Contracultura by Dunn Christopher;

Author:Dunn, Christopher;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2016-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

From Verbo Encantado to Viver Bahia

As discussed in Chapter 1, a vibrant alternative press emerged in the major Brazilian capitals, providing outlets for political satire, humor, social critique, cultural commentary, and experimental writing during a time of strict censorship over the mainstream press. The first alternative paper in Salvador, Verbo Encantado, circulated weekly from October 1971 through July 1972, producing a total of twenty-two editions. It was edited by Armindo Bião, a theater director, and published by Álvaro Guimarães, a film director and journalist. For an underground journal, it had a remarkably wide distribution, with 10,000 copies sold at newsstands through a local distributor and then later as a supplement to the Tribuna da Bahia.89 It also had limited distribution in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and a few small cities around Salvador. Its title parodied the biblical idea (John 1:14) of the verbo encarnado, the “word made flesh,” signifying the transmission of divine messages through the body of Christ. Verbo Encantado promised, instead, the “enchanted word,” suggesting its purpose as a kind of bible for those in search of Bahia’s magic. Verbo Encantado was not subjected to censorship, even though it published essays, letters, notes, and illustrations with obvious allusions to drug use and sexual liberation.

Verbo Encantado had no discernible editorial line, standard layout, design, or content focus. To a first-time reader it could appear chaotic and noisy with its hodgepodge of essays, vignettes, hand-drawn cartoons, amateur photos, album reviews, and insider recommendations for leisure activities in Salvador. Álvaro Guimarães described it as “an almanque, a journal designed and written when you are not thinking, when you are enchanted and creating fantasies.”90 It seemed like a montage of several different alternative papers of that period. Like the famous alternative weekly O Pasquim, Verbo Encantado was a jornal de costumes—a paper dedicated to local social life, cultural events, and fashion trends. Unlike O Pasquim, which was notorious for its political satire, Verbo Encantado rarely made references to the military regime.91 It was largely disengaged from politics defined in terms of state power and left-wing opposition. In this regard, it was similar to the Rio-based journals Flor do Mal and Presença, both launched in 1971, which featured experimental prose and poetry, cultural commentary, and idiosyncratic interviews.92Some pages of Verbo Encantado displayed the intellectual pretensions of the literary supplements of mainstream papers, featuring essays about national and international literature (for example, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg) and cinema (Buñuel, Godard). With its consistent coverage of popular music, Verbo Encantado also resembled the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone, published in Rio in the early 1970s. It occasionally featured male beefcake photos and made occasional references to same-sex desire, which figured in more explicitly gay publications that emerged in Rio and São Paulo later in the decade.93 Every issue featured stories about local soccer stars, media personalities, socialites, and other light topics for a general audience that would have fit into any conventional Brazilian newspaper. In terms of form and content, Verbo Encantado was the most heterogeneous alternative publication in Brazil.

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