brazilian velocities: on marinetti's 1926 trip to south america

The Johns Hopkins University Press and The South Central Modern Language Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to South Central Review.

http://www.jstor.org

The South Central Modern Language Association

Brazilian Velocities: On Marinetti's 1926 Trip to South America Author(s): Jeffrey T. Schnapp and João Cezar de Castro Rocha Source: South Central Review, Vol. 13, No. 2/3, Futurism and the Avant-Garde (Summer -

Autumn, 1996), pp. 105-156Published by: on behalf of The Johns Hopkins University Press The South Central Modern

Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3190374Accessed: 17-08-2015 16:35 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 152.92.121.94 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 16:35:21 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jhup

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=scmla

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=scmla

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3190374

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp



Brazilian Velocities: On Marinetti's 1926 Trip to South America

Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Jolo Cezar de Castro Rocha Stanford University

Incredible success Marinetti scarves for sale in stores Marinetti dance clothes Marinetti collars canes shoes Marinetti raincoats Marinetti Repercussions in all Brazilian cities ... .'

Triumphal explosion of Futurism in South America with my 35 lectures-declamations. .... The writer Antonio Salles concludes in the Revista do Brasil: "In Brazil we must now forget even our very best writers. Like Jehovah, Futurism creates a new world from out of the void. We must reckon Time anew and begin history in the year of grace of Marinetti's apparation."2

In passages such as these the founder of Futurism would enshrine the memory of the first phase of his 1926 tour of South America, an ambitious and commercially motivated lecture tour that, in the course of nearly two months, took him and his wife Benedetta from Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo and Santos and then on to Buenos Aires and Montevideo and back again to Rio. Staged in each of these cities' largest theaters much like a concert tour, portrayed as if a military campaign, modeled after the legendary pre-World War I Futurist soirees, the tour's "conquests" were relayed to Italy and the world from the battlefront in the form of breathless telegraphic dispatches: "marinetti obtained extraordinary triumph being deliriously applauded," "soiree culmination spiritual propagandistic triumph marinetti," "marinetti speaks futurism applauded complete success retransmit to paris. .. ."

The reality of the journey was, of course, more complex and placed Marinetti at the center of a vortex of cultural-political debates and forces that he could only partially understand or hope to master. Alternately embraced and attacked both by mass and elite audiences, celebrated as a cultural hero and denounced as a passdist thug, ubiquitous in the print and radio media, a lightning rod for pro- and antifascist forces, his highly visible presence

C South Central Review 13.2-3 (Summer-Fall 1996): 105-56.



106 South Central Review helped to evidence a split within the fold of Brazilian modernism.3 In addition to the scars that his Brazilian sojourn left on the local literary scene, enduring traces can be found within Marinetti's own oeuvre. Before 1926 Brazil had not yet made an appearance within the confines of a literary imagination that was still largely shaped around French exoticist readings dating back from before the turn of the century. Its future place was, nonetheless, assured thanks to Marinetti's always forceful affirmation of his African origins. "Mine is," he would repeat, "an Italian sensibility born in Alexandria, Egypt," by which the poet meant to suggest that he embodied the very technoprimitivist fantasies that inform such "Africanist" texts as Mafarka le futuriste (Mafarka the Futurist [1910]), Gli indomabili (The Untamables [1922]), and Il tamburo di fuoco (Fire Drum [1922]). Their dream of fusing the primitive with the modern, the African with the European, so as to forge a tropical modernist paradise rendered Brazil an ideal site for imaginary colonization. And colonize it Marinetti did, by means of Velocitt brasiliane (Brazilian Velocities), the unpublished words-in-freedom poem partially performed at his first Rio shows, of which a critical edition accompanies the present essay.

