What are some of the forces at play in a translation besides the misplaced, hopeless desire for literal accuracy—cultural forces, political, historical, ideological forces? The field is unquantifiable – but tangible nonetheless. As I have been driving back and forth from Jurere to the University this week, musing over this project, which Carmen and I began in 1997, I have been listening to Bossa Nova on my car’s tape player; my Brazilian friends, meanwhile, keep asking me, a North American, whether I like RUSH, or John Lee Hooker, or Eric Clapton, or Supertramp, or Neil Young, or Santana; they keep asking why I listen to that tired, boring bossa nova stuff from the sixties. Both my Brazilian friends’ perceptions of rock and roll and blues, and mine of Bossa Nova, are drenched in our larger perceptions of the cultures this music and its lyrics represent for us; and I’d like to open by reflecting for a moment on the North American reception of that most famous of Bossa Nova exports, The Girl from Ipanema, or, as it is more commonly known in North America to this day, the Girl From Ipaneema. I hope you will see the relevance for what will follow.
