By Jessica Balbino
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Ball on the ground, kite in the sky and a curtain of pollution in the air. Cars, pedestrians, ties, puppets. It’s a frenetic rhythm. Many people with no destination, out of their way, here and there. Definitely in Sao Paulo they are all protagonists.
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A cold beer on the corner, kids going up and down, the afternoon tastes like childhood, temperance, fate. I pass through it, but I’m a mere visitor. I dismiss the xylocaine, after all, since I got here a few days ago, I'm numb, numb, terrified. Such “come and go” of the everyday fascinates me. For me everything is new, even horns symphony.
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I stop, I breathe and intercom. I say who I am. I climb two stairs and enter. I freeze while facing everything I see. It's too much information. On the place I come from, Poços de Caldas (in Minas Gerais), is not common to find it all. So many things in one single place. In a few steps, the bookshelves, tables and shelves names like Song, Erica Pecanha, Sérgio Vaz, Ademiro Alves (Sacolinha), John Anthony, Black and Ghóez Ferréz suddenly appear.
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Sao Paulo is really plural, multicultural, and surprising at every corner. No wonder that in the middle of the city, on the second floor of an old building at May 13th street, in the traditional district of Bexiga (an Italian stronghold in the capital), the periphery, who would say that, is a lady. There, where, since the 2010 carnival was established the Convinced Suburban bookstore, edges and center converge into a single element: marginal culture (marginal, because it’s a production excluded of the great bookstores and libraries).
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The visitation aim is, or better, was to see friends, say "hi" and go back to other commitments, but the sound of the beer can while being opened there, that way, so suddenly, at that point, invites me for some extra minutes. Leaning on the counter or sitting on a sofa, which sits next to a large collection of books and CDs, arranged in folders and files, time passes and I let conversations flow while night goes on.
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It doesn’t take too long for the new friends arrive, and that “rush”, becomes a desire on staying there. Pioneers in Brazil, the Convinced Suburban bookstore is the only specialized on marginal literature, with unique samples and even rare, of dead authors or sold out editions.
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Soirees, meetings, discussions and postings. Every week, dozens of people pass through the space and consume culture, sometimes free, sometimes in the form of investment, when purchasing books, movies, or even clothing produced by those who live in suburbs and represents it.
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If there were more bookstores like these, affordable, real issues and a “real” environment we might have more poets than soldiers on the streets.
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CONVINCED SUBURBAN BOOKSTORE
Rua 13 de maio, 70 – 2º andar
Bixiga/ SP
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www.buzo10.blogspot.com