This essay represents a first attempt to recount the full story of Marinetti's 1926 trip on the basis of letters, coverage in the periodical press, and hitherto unstudied archival documents. Building upon the groundbreaking work of Annateresa Fabris (on Futurism in Brazil) and Sylvia Saitta (on the Argentine portion of Marinetti's 1926 trip), this study will concern the journey's context, structure, and content, as well as its impact on Brazilian cultural debates. Futurism was at once everywhere and nowhere on the South American scene during the 1920s.5 The term was initially used to designate an indiscriminate array of phenomena associated with modernity, much as in Marinetti's claim that his arrival produced a sudden outpouring of "Marinetti" brand commodities: Marinetti scarves, dance clothes, collars, canes, and raincoats. Yet as the decade progressed, the term's meaning narrowed, and its luster dulled due to factors such as the arrival of newer, fresher cultural waves from Europe; to Futurism's increasing identification with fascism and ultranationalism; and to a growing split within Latin American cultural circles between the first internationalist avant-gardes and forces battling instead for autonomous and autochthonous models of modern culture. All of which rendered Marinetti's always eager embrace--in the early twenties he had claimed as soldiers Jorge Luis Borges, Vicente Huidobro, MArio de Andrade, and Yan de Almeida Prado-increasingly uncomfortable. An abridged version of a book-in-progress, the present essay's goal is to recount a fuller version of the story and, in so doing, to apply pressure both to Marinetti's triumphalist account and to the defensive countermyths elaborated by period writers and literary historians. In the Brazilian context the latter have been unanimous in pronouncing the 1926 tour a failure and have rushed to dismiss the Marinetti of the mid-twenties as a debased replica of the prewar "heroic" Marinetti. As this essay will demonstrate, a close examination of archival documents, media coverage, and epistolary exchanges suggests otherwise. It points to the key role played by local literary politics and debates in framing perceptions ofMarinetti's visit. It also points to difficulties of



Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Jodo Cezar de Castro Rocha 107

a contingent or commercial nature and implies that the pro- and anti-Marinetti camps formed as much on the basis of opposition or support of fascism and/or Futurism as on the basis of contrasting views regarding the proper tactics and public persona an avant-garde writer ought to adopt. Most of all, it reveals the tour to have been an enormous success from the standpoint of audience response, media coverage, spectacle value, and gate receipts. In the words of the editors of the Argentine avant-garde journal Martin Fierro: "the mere fact that Marinetti should have insisted upon proclaiming to the great public and mass newspapers the beauty of modem life-for us a commonplace we have been practicing for many years-is itself an enormous innovation."6 And an innovation it was. But one whose popular success forged a series of alliances and disrupted others in such a way as to contribute to Futurism's eventual demise as a highbrow literary movement on the South American continent.

I The Grand (Lecture) Tour

... once upon a time Marinetti was a millionaire.

He would arrive from Tokyo only to depart anew from Madrid. Admission to the theater was free. Now instead Marinetti must produce.7 I had the pleasure of undertaking a grand tour of South America with an impresario who paid me a salary and made money with my voice while allowing me also to make money. ...8

Financially strapped during the mid-1920s due to losses in publishing and various legal battles, the founder of Futurism struggled to maintain the movement's momentum as it entered its second decade of existence. The challenges he faced were many: casualties inflicted by the Great War (Boccioni, Sant'Elia); defections (Palazzeschi, Papini, Carr, Severini, and Sironi); Europe's shifting cultural tides (the rise of new objectivisms, purisms, and classicisms); conservative nationalists within the early Mussolini governments. The November 1924 Futurist congress and the accompanying national celebrations held in Marinetti's honor, however, marked the movement's renewal and reabsorption within the fascist fold: an event signaled by publications such as Futurismo e fascismo (Futurism and Fascism [1924]) and I nuovi poeti futuristi (The New Futurist Poets [1925]), and by Benedetta's and his transfer from Milan to Rome in 1925. This was the context within which the poet was approached by the Brazilian impresario, Niccolino Viggiani, with a tempting proposal. If Futurism's fate seemed less than certain in Europe, it remained a significant though much contested, point of reference in South America. And nowhere more so than in countries like Brazil and Argentina where debates regarding cultural modernization had been raging since the early 1910s and where large communities of Italian expatriates could be relied upon to fill the theaters and opera houses for Italian performers. So Viggiani proposed a lecture tour cast in the mold of the concert tours that were his specialty. The contract read:



108 South Central Review The poet F. T. Marinetti commits himself to undertake a lecture tour (minimum eight lectures) including Rio de Janeiro, SAo Paulo, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires, starting in the month of June, 1926. Mr. N. Viggiani commits himself to organizing the lectures in question in the best theaters of the above-mentioned cities, ... it being understood that seven days will be the minimum period spent in each city (so as to ensure the success of the lectures by means of interviews, etc. etc.). Mr. N. Viggiani commits himself to paying F. T. Marinetti ... twenty percent of the net after-tax gate receipts.9

In the business of making money with other's voices, Viggiani allowed them also to make money. Twenty percent seems to have been a fairly standard "cut" offered to touring singers and musical soloists: a considerable take, but one that placed substantial responsibility on the performer's shoulders inasmuch as audience attendance and gate receipts would be largely determined by his or her success as a publicist. Additional terms covered two round-trip first-class tickets aboard a steamship for Marinetti and spouse, first-class ground travel arrangements, all accommodations, costs, and a generous per diem.

