Editor's Note: Antonio Prata reflects on his tale about toys: 'Valdir Peres, Juanito and Poloskei', the final story in our Brazilian Bonanza collection. Listen to 'Valdir Peres, Juanito and Poloskei' from Friday.
When I read lists of the most important films, books or records in people’s lives, I always find it strange that they only include works for adults. Nobody says they’ve been profoundly affected by Dumbo, that they still know by heart complete lines from Asterix.
They forget that the consolation they took from a certain lullaby in those primeval nights went far beyond all the emotion The Beatles, or Beethoven even, would elicit later in life. It’s as if these people had come into the world at 25 carrying a copy of Homer’s The Odyssey under their arm.
I remember a lot from the first years of my life. I liked ant hunting with sticky tape and eating sweet popcorn. I didn’t like clowns or woollen coats.
My ambitions were being a popcorn seller or, in case life didn’t afford me such glory, becoming an astronaut. My frustrations were having straight, fine hair, not having a quiff like the heroes in the American movies.
Bill Haley's Quiff
The story featured in Brazilian Bonanza: ‘Valdir Peres, Juanito and Poloskei’, is included in my new collection of short stories, 'Nu, de botas' (literally: Naked, wearing boots), where I have put together most of the memories I carry from between two and ten years of age. It is an attempt at telling these stories with one foot in adulthood and another in childhood, in order to preserve the gaze of the child, in wonder at the world, and that of the adult, now, looking at the boy.
I hope you like the story.
P.S. As I am writing to listeners in England, I cannot sign off before explaining that the “ex-parrot” which appears towards the end of the story is a reference and a tribute to Monty Python’s Flying Circus’s“Dead Parrot” sketch, a programme responsible for half the laughter I’ve done all my life, and which I would certainly include in my list of ten masterpieces of all time, next to Dumbo, Asterix and Cleopatra. And, all right, Blackbird, The Odyssey and Beethoven’s Symphony No9.
This blog was translated into English by Monica Vasconcelos.
Listen to Valdir Peres, Juanito and Poloskei from Friday the 18th October.
Read our other Brazilian Bonanza blog about Art and Protest in Brazil
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