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 |
"Geléia Geral"
(Torquato Neto Gilberto Gil)
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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