Just who was Niccolino Viggiani? Contrary to what has been affirmed by Antonio Candido and repeated by others, he was not "the publisher of Graga Aranha's book Futurism-Manifestos by Marinetti and His Followers": an edition of Futurist manifestos whose promotion has sometimes been falsely supposed to have prompted Marinetti's journey.'0 Viggiani was the director of a theater company bearing his name which regularly performed in Rio's Teatro Lirico. He was also a powerful Rio-based show business entrepreneur known for arranging and promoting visits of high profile European, particularly, Italian singers and musicians to Brazil. No reader of the Jornal do Comercio's entertainment section could have been unaware of his activities as an impresario. His advertisements were frequent and oversized, occupying a space four to five times larger than those of rival promoters. Through them Viggiani fixed the reception and performance parameters for Marinetti's visit, listing his lectures as if they were identical to musical attractions. The former were advertised modestly, in smallish type, designated only by the poet's name and by the lecture date; the latter were presented in a larger typeface and with more descriptive matter." The difference in graphic emphasis belies a categorical similarity. For Viggiani, as for Marinetti himself, a diva's recital and a Futurist's road show belonged in the same ad column because they were kindred forms of spectacle.

It goes without saying that Viggiani's initiative was not unprecedented. As early as 1837, Thomas Carlyle had sold tickets by subscription to cycles of regularly scheduled public lectures on the theme of German literature. His initiative's success is attested to by its continuation over three subsequent years.1 By the fourth year, Carlyle had run out of new material to deliver. But he did not stop performing because he had already discovered that the essence of an authorial lecture tour was not its content, but its staging. Indeed, he garnered even greater acclaim by simply recycling prior lectures: "again, [the lectures] succeeded, as much by Carlyle's platform presence as his message."'3 Less than fifty years later,




Oscar Wilde followed Carlyle's precedent and set out to export his own very considerable "platform presence" to North America. From the outset Wilde realized that the American market imposed an additional set of challenges on him. In England it would have sufficed for him to play the role of Oscar Wilde the writer; in North America he would also have to become a picturesque and provocative embodiment of English aestheticism. Accordingly, "he prepared carefully for his [1882] tour. What to wear came first of all."14 As for the lectures he was to deliver, Wilde had intended to compose them in the course of his sea journey. They remained unfinished at the time of his arrival. Clearly, they seemed less important than his character and wardrobe. This circumstance may help to explain the public's reaction to Wilde's first lecture: "The audience applauded warmly. Not all of them were pleased, some had been bored, but all recognized that they had been in the presence of something unaccustomed.... Wilde had lectured to them as much through rhythm and manner as through arguments."-'5

II The Ocean Theater of Rio de Janeiro On the bridge at night we attend the ship's entry into the bay of Rio. It is a truly magnificent truly grand spectacle. The city radiates an ultrafuturist luminous splendor. We do not sleep so as to await the dawn and the medical control for debarkation. Then three hundred thousand cameramen journalists. More pictures were taken of me than in the course of my entire existence. I am a bombarded celebrity!'6

No less unaccustomed and spectacular was the platform presence of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti when on 13 May 1926 he and his wife Benedetta stepped off the Giulio Cesare to star in what amounted to the first of the shows arranged for him by the promoter Viggiani: the "affectionate encounter between Italian Futurism and South American Futurism."'7 Advertised at least since April in newspapers such as A Manha and Jornal do Comrcio, the lecture tour began in a sea of still and movie cameras, with journalists buzzing about a cast of Italian dignitaries that included the Italian consuls Guglielmo della Fontana and Galeazzo Ciano, the head of the Rio fascio Luigi Sciutto, and Commander Vella of the Dante Alighieri Society.'" Far more crucial, however, to the success of the show was the presence of an impressive delegation of Brazilian men of letters. Cast in the role of a welcoming chorus, meant to salute the supreme leader with cheers of "Long live Futurism!" (whether real or imagined), its presence was chronicled in Brazilian Velocities as "[a]midst the poets Carvalho, Olanda, Almeida, Moras, Bandeira, Pongetti, Silveira, Agrippino Grieco.. ." (BV 8).'9 This group could hardly have been more representative (despite the pointed absence of Mairio de Andrade, inserted into the scene by several overzealous journalists). Five years later Ronald de Carvalho would be officially dubbed as the "Prince of Brazilian Prose," though as early as 1915 he had played a crucial role



