surgeries in the name of Dr. Fritz. Twice he was jailed for charlatanism, once being pardoned by President Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira. Queiroz, a physician from Recife, state of Pernambuco, started his "spiritual operations" in 1982. He was stripped from his license to practice medicine but continued operating until he was stabbed to death in 1991 by a former employee whom he had fired.

Faria, the latest medium in the chain, has been talking about his own death, which would happen in the year 2000. He even saw the face of the murderer who will kill him with a gun, he says. While he waits for his fate to be fulfilled, he has been seeing and operating on close to 1,000 people every day, from Monday to Wednesday in Rio and Thursdays and Fridays in São Paulo.

Ailing Figueiredo, who after leaving the presidency uttered the memorable words, "Please, forget me," seemingly had his wish respected. Apparently nobody among the dozens in line waiting to be seen recognized the anonymous man standing amongst them. The former President, who has undergone treatment stateside in Cleveland, has his reasons to distrust doctors. Two years ago in Rio, after an abdominal aneurysm surgery at Casa de Saúde São Vicente, the general-president was left with his eyes open in the ITU, a act of negligence that caused his corneas to dry, leaving him almost blind. Faria didn't use anesthetics, and during the 20-minute procedure he made an incision of two inches on Figueiredo's back.
 

Veteran poet Manoel de Barros, 81, received a standing ovation when, after being presented with the Calliope trophy for best Brazilian poet of 1997, he asked the audience for the privilege to simply say nothing. This couldn't have been more fitting since the name of the book for which he was awarded the prize was called Livro Sobre Nada (Book About Nothing). The Calliope statue celebrates the muse of poetry and every year is offered to the winner of the Prêmio Nestlé de Literatura (Nestlé Prize of Literature).

Arguably the most important literary prize in Brazil, this year Nestlé recognized veterans and novices. Carlos Heitor Cony, 70, another renowned writer, received the trophy for best novel with his O Piano e a Orquestra (The Piano and the Orchestra). In the same category of consecrated authors, Edla Van Steen won as best short story writer with Cheiro de Amor (Smell of Love).

Among the newcomers, Luiz Alfredo Garcia Roza won in the novel category with O Silêncio da Chuva (The Rain's Silence). The prize for best short story writer went to Antônio Fernando Borges with Que Fim Levou Brodie? (What happened to Brodie?), and shining young talent Antônio Cícero won the Calliope for Guardar—Poemas Escolhidos (To Keep—Selected Poems).

The estimated 1.5 million-strong Brazilian Diaspora will be able to continue contributing to the INSS (Instituto Nacional de Seguridade Social), Brazil's social security service. Brazilians living in Japan will have the first taste of the new system that is being put together by the Foreign and Social Security ministries. The sign up process and premium payments will be made via Internet. Commenting on the development, Ricardo Boechat commented with a sneer in his Swann column in Rio's daily O Globo: "They will now be entitled to the marvelous benefits and services rendered by the Institute."
 

The Amazon Mist Iced Guaraná has won the title of 1996 Beverage of the Year, meaning it is considered the best soft drink this planet has to offer. The high authority bestowing the award is BevNet, an Internet outfit that swears to have sipped every refreshment known to man. "One of the most refreshing beverages we've ever had," they pontificated. Feeling thirsty yourself for the Amazon little red fruit potion? BevNet (http://thebevnet.com/reviews/amazonmist/) has all the phone numbers you need to have guaraná delivered to your refrigerator right now. The Mist Iced is manufactured by Laurel Hill, Inc., Tel.: (310) 395-6630.

Columnist Zózimo Barroso do Amaral announced in o O Globo that beer and soft drink maker Antarctica is planning to launch its guaraná, the leading brand in Brazil, on the American market. They are sure they have a winner on their hands after establishing a partnership with the world's greatest soccer legend, Pelé. The just-for-Yankees Amazon concoction will be conveniently called Guaraná Pelé.
 

While people above the Equator have been talking about their beach-readiness and how to make the hot summer days a little easier to endure, Brazilian youngsters are busy trying to figure out how to warm themselves up during some likely frigid nights ahead. There is plenty of competition, all in the form of strong liquors. Among the most popular are Midori, cucaracha, Goldschläger, and After Shock.

