sfmpb.com shut down

Here's one thing not linked to the economic meltdown of '08 -- I've closed www.sfmpb.com this week. For 9 years, I maintained a list of upcoming Brazilian music gigs in the San Francisco Bay Area. I don't get to spend much time in the area any more, and keeping the site useful has been more and more challenging. So that's all she wrote -- but I'm very appreciative of all the friends I made through this endeavor. You know who you are!

Choro Festival cancelled

Apparently, funding has dried up for a major choro festival that was fanning the flames of the choro revival of recent years. The February event in São Pedro is on indefinite hold, according to a message from an organizer:

Many thanks for your interest in the Choro Festival.
However, I'm afraid it won't happen in 2009 in the same way as the previous years. Despite all our efforts we did not find a sponsor to make the festival happen in February, in the city of São Pedro. So we will try to make it in July, in Rio, but even that is still not confirmed.

Welcome to Bossa Nova Park!

The government of Brazil has announced a new park "designed by the architect (and former Governor of the State of Paraná) Jaime Lerner, the park will be constructed in Leblon" -- a district in Rio's Zona Sul adjacent to Ipanema.

Full story

Make a bad caipirinha, go to jail. It's the law.

Big story in from Associated Press: the sacred symbol of Brazil, the sugar cane-based rocket fuel known as cachaça, real sugar, and only so much lime are now all requirements for a legal caipirninha.