110 South Central Review in the foundation of Orpheu, the literary review that inaugurated Portuguese modernism.2? Sergio Buarque de Holanda and Prudente de Morais Neto were well-established young modernists with strong links to the print media. Renato Almeida, a key participant in the legendary Week of Modern Art,21 was soon to become the co-editor (along with Aranha) of Movimento Brasileiro, a journal published from 1928 and 1930 that aggressively trumpeted its leadership of the modernist movement." Although not a participant in the Week of Modern Art, Bandeira is regarded as one of the most important Brazilian poets of the twentieth century, alongside Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Joao Cabral de Melo Neto. Bandeira's presence at the welcoming reception and assiduous courting of the Marinettis during the ensuing month would give rise to jealousies on the part of his intimate friend MAirio de Andrade.2 Henrique Pongetti was a writer/journalist noted both as an essayist and as a playwright, while Paulo Silveira was the author of a highly successful first book, Asas e patas (1924). Last, but not least, in the welcoming party was Agrippino Grieco: the author of numerous books of poems from the time of Anforas (1910) and, by the mid-twenties, one of Brazil's most authoritative literary critics and its most prolific and popular lecturer in the vein of Carlyle and Wilde.2 From 1931 to 1939, Grieco would edit Boletim de Ariel, an important arbiter of the Brazilian intellectual scene in the thirties.

The central figure in the reception scene, cast at once as the chorus leader and as Marinetti's Brazilian double, was Aranha: a writer whose rise and fall as leader of the modernist movement would shape recollections of the 1926 tour. In Brazilian Velocities, Aranha looms as the father of Italian Futurism's Brazilian offshoot:

Ex-Minister of Brazil in Paris during the war, famed novelist and dramaturge of Canaid and Malazarte, he was named a grand academician, tried to revolutionize the Academy, failed in part, and resigned, thus earning for himself the prestigious title of chief of Brazilian Futurism. As he slowly lumbers up the steep stairway followed by Futurists, the expectations raised by the affectionate encounter of Italian Futurism and South American Futurism become almost painful. (BV 8-9)

In a scene worthy of Virgilian epic, father and son are (re)united in the Brazilian Elysium. But will the affectionate embrace between Italian and Brazilian Futurism succeed? Or will it reveal the paternal imago to be as empty as light winds or dreams? Certainly the "almost painful" expectation that accompanied Aranha's ascent prefigures the turmoil that was already erupting within the modernist camp: a turmoil regarding which Marinetti was neither fully cognizant nor innocent. The biographical details rehearsed in Brazilian Velocities are accurate enough, even if the simple chain of causality leading from Paris to the Academy to leadership of "Brazilian Futurism"-a label that itself contains a provocation, though an unwitting one on Marinetti's part--elides some important subtleties. Aranha had returned to Brazil in October 1921, after a lengthy residency in Europe where he had occupied various ambassadorial posts. He prepared the way for his own triumphal homecoming in the prior year via the



Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Jodo Cezar de Castro Rocha III

publication of A Estdtica da vida (The Aesthetics of Life), a work in which he staked out his claims as leader of a renewal of Brazilian intellectual life." In 1922, already a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (Academia Brasileira de Letras), Aranha moved from the realm of theory to that of practice, becoming one of the key organizing hands behind the Week of Modem Art. This epochal event launched the modernist movement in Brazil and consecrated Aranha's leadership role. It also gave rise to the first glimmerings of the Rio-Sao Paulo rift that would dog Marinetti's journey. Before the Week of Modem Art, younger writers had rallied around the academician in the hope that his well-established reputation would serve to enhance their own. In its immediate wake, members of the SAo Paulo circle, notably MArio de Andrade, began to cast aspersions on Aranha's "middlebrow" (or so they now contended) brand of modernism. Alarmed at the switch, Aranha was quick to react and to root his cause in the Carioca intellectual milieu. On 19 June 1924, before a plenary session of the Brazilian Academy, he delivered a lengthy lecture on "O espirito moderno" ("The Modern Spirit") complete with a comprehensive list of Brazilian writers and artists infused with the spirit of modernity according to Aranha's own definition.26 In its conclusion he promised to "convert my contemporaneousness [atualidade] into the forge of the Future," a clear rejoinder to the SAo Paulo-based modernists who had accused him of passism.27 The forging process was fully underway only a few months later as he submitted a formal letter of resignation to the Brazilian Academy.28 This was followed with the publication in 1925 of O espirito moderno (The Modern Spirit), a collection of lectures on topics as varied as "The Brazilian Soul," "Dostoyevsky," and "Pantheism Without Nature," which Aranha hoped would have considerable impact on the already turbulent milieu." The deeper aim of The Modern Spirit was to portray its author as the movement's visionary nonsectarian leader and to provide documentation to this effect. It therefore opens with "Aesthetic Emotion in Modem Art," a lecture first pronounced "at the inauguration of the Week of Modem Art at Sio Paulo's Municipal Theater in February of 1922," as a footnote dutifully reminds the reader.29 The reference underscored Aranha's past role in order to buttress his present claims in much the same manner as Marinetti would do in the course of the 1920s: a decade largely devoted to placing new cultural currents and artists under his wing by asserting that pre-World War I Futurism was their source.30

