random Brazil facts

I realize that this post won't be terribly interesting to many people, but I want to create a list of random facts about Brazil that can readily be accessible to me. I am teaching a course on Brazilian art that starts next week; I think students might appreciate learning a few random facts about this country. I feel like a lot of people don't know about Brazilian culture and history, apart from things like soccer and Carnival. I certainly didn't know much about Brazil before I lived there for a year and a half.

Here are some of the facts that I compiled, many of them drawn from this documentary (so I suppose there is a chance that a few of these facts are outdated since the documentary came out in 2006, but I doubt it).

• Brazil is the 5th largest country in the world.
• Brazil borders all of the other countries in South America except Chile and Ecuador.
• The distance of Brazil (from one side to the other) is greater than the distance between Brazil and Africa.
• Much of the land in Brazil is inaccessible. About 1/3 of Brazil is covered in dense jungle.
• When the Portuguese arrived in Brazil in 1500, there were more than 6 million indigenous people and 2,000 distinct tribes. Today, there are only 350,000 indigenous people.
• There still are a few elusive indigenous tribes who have not made contact with the outside world.
• The city of Manaus was founded in 1669 to protect slave traders along the river.
• For a brief time during the "rubber boom," Manaus was the richest city in the world. Residents allegedly had their clothes sent to Europe to be laundered. An opera house was constructed in Manaus during this economic heyday.
• The "Christ the Redeemer" (Cristo Redentor) statue in Rio de Janeiro is 125' tall. The arm span of the sculpture is 90'.
• Brazil is the world's capital for plastic surgery. A quarter of a million plastic surgeries are performed each year. One year, during Carnival, it is reported that in 2000 so many women wanted breast implants that the country briefly ran out of a certain type of silicone.
• Pelourinho (the historic center of the city Salvador, Bahia) was built around the whipping posts where slaves were punished.
• Bahia is the most African state in Brazil. Blacks comprise 80% of the people in Bahia.
• Brazil has the 2nd largest African population in the world (second only to Nigeria).
• About 3.5 million slaves (other sources say 4 million slaves) were brought to Brazil during the 16th and 17th centuries.
• 40% of all of the slaves that crossed the Atlantic went to Brazil. This means that Brazil received about seven times more slaves than the United States of America.
• Capoeira was not legalized until the 1930s. (I think I knew this fact when I wrote my thesis, but I thought I'd re-remember it here.)
• Brazil is the largest Catholic nation on earth, with 145 million believers.
• The interior of the church Nossa Senhora do Pilar (Ouro Preto) is decorated with almost 1,000 pounds of gold.
• Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Brazil from 1763 to 1960.
• Brasilia was built in the late 1950s. Lúcio Costa won the contest to become the urban planner of the city. Oscar Niemeyer was the chief architect for many of the public buildings.
• Brasilia became the capital of Brazil (instead of Rio de Janeiro) in 1960. The idea of having a centrally-located capital had been proposed at the end of the 19th century, but the proposal was not realized for several decades.

emma watson and modesty

Last week, a friend and I were discussing the concept of modesty. Who really has the authority to determine whether something is modest or not? Is it the person who wears the clothing? Or is it the viewer of the person who is wearing the clothing in question? Or perhaps both? As we talked about this idea, I suggested that the person who wears clothing should have the authority to determine whether his or her clothing is modest. If someone is wearing something with the intent of being sexy or suggestive, then such clothing should not be considered modest.

I began thinking about this conversation today, when I noticed someone post this image of Emma Watson on Facebook (see above), which includes an excerpt from this quote by Watson: "What's sexy about saying, 'I'm here with my boobs and a short skirt, have a look at everything I've got?' My idea of sexy is that less is more. The less you reveal the more people can wonder."

I've seen this image and quote before - it seems to get circulated intermittently in LDS circles. I have to admit, I think that such circulation is a little ironic. Yes, it makes sense that LDS people would want to promote Watson's idea of modesty covering up your body. But if you read the quote, Watson is still promoting sexiness and self-objectification. I don't think this constitutes modesty from an LDS perspective. In theory, Mormons promote modesty as a way to avoid provoking sexual (lustful) thoughts in others. (But perhaps the popularity of this image and quote among Mormons suggests that they actually want to be sexy, too?)

So, yes, Emma Watson does want to cover up her body. But she still wants others to think about her body. (It is actually this self-objectification that bothers me more than anything, mostly from a feminist standpoint. Argh!)

Thoughts, anyone?

house pictures

Per Phin's request, I'm finally posting a few pictures of our new-ish house. We really like this house, but that doesn't stop J from obsessively following the housing market. He wants to make sure that there isn't a better house (or a house that has the potential to be better) that is located in the area. Personally, I think we have it really good in our current place; I secretly hope that we won't end up moving again.

Living Room

My office.

It seems like I rush to this place whenever I have a spare moment.

There's so much work to be done for the upcoming school quarter!

dahlia explosion

Compare, if you will, the difference between these two photos of our yard. The first photo was taken at the beginning of June (used in this earlier post), and the second was taken today.

June 2011

August 2011

Notice any major difference? (Okay, I know that our lawn isn't as green as it used to be. And you may notice that currently our bushes are nicely sculpted. Yesterday I woke up from a nap, only to find that J had turned into Edward Scissorhands. He went around our yard for a few hours, trimming everything in sight. The hedges and bushes look great. But those differences between these photos aren't what I have in mind.)

