Brutality Garden:
Tropicália and the
Emergence of a
Brazilian Counterculture

Christopher Dunn

276 pp., 12 color
and 18 b&w illus.

$55.00 cl

$19.95 pb

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  "Geléia Geral" (Torquato Neto – Gilberto Gil)

doce mulata malvada
um elepê de Sinatra
maracujá mês de abril
santo barroco baiano
superpoder de paisano
formiplac e céu de anil
três destaques da Portela
carne seca na janela
alguém que chora por mim
um carnaval de verdade
hospitaleira amizade
brutalidade jardim
sweet wicked mulata
an LP of Sinatra
passion fruit in April
baroque Bahian saint
superpower of the peasant
formica and blue skies
three highlights of Portela
dried meat in the window
someone who cries for me
a true carnival
hospitable friendship
brutality garden

The notion of "geléia geral" (general jelly) was first advanced by Concrete poet Décio Pignatari, who claimed that vanguardist rigor was necessary to give form to the jelly-like mélange of Brazilian culture in the age of mass media. The poet-lyricist Torquato Neto appropriated the metaphor in an ambiguous fashion in a song that would become another song-manifesto of the tropicalist movement. In the declamatory interlude cited below, Gilberto Gil recites an inventory of sayings, clichés, and references to popular culture, exalted as the "relics of Brazil." The final phrase, "brutality garden," was taken from a vanguardist novel written by Oswald de Andrade in the 1920s. In the context of authoritarian rule in the late 1960s, the citation was particularly suggestive. "Geléia Geral" was featured on the tropicalist concept album, Tropicália, ou Panis et Circensis, released in May 1968.

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