Aranha's efforts would prove for naught as, on 12 January 1926, de Andrade published an open letter in A Manha, one of Rio's foremost newspapers. In it he roundly denounced the former academician's confusion "of the role of providing guidance with that of operating like the dictator of a small village."3' Its tone was bold and uncompromising:

Graga Aranha, I know that you have been complaining that the modernists from Sao Paulo are moving away from you.



112 South Central Review First and foremost, I must insist that you are wrong to claim that the Paulista modernists alone are moving away from you. It is not just those from SAo Paulo, but rather nearly all Brazilian modernists.32

De Andrade's correction must itself be corrected, at least to the degree that many of the modernists distancing themselves from their putative leader were correspondents of de Andrade's who had received advanced notice of the open letter.33 Sensitive to Aranha's claims of leadership, de Andrade asserted his autonomy not only in the name of a divergent vision of modernism, but also as a function of the same battle for cultural hegemony that would swirl, in turn, around Marinetti's visit.34 In sum, it might be said that Brazilian Velocities doubly misattributes to Aranha "the prestigious title of chief of Brazilian Futurism": first, because by 1926 the label "Brazilian Futurism" was a misnomer; second, because it was not Aranha's rejection of the Brazilian Academy that cast him in the role of chieftain of the modernist movement, but rather his subsequent efforts to recover the authority he had enjoyed back in 1922, lost because of a mounting tide of criticism that maintained that he was little more than an academician disguised in avant-garde garb.3" Aranha's laborious ascent of the stairway aboard the Giulio Cesare may thus be taken as a hieroglyph both of his struggle for ascendancy and of the events that were soon to unfold. A certain heaviness and anxiety were surely floating in the air on 13 May, despite the cheers and the frenzied popping of flashbulbs, for the embrace between Italian and Brazilian Futurism as embodied by two contested fathers was to prove as troubled as it was affectionate.

III Turf Wars I gave lectures in Rio de Janeiro which is a city enriched by nature to an exceptional degree inasmuch as it fuses a unique tropical flora with a truly modern city plan, a city that is aware of all that is modern, vivacious, simultaneous. In this city I had no clashes with antifascists because there they are a minority. ... [It is] Slo Paulo alone that sheds some light on the state of mind of Italian expatriates who, having departed for South America, live at the mercy of spiritual convulsions because the fatherland no longer corresponds to what they would wish it to be.6

Marinetti's first lecture-show was scheduled for 15 May, two days after his arrival. In a news cable issued by the Agamerican press agency it was described as follows:

teatro lirico completely filled huge audience mainly composed men of letters students ladies etc marinetti obtained extraordinary triumph being deliriously applauded welcoming in name of rio sao paulo futurists member of brazilian academy gracaranha spoke delivered remarkable speech answering marinetti expressed gratitude delivered lecture on futurism... 37