As important as the strong spirits themselves is the ritual that accompanies their consumption. The cucaracha, for example, made with Mexican Kahlua (a coffee liqueur), tequila, and brandy, is drained from a cup in one big sip with a straw while the potion is ablaze. The After Shock also involves fire and part of the fun is the ceremony in which a group sits around the "bonfire" (the liquor glass in flames): after wetting one finger in the concoction, a distilled liquor made from cinnamon, participants are required to pass around the flame with their finger. Whoever is unable to pass the torch must empty the glass in the center.

Midori is a melon liquor made by Japan's Suntory. Very sweet, it is the favorite of patricinhas (upper-middle-class young women). It is often swallowed from a test tube. More sophisticated than the others, the Swiss Goldschläger is taken through a metal tube that is inserted in an ice bar. Thanks to this, the strong liquor with golden colored stripes arrives thick and burning cold to the party animal's thirsty lips.
 

In basic sanitation, Brazil loses out even to the Fourth World country Bangladesh, according to UNICEF's (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) just-released Progress of Nations report 1997. While only 48 percent of Bangladesh has access to sanitation, the rate in Brazil is even lower: 44 percent, keeping company with Haiti, Cambodia, China, India, Afghanistan, Egypt, Congo and Senegal, all nations where less than half the population has acceptable sanitation. There is a silver lining in the report: Brazil is praised for adopting the Child and Adolescent Statute, a document considered a model for dealing with children's and teens' human rights. The report can be viewed on the Internet at http://www.unicef.org/pon97.

California-based Shaman Pharmaceuticals has just patented two more medications that use Amazon plants: Vivend for genital herpes, and Provir to fight diarrhea. The news published in Rio's daily O Globo indicates that the American laboratory, which hopes to make $1 billion with the products in 1998 alone, hasn't paid a cent to Brazil or the communities where they found the raw material for their drugs.
 

Brazilian travelers lose only to the Japanese as the world's biggest shoppers. While 91% of Japanese traveling overseas say they will spend more than $150 a day during the summer vacation, 88 percent of Brazilians say the same. This information comes from the second annual American Express Global Shopping Monitor, a survey of more than 1,600 travelers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Japan and Mexico. The survey was conducted by Audience Selection of London. In the category of those spending more than $1,500 a day, Brazilians come in first with 31% answering this question affirmatively. Coming in a distant second was Hong Kong at 19%. Canada comes in last in this category with only 1 percent saying they will spend more than $1,500 a day in their shopping spree.

An American consortium led by BellSouth Corp. has paid a hefty $2.45 billion to have the right to provide its mobile telephone services in São Paulo, the most populous South American city with 17 million people. The winning bid was more than four times the minimum price set by the government and almost $1 billion more than what was offered by an AT&T-led group. The concession didn't come cheap. While BellSouth recently paid $49 per potential customer to operate a cellular service in Columbus, Ohio, the São Paulo bid amounts to $144 per customer.

BellSouth is betting it will be able to attract millions of frustrated Paulistanos, who have to pay hundreds or even thousand of dollars and wait at least two years in line to get a conventional telephone line. BellSouth's group includes the O Estado de São Paulo media group; Grupo Safra, a Brazilian banking and industrial group; and Splice, a Brazilian telecommunications equipment manufacturer. The São Paulo concession is just the second of ten that Brazil will award before the end of the year to open up the telecommunications state monopoly to competition.
 

The choice of São Paulo for the new major revamp is a homage to the work of Liberato Di Dio, 77, a world-renowned anatomist who was a professor in the U.S. for 35 years and is now the general-secretary of the Federative Committee on Anatomical Terminology. With a degree in medicine from the University of São Paulo (USP), Di Dio continues to be active as a professor at the University of Santo Amaro, in the Greater São Paulo area. For lack of funds, however, the São Paulo meeting scheduled for August 24-27 was almost transferred to London. Only in mid-June did Banco Real came to the rescue with $270,000 needed for the undertaking, which will include the G-spot polemic as one of the special themes to be discussed.

With the new São Paulo Anatomical Terminology, dictionaries as well as medical books and manuals will have to be rewritten. Close to 1,000 words were created or altered. Here is a sample:

