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Every year I go out to buy material to wrap Christmas presents: paper, bags, ribbons. I return home, open the drawer where the remains of what I bought the previous year are, and only then I remember that there were enough leftovers.

In a sort of déjà vu experience, I also remember that last year I had promised myself to check that drawer before buying anything. And the year before that. Some people call it the magic of Christmas. I believe the technical name is Christmas amnesia.

I know that reactions to the end of the year and the holiday season are diverse: some people love it, some people hate it, but the real difficult thing is to remain indifferent to all the turmoil around us. Ever tried? I try every year and fail. Miserably.

The commitments seem to multiply, and they may turn into a source of anxiety and stress, but sometimes they hold a truly “Christmas spirit”. This year, one of them brought me immense joy. My mother had insisted on having a pre-Christmas gathering at her house, so that she could show off the Christmas home decorations created by my sister. Despite the heat wave, it was a very pleasant afternoon.

Among the many subjects discussed and left along the way, one story stood out: we talked about the period of the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1984), a dark period that we have not yet overcome. At this point, my mother said that my father, at the time a high-ranking state civil servant, was given the task of denouncing possible opponents to the regime.

There was no way out: if he refused, he would himself be considered an opponent of the system (which at the time meant possible arrest, imprisonment, torture and death or, at best, exile); if he accepted, he would be forced to inform on colleagues. How to get out of this moral impasse?

With pride, my mother recounted the ingenious solution found by my father: in all cases he wrote after the nema of the employee: “to date, nothing has been found to be discreditable about this person”. The task was accomplished and, at the same time, no one was denounced. Including the term “to date” also saved him in case of any future problems.

My father died when I was nine years old, after a two-year long period of degenerative illness. As you can imagine, I did not have much time to hear his stories in person, but knowing that he was an unlikely hero in a period of terror was a great emotion. In fact, it was like being able to hug him again.

I know this is often the season of hoping for the future and exchanging presents, but sometimes the best gift is in the past. Feliz Natal!

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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Yesterday, on the way home after a delicious dinner at a small Colombian restaurant in the neighborhood, I noticed that the driver was listening to my favourite jazz program and whose host usually treats me with great attention. I was so happy to meet a member of the Jazz family that I immediately texted the show host and the jazz-loving driver got greetings from him, live on air.

The driver told me that listening to jazz made him more atttemptive to other kinds of music. “Now I even like opera!”, he said. I could not help but thinking about the enormous power of music to get people together, and how one genre usually leads to another, often making classifications between classical and popular music silly.

Speaking of jazz in particular, perhaps because it is a niche that has been out of the spotlight for some time already, it gives us the impression that its fans are but a few souls scattered around, which is a big mistake. The jazz family is huge and everywhere.

Talking about the congregational aspect of music, I think that sometimes it clashes with the so-called herd instinct or, as the Oxford Dictinary defines it: “an inclination in people or animals to behave or think like the majority”.

Extensively exploited by advertising, it explains a lot of the “more of the same”, that seems to be the policy for most radio stations (and tv shows etc). Any attentive music listener knows what I am talking about. With the argument that “this is what people want to hear”, an intense narrowing of what is heard or not heard on major communication channels is justified.

The algorithm (always the algorithm) did not invent musical sameness. It just intensified an already existing process. It is somehow sad we actually do not even notice how our playlists have very few choices that are truly ours and a whole lot of suggestions from…guess what? Your Highness, the algorithm.

Of course, you read this many, many times already, but you do not care too much, because the algorithm and you are the same, you think. It knows exactly what you like. It can see your soul and preview what you want to listen, right? No, honey. Wrong. Totally wrong.

The first step to find out what you really like is to pay attention to what you hear and decide, undisturbed, whether a song will be saved in your playlist.

The next step is to find out more about the artists who touch your heart. There is a world of music production that is not part of the streaming platform catalogs. Do your homework and be amazed by your discoveries!

Now go back to your “most played from the previous year” playlist and review your concepts. I would love to know what’s changed, what’s left and what’s new.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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Yesterday was my birthday. I have already talked here about all the tension and the drama of having your birthday at the end of the year, but this time I would like to point out some solutions, or rather describe some lessons I have learned in this last passage of the sun through Sagittarius. What kind of lessons? The kind you can use in your career. Ready to write down some valuable tips? Follow me.

As years go by, it is clear to me that the key word is resilience. December is always a month of intense temperatures, whether it is cold or hot, depending on which half you live in on this little blue planet. For this reason, the difficulties start already in the organization. I dare say that organizing a birthday party in December is more difficult than organizing a small tour with a trio (for those who do not get the reference, organizing tours is always a lot of work).