The description indulges in the sort of hype that, borrowed from industry, Futurism had long ago made its hallmark. Its purpose was baldly promotional: for European audiences, to assert the movement's continuing vitality on the international scene; for local audiences, to stir up excitement so as to draw larger numbers of spectators to subsequent shows. Actual attendance figures were more modest, though still remarkable for a lecture. The Lirico, Viggiani's own theater, had a total capacity of nearly 1,500 spectators and, of these seats, only 596, which is to say about 2/5ths, were sold, while another 3/5ths were left empty. Most of these belonged to the cheapest category and were bought, it appears, by students.3 As regards the content of Marinetti's presentation, it has already been suggested that "platform presence" and "rhythm and manner" were at least as important as considerations of meaning and content. To evoke the noted theoretical distinction proposed by Paul Zumthor, a lecture is less a text-a reservoir of meaning that is always readily available for interpretation-than a work made up of layered modes of presentation, some evanescent and/or subsemantic and hence not readily "capturable" via interpretation.39 Marinetti's first lecture/show is an excellent case in point. Explicitly theatrical in nature, it was staged against the backdrop provided by the novel stage decor that would be employed in this and all subsequent performances: "a vast flag in strident colors, composed of green, white, red, and yellow squares of varying size" which, enhanced by colored lights, was flanked by a large-scale reproduction of Fortunato Depero's Marinetti Patriotic Storm (a portrait of the speaker as mechanical man spewing forth words in the form of swirling tricolor banners).40 Flyers bearing this image were distributed at the door as if they were pamphlets at a political rally, and Futurist posters lined the doorways. The "lecture" itself was introduced in a rather florid welcoming speech by Aranha: a rhetorical reenactment, so to speak, of the prior welcoming ceremony. (The speech would resurface as the preface to Futurism-Manifestos by Marinetti and His Followers.) Next came Marinetti's "thank you" in the form of a list of names-Aranha, Mario de Andrade, de Carvalho, Prudente de Morais Neto, Bandeira, Renato Almeida, Sergio Buarque de Holanda, and Henrique Pongetti-figures whom he naively referred to as "champions of the Futurist crusade.""' Then came the main event: less an oration than a kind of improvised rapid-fire miscellany, intoned in Marinetti's characteristic soaring baritone, covering topics as varied as his impressions of Rio de Janeiro as a modern metropolis (drawing from the first draft of Brazilian Velocities); the sensuous affinities between Italians and Brazilians; the revolutionary destiny of Brazilian youth; fashion; the need to oppose short haircuts for women; the demands of a new art; the universality of Futurism. Annateresa Fabris has noted the bewilderment of many in the audience: "To some it was not precisely a lecture, but a series of sparse considerations on the most different subjects accompanied by a declamation of some poems.,,42 Far from representing a failure of the imagination or of preparation on the poet's part, improvisation, the recycling of materials, and the mixing of genres were very much the point. Like Oscar Wilde vis g vis English Aestheticism, Marinetti was on stage not to bring the latest news from the European avant-gardes to a well-informed elite, but rather



114 South Central Review to make money and to spread his gospel by embodying, representing, and introducing Futurism to a mass public whose acquaintance with the movement was modest. He embedded within this magazine-type structure recitations from only his most famous words-in-freedom poems: for instance, two old warhorses, the "Free Verse Poem in Honor of a Race Car," and the bombardment scene from Zang Tumb Tumb. He also set out to titillate, harangue, and goad. According to published reports, "he concluded by commenting on Futurism's geometrical conceptions ... and by holding forth on fascism and on the greatness of contemporary Italy."43 Was the latter mere clowning? Was it a provocation to antifascists and internationalists? A sop for Italian patriots and consular functionaries? An incitement to shout, riot, or hurl fruit? Was it a didactic exercise? Surely all of the above.

In any event, an account of this or the subsequent performances that adopts as its normative audience the cultured elite and then proceeds to dismiss this distinctive mode of self-staging as "an aleatory accumulation that cross-breeds an obviously dated artistic discourse with a rudimentarily traced political discourse" can adequately explain neither the show's impact nor its perceived novelty." It is also blind to the interconnections between many of Marinetti's leitmotifs and the everyday life world of 1926 Brazil. A telling example is the poet's polemic against short-haired women: It was part of an ongoing effort to combat androgyny and to polarize sexual identity by coupling woman to an abundant head of hair and man to streamlined hairlessness. Long female hair, Marinetti argued, was to be understood as "mediterranean and tropical," which is to say as no less Italian than Brazilian. It was a "words-in-freedom poem" sprouting directly out of the female body and "providing the illusion of a powerful and joyous life with forests, succulent fruit, wild beasts, and birds." Short hair was instead "a bureaucrat's cubical room, with the hammering of a typewriter, despite the fact that overhead airplanes entangle long trails of hair to adorn the heads of skyscrapers."45 This half-serious, half-humorous polemic may well have resonated for his audience because it was highly topical. In May 1926 one of the most popular films showing in Rio de Janeiro bore the title Cabelos a la Gargonne (Hair a la Gargonne [i.e., short, coquette-style hair]). The advertising campaign for the film left little doubt in the minds of potential audience members about its subject matter. It read: "Who is more beautiful: a short-haired or a long-haired woman? This is the problem of the day. . . ."" The "controversy" was picked up by a good many newspapers and magazines before, during, and after Marinetti's visit.