Old name........... New name........ In English

amigdalite ............tonsilite............... tonsillitis

barriga da perna... panturrilha........... calf

cotovelo............... cúbito................. elbow

maçã do rosto...... zigoma................ cheeks

omoplata............ escápula......... shoulder blade

pomo de Adão ..proeminência laríngea ..Adam's apple

rótula..................... patela................. kneecap

seios........... mamas/corpo mamário.. breasts

tendão de Aquiles.. tendão calcânio... Achilles heel

trompa de Eustáquio.. tuba auditiva.... Eustachian tube

trompas de Falópio.... tubas uterinas... fallopian tubes

Almost illiterate, blind, and with a halting and trembling voice, repentista (improviser) Antônio Gonçalves da Silva, 88, known as Patativa do Assaré, has become a pop poet legend in the Brazilian Northeast. He has just released his latest recording, 85 Anos de Poesia, Patativa do Assaré (85 Years of Poetry). Born in the small town of Assaré in the state of Ceará, Patativa, who now lives in Cariri (also in Ceará), started his artistic career at 16 as a viola (guitar-like instrument) player. Fame came in 1962 after legendary baião singer-composer, Luiz Gonzaga, recorded his "A Triste Partida" (The Sad Departure) about the northeastern drought.

Revelation Baiana (from Bahia state) singer Daúde has been the latest to sing tunes by the popular poet. His work is compiled in eight books and he has released several CDs reciting his own work. Like a pop star he has entire radio programs dedicated to his work. Even though he hasn't yet made it in the so-called sul maravilha (marvel South), his following in the northeast has been increasing lately with his name being given to libraries and roads, a homage usually reserved to the deceased.
 

Samples:

depois, a pobre coitada,

no rumo da sepultura,

vai numa rede imbruiada.

Um adjunto de gente,

uns atrás, ôtras na frente,

num apressado rojão,

quando um sorta, o ôtro pega:

é assim que se carrega

morte pobre, no sertão.
 

That creature dies

and then the poor devil

on his way to the tomb

goes wrapped in a hammock,

A little throng of people

some behind, some in front

in a hurry like a skyrocket

when someone lets it go someone else holds

that's the way you carry

poor dead people in the backlands
 

Excerpt from Cante Lá que Eu Canto Cá (Sing You There That I Will Sing Here).

Sansão nasceu no Japão

por meio de uma fratura,

sua mãe era Maria

Filostomina Ventura,

seu pai, João Pitolomeu

e o seu avô Galileu

etc. rapadura.

Com trinta ano de idade

batizou-se na Suissa,

premêra comunhão

fez no quartê da poliça,

com istudo incognoto

foi ele o maior devoto

pregador de má notiça.
 

Samson was born in Japan

by means of a fracture

his mother was Maria

Filostomina Ventura

At age thirty three

he was baptized in Switzerland,

his first communion

he had at the police barracks

even though illiterate

he was the biggest devotee

preacher of bad news.
 

From "Biografia de Sansão" (Samson's Biography) in the book Aqui tem Coisa (There Is Something Here)

Xuxa
It is more than a little odd that in a country of mestizoes like Brazil only the blondes seem to appeal to kids on TV. The latest star of the highly disputed children's TV market is a veteran of show biz with 172 model assignments and 22 TV commercials to her credit, including one for Nestlé in which she sings "Como é Grande o Meu Amor por Você" (How Big Is My Love for You) in a duet with romantic balladeer, King Roberto Carlos.

Blue-eyed blondie Debby just got her own show on TV at Manchete, the same station where Xuxa and Angélica, two other famous blondes, started their own kid programs and their ascendance to show business stardom. While Angélica began her career as a precocious 12 year old, Débora Cristina Lagranha, is less than half that age. "I like to tell stories," says the little star, trying to explain why she was chosen by Manchete.

At a mere 5 years old, Debby and her daily morning show Clube da Criança (Kid's Club) will be competing head to head with Angélica's Caça Talentos (Talents Chaser). She will also battle yet another blonde, Eliana Michaelicheh, 23, who is becoming a force on SBT (Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão—Brazilian System of Television), where she started working at 17. Using her Eliana e Cia (Eliana and Company) as a springboard, the TV presenter also does commercials and has licensed more than 70 products. A recent recording contract with BMG will guarantee her $18 million in five years. Nothing new there. Eliana started her career as a child singing in the Patotinha band. She is already making around $250,000 a month, $70,000 of which comes from her TV show.

It's not only fun and games in the blonde kingdom, however. Xuxa apparently still hasn't forgiven Globo network for bringing her rival Angélica in May of 1996 to work in the same station. José Bonifácio B. de Oliveira, the Boninho, who is the director of Angel Mix and Caça Talentos, Angélica's programs, invited Xuxa to appear on one of the shows to put to rest rumors of war between the beauties. Xuxa's answer, delivered by her shoot-from-the-hip manager Marlene Mattos, was a livid: "How dare you!?" The encounter never materialized.