Sounds a little sad? If you apply resilience it will sound more like consistency. A practical example? Test all possible models until you find one that works for you, just as it is necessary to test different combinations of musicians until you find the one that is ideal for your music.

The philosophy of chop wood, carry water needs time to be assimilated and, depending on your moment in life, it may even seem counterproductive, but time will teach you to realize the value of small, regular things for big results in the long term. In other words: you learn by doing, even if you do not realize it at first.

Another lesson I have learned, not necessarily linked to being born in December, is that the definition of an ideal celebration varies a lot from year to year and depends on many variables, exactly as it happens with the different projects that develop throughout a career.

Last, and certainly not least, I also learned that you always need to reserve some room for a champagne toast. And if you have a slice of cake to go with it, wow, you’re one happy, lucky birthday kid!

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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You probably know the story of Ugly Duckling , but just to be sure: Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) first published it on November 11, 1843. The tale was part of the the first volume of “New Fairy Tales”, and it has been been adapted for various media, including opera, musical, and animated film.

In the plot, a baby duck suffers a lot of verbal and physical abuse because of his appearence. After a classic “hero’s journey”, during which he goes through a harsh winter hiding in a cave on the partially frozen lake, the ugly duckling, now grown, finally discovers that it was, in fact, a majestic swan.

The way I see it, Ugly Duckling and Superman have a lot in common. I talked about super heros here already, but today I would like to talk specifically about Superman, more specifically about the Kryptonite x Superman relationship. And his relationship to Ugly Duckling.

You see, in both cases the first source of destabilization came from the family. The parents of Superman and the solo mother in Ugly Duckling both tried, in some way, to protect them, but their efforts were not enough to free our characters from the terrible suffering caused by their origins, whether in the form of bullying or as a symbolic artifact. Actually, we could sumarize both plots in two words: family, caution.

Maybe the reason for the huge success of these characters is related to the fact that we feel represented, when we realize that families/environments of origin in general, and not only ours, can be the source of much of our joys and good memories, but they might also become the first element of oppression one must face.

I am particularly impressed by the number of people who claim to have their most fervent supporters among their family members. People who believed in and supported their ideas and encouraged their careers from the ground up.

Very beautiful stories indeed, but they do not even remotely resemble mine. Some of us need to get things done without the extra support of family members.

Despite what the gossip magazines say, a significant part of us needs to go on even without standing ovations, without huge financial sums involved in our contracts. The truth is that a huge number of performers have a routine much closer to a factory worker than a fairy tale princess.

Perhaps people get confused by the way the life of many artists is represented on screen and in literature: they are either starving bodies carrying tormented souls, or millionaires followed by paparazzi day and night.

The dichotomy confuses our family and closest friends, who think that if you are not rich or famous like that guy they showed on TV, so maybe this thing you do is just a hobby, and you should probably get yourself a real job.

Most of the time, this distorted view is not even expressed in words. Non-verbal signals include disapproving looks or small gestures (rolling eyes come to mind) that can be quite painful for those at whom they are directed.

If you are part of the happy 100%-family support bunch, you probably have no idea what I am talking about. For the rest of us is either Ugly Duckling or Superman.

I do not know how you handle your kryptonite, but I really wish you would not give up on your swan flight.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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Do you consider yourself an organized person? I would love to tell you that I have my whole year planned in advance or, at least, the entire month, but instead I have to admit (with a little bit of shame) that despite my efforts to classify my priorities in short, middle and long ones, in terms of sticking to a pre-schedule list of activities, I barely reach a week.

How come? Well, if life happens while we are busy with our little things, sometimes it throws a big flaming ball on our direction. “Catch it!”, life says. You know you are going to hurt yourself anyway, but what can you do? You simply try not to drop the flaming ball, than you handle it (and your burns) the best you can, and when it cools dows a bit, you keep playing the game.

Some call the flaming balls “problems”, but I´d rather prefer to describe them as big things. All right, I know we learn to remember and cherish the good big events in life, but let us be honest: we all know that there will also be lots of rainy days, some storms now and then and, eventullay, even biblical floods.

“It is allright, if it is going wrong“, sings Ed Motta in the refrain of his 1997 song Vendaval (Windstorm). Gilberto Gil reinforces the message in Retiros Espirituais (Spiritual Retreats):

In my spiritual retreats
I discover certain banal things
How to have problems,
Be the same as not
Resolving to have them, is to have them,
Resolving to ignore them, is to have them

Last week I got one of those flaming balls thrown right in my face. Lots of burns, probably some scars. Needless to say, my weekly schedule was (again) totally ruined, but gee, did I manage to handle it well! Now, dear life, it is my turn. Catch it!

Be seeing you!

G.F.