The second lecture-show was delivered on 18 May and fit the same mold. It was advertised on the front page of the Jornal do Comdrcio as:

ENTERTAINMENT The following are showing today:

Teatro Lirico--Lecture Teatro Palace-The Girl47




The Rio de Janeiro public had a choice between two titillating forms of entertainment that the newspaper viewed as comparable. It could either go to the movies or go to see a brand-name Marinetti lecture; attend either The Girl or The (Futurist) Guy.4 In order to promote the latter choice, a "Futurist concert" had been presented on RAdio Mayrink Veiga that same day. Once again Marinetti gave one of his standard rapid-fire improvisations, accompanied by poetry readings by Bandeira, music, and Bastos Tigres's performance of a comic sketch. Both the radio transmission and press coverage of the inaugural lecture-show had their effect, to judge by attendance figures for the second lecture. An impressive 957 spectators showed up at the Teatro Lirico, nearly twice the earlier number, with students, once again, well represented.49 Having by now understood that Marinetti's road show exemplified an interactive performance genre, they came prepared as much to act as to listen and to watch. The moment of their transformation into actors came as the orator transitioned from a description of the historical ties between Futurism and fascism to outright praise of Mussolini. At this point, as if on cue, the audience split into equally vocal opposing camps. The resulting ruckus provided at once an ideal backdrop for the performance's conclusion and a crowd-control problem that spilled out into the city streets. In a second press telegram the incident was reported as follows:

yesterday evening second marinetti lecture lirico [theater] overflowing several thousand spectators all social classes university element prevalent stop interest elicited by spread of lecturer's futurist statements creates unruly intense expectation that initially impedes normal unfolding of lecture stop despite frequent interruptions marinetti succeeds brilliantly dominating imposing audience reasserting with energy futurism's artistic political theories stop evening's climax spiritual propagandistic triumph of marinetti who greeted by frenzied unanimous applause is escorted by powerful cheering throng hotel palace stop entire press underline two-fold artistic political importance of event."

That less than one thousand spectators should have multiplied to "several thousand" may raise doubts about the speaker's reportedly "brilliant" supremacy over the mob. But whether or not the performance culminated with his "spiritual propagandistic triumph" matters less than the indisputable fact of Marinetti's success in bringing to Brazilian shores a model of spectacle that he had refined and codified in the prewar Futurist soirees: an "impure" performance genre mixing provocation with entertainment, the silly with the serious, didacticism with horseplay. In so doing he was challenging two opposing models of self- staging that, thanks to the active patronage role assumed by the State, had long overlapped on the South American intellectual scene: the first a "gentlemanly" model according to which the writer, in the words of Henry Fielding, acts as though he was "a Gentleman who gives [his audience] a private or eleemosynary Treat"; therefore, he offers whatever he desires; the second a commercial one according to which the author's output is conditioned by the fact that he is "one who keeps a public Ordinary, at which Persons are welcome for their Money ...



116 South Central Review Men who pay for what they eat, will insist on gratifying their

Palates."'5 Neither

a gentleman who speaks from on high nor a vendor catering to a clientele, the Futurist orator serves up a Menippean banquet of alternately sweet and caustic dishes meant to divert, provoke, and mobilize a general public. The cocktail's effects were noted in nearly every press report: "The audience roared, whistled, kicked about, it could not be more alive."52

In spite of (or, perhaps, because of) the incidents that accompanied the second lecture, Marinetti continued to be honored and showered with attention for the duration of his stay in Rio de Janeiro. On 20 May, Bandeira drove him around and guided him through the city's famed Botanical Garden, an experience whose impact is indicated by detailed notes and drawings found in Marinetti's diary.53 That evening he and Benedetta were fRted at the Italian embassy by the Countess Montagna ("a mediocre Austrian" with "the smile of a cretin"), the Argentine ambassador ("fat pale pleasant speaks French atrociously"), and the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs ("glasses expressionless face taciturn").