If you look in the back of the photos, in the garden bed by our trellis and rosebush, you'll notice a teeny-tiny green bush on the right side (next to the stepping stones). That bush has exploded over the past few months, recently revealing that it is a dahlia bush:

This plant is huge and it has caught us completely by surprise. It has overpowered some of my little zinnias, and now is starting to infringe upon our stepping-stone rocks. I'm curious to see how big this bush gets by the end of the summer. If dahlias weren't such a gorgeous flower, I would have thought that the owners planted the dahlia starter bush as a practical joke on their unsuspecting tenants.

Don't be surprised if our front door is completely covered in the next few weeks!

On a side note, it's been fun to compare our current flower beds to the picture that I took at the beginning of June. We have some really happy flowers in our yard right now:

"Smithsonian" magazine giveaway

Some of you may have noticed that I am having a little giveaway on my art history blog. If any of you are interested in getting a free 12-month subscription to Smithsonian magazine, feel free to enter the giveaway drawing! I will select two winners next Tuesday, August 9th.

By the way, this giveaway is to celebrate passing the "the 300th post mark" on my art history blog. And I just noticed that I this is my 307th post here at Scattered Apples. That means I have written over 600 blog posts since I started to blog in 2007. Oh my! Maybe I need to get out more...

mercer slough and pretzel tree trail

Sunshine is here! Okay, well, there still are some rainy days, but I feel less like complaining. We've taken advantage of the sun and gone on a few hiking trails recently.

I have to admit, this year is a little bit difficult for us in terms of hikes. Sam is too big to ride in a backpack, but he is too small to walk very far distances. This summer we're only able to go on extremely short, easy hikes. (That being said, do any locals have some good recommendations for such hikes? We know our options are extremely limited this summer.)

Admittedly, going on short, easy hikes isn't my favorite type of hiking. I hardly feel like I'm getting any exercise. And, obviously, easy hikes do not include great vistas or waterfalls, because the trails have hardly any elevation gain. Boo. But at the very least, I hope we're instilling a love of nature (and setting a hiking tradition for future summers) with Sam this year.

That being said, here are two new hikes (walks?) that we have done this summer.

A few weeks ago my friend and I went for a walk around Mercer Slough. We started our walk near the Mercer Slough Environmental Education Center, thinking that there would be some fun activities for kids in the Visitor's Center. There wasn't too much to see in the center right now, although there is a promise for some new interactive displays in the distant future.

The trails right next to the center aren't very long, so we walked down to the Bellefields Nature Park trails, since the trailhead is just down the street from the center. The trail is nice and fairly shaded, but there are lots of mosquitoes because of the nearby water (see picture above, on left). I don't think I would do this trail again without bug repellant.

Today we went on the perfect hike for Sam. I'd recommend the Pretzel Tree Trail (Squak Mountain State Park) for anyone with a 3-5 year old. This trail is an interactive trail with little signs that tell a story about a field mouse. Sam loved the story. He would excitedly look for the next sign down the trail so that we could "turn the page of the story" (his words). The trail has no elevation gain, but is in a really beautiful setting with gorgeous trees. You can see the "pretzel tree" behind Sam's head in the image on the right. I know we'll come back to hike this trail again.

There are some other trailheads at the same location as the Pretzel Tree Trail. Since the interactive trail only took about 20-30 minutes to complete with Sam, we decided to hike up the Center Peak trail (toward the summit) for a little while. It seemed like a really nice hike (although too long and steep for Sam). Hopefully we'll come back another time. Here is the trail map to Squak Mountain, for anyone who is interested.

I hope we go back and in this area again soon. The trails were well maintained and yet relatively isolated. We only met a few people on the trail this morning, which is surprising for a sunny Saturday. We passed the Poo Poo point trailhead on our drive out to Squak Mountain (down Issaquah-Hobart Road), and it was overflowing with cars. I'm glad we didn't go there today.

78 minutes of summer

I have to admit, I'm a wee bit jealous when I see Facebook friends commenting about their outdoor activities this summer. The summer here has been really cold so far, so much that a meteorologist decided to calculate how long Seattle has sustained a temperature of 80 degrees (or warmer) this whole year: a total of 78 minutes.

That's it, my friends. 78 minutes. And if you calculate how long Seattle has been at 75 degrees, it's not much of an improvement: 18 hours and 45 minutes (in other words, less than a day).

As you go to the beach and eat popsicles on your front lawn, I'm bundling up in sweatshirts. It's raining right now, as I type this post. I can't even count how many times I've been tempted to turn up the heat in our house, but have refrained out of sheer principle. One shouldn't have to turn on the heat in the middle of July!

Someone should have told me to lower my expectations for Seattle summers. When we moved up here, our first summer was hot enough to melt paint off of a canvas. But I have not been impressed with the summers we have experienced since then. Meh.

Here are pictures from two of the warm-ish days we experienced this summer, which both took place over the 4th of July weekend. We took advantage of the clear skies to hike the trails at Franklin Falls and Little Si. I'm posting these pictures for my own sake. I need to remind myself that the sun actually has the potential to appear around here.

Okay, so Sam and I did wear sweatshirts when we hiked to Franklin Falls. But we also wore shorts, which gives an indication of the "hot weather" we experienced that day.

Little Si on the 4th of July.
We look like we belong in a Gap ad with our solid color tees.