I just happen to be back in Sao Paulo by way of a few “off the grid” days in Fortaleza spent gazing out onto a warm and gusty Atlantic Ocean way up there in the state of Ceara, the land of the beach, the Cashew nut tree, the Donkey, no small mount of plastic trash and the billion and one wind turbines turning endless miles of remarkable coastal dunescape into a wind farm. (A tale for later) It is all part of a week that somehow started with pitching Flowerbud.com at a “Sustainable/Green Living” convention in NYC, where I spend a day wedged between a cooperative of Organic Goat’s Cheese & Ice Cream vendors from northern California. A couple of hilarious holistic medicine woman from Michigan, selling cremes/rubs and other curiously scented juju and medicaments with names like the “I’m Wounded Creme”. Opposite me, a rather striking lady promotes Zestra, an essential arousal oil for topical application by women to enhance “deep pleasurable sensations” It acts within minutes and lasts for 45. Ah, the power of botanicals, clinically proven of course. What spin might TV’s Madmen place on this? My guess is that of all assembled… goats, cremes, flowers, aspirin holders, exercise monitors and so on, the rather striking lady has the most to gain from the sometimes hard and sometimes not so hard to grasp concept of “sustainable arousal”.
But I am getting blown off course here and I have a few hours in the middle of the day to learn something new and interesting and great good fortune has a recent acquaintance of mine, a young and indecently prosperous graphic designer taking me to a client for lunch and a ‘field trip’ all in one location deep in the endless megalopolis that is Sao Paulo. (more…)