5 Each of the following days was accompanied by a radio talk. Regarding the second of these, held on 22 May, his diaries state: "I speak in Italian first, then in French to all of Brazil and to Rio's elite."55 For once, the description is accurate. His lecture was introduced by de Carvalho, and amidst the approximately three hundred spectators were Esticio Coimbra, the vice-president of Brazil, Aranha, and Bandeira. Perhaps the crowning event of the entire South American tour, this final Rio encounter augured well for the campaign's next phase: the conquest of Sao Paulo. Such at least is implied in the last of Marinetti's press cables:

yesterday evening radio sociedade studio select large public present marinetti delivered efficacious interesting speech broadcast all brazil after brilliant inaugural talk by poet ronaldcarvalho about great artistic political impact of italian futurism marinetti issued patriotic greeting to brazil's italians held forth with usual oratorical vigor expressive lucidity original inventive theories artistic political renewal stop also declaimed admirable lyrics stop extremely warm uncontested success marinetti departed for spaulo to hold another lecture cycle.m

The triumphal tone is not just another case of Marinettian hype.57 Over 1,850 spectators had come to listen to his talks; the newspapers and radio waves had been saturated with news of his visit; and he had earned a handsome cut of 1:718$520 for only two shows, an amount that represented around $250 in 1926 American currency. All of this to say that Marinetti would have had good reason to concur with Benedetta, who in a letter to her brother Alberto Cappa wrote on the eve of their departure for Sio Paulo: "Everything a big big time success. For over a week the newspapers can't get enough of Marinetti, Benedetta, and Futurism. .... I would send you copies, but the quantity is so great that I wouldn't know which journals to choose."" Even the send off was carried out in high style, attended as it was by the deputy Francisco Valladares, the Italian consul general and ambassador, and by Hector Villa-Lobos, de Carvalho, Viggiani himself, and numerous journalists.




If Viggiani's staging of the first act of the "affectionate encounter between Italian Futurism and South American Futurism" had gone smoothly, the second would not. This difference cannot be accounted for solely on the basis of the specific cultural and/or political content of Marinetti's harangues, since these remained unchanged from the Rio lecture-shows. Rather, there were two key differences between Rio and Sao Paulo. The first is obvious: that whereas he arrived in Rio as a cultural celebrity, he arrive in SAo Paulo as a political figure because Paulista press coverage of the tour's first weeks had granted primary emphasis to the political controversy, thereby polarizing potential Sio Paulo audiences. The second has been overlooked by prior scholars--namely, that Slo Paulo was enemy turf for the impresario Viggiani. Whereas in Rio he benefited from a network of powerful contacts and a professional organization, in Sao Paulo he was an outsider. The stakes of this turf battle were hardly trivial inasmuch as lecture tours not only granted legitimacy to the highly profitable music, theater, and dance businesses that were a mainstay for men like Viggiani but were a profitable and popular business in their own right. Attention to the commercial aspects of the lecture business will prove useful here by providing a corrective to the conventional view that, with the advantage of hindsight, would assign the determining role to the clash of ideas. Such analysis suggests, on the contrary, the importance of everyday contingencies that, although easily overlooked, can prove determinant in cultural history.

Viggiani's organizational difficulties made their appearance early on and seem to have persisted until the final hours. A casual diary entry by Marinetti, dated 21 May, drops a hint to this effect: "Five o'clock. Viggiani's coming (back from S. Paulo)."" Is it conceivable that Viggiani was still making arrangements as late as three days before the first scheduled SAo Paulo lecture? Had the near riot provoked by Marinetti's profascist remarks given cause for alarm? Evidence to this effect may be found in a revealing letter by Mirio de Andrade in which he attempts to derail Bandeira's Marinettian enthusiasms:

. . it is practically certain that Marinetti is serving as a fascist agent on this trip. Do not fool yourself regarding Viggiani. Here in SAo Paulo Marinetti's lecture was imposed by the Italian ambassador, since Viggiani could not find a theater, and the Cassino where Marinetti spoke yesterday belongs to Bonnachi, a fierce enemy of Viggiani's. Thus, you had better proceed with caution. Viggiani came and invited me to introduce Marinetti in the theater. I refused and it seems that everybody else did the same."

Like the skin of an onion, the Sio Paulo scene was one of multilayered conflicts. Beneath the battle seemingly waged on ideological grounds against a foreign "agent" lurked de Andrade's leadership struggle with Marinetti's Carioca double and "sponsor" Aranha. Deeper still, near the onion's core, lay the commercial turf battle that pitted the promoters of Rio against their Sao Paulo counterparts. Viggiani's principal difficulty was in obtaining the use of a major theater. Without his own network of contacts, he was forced to rely upon rivals such as Bonnachi, the owner of Cassino Antirtica. But why should Bonnachi favor a



118 South Central Review competitor's initiative, particularly one that was potentially controversial and might damage his facility? Viggiani would probably have been equally protective of his own Teatro Lirico. Then there is the matter of inadequate incentives. Why press his luck too far in the case of the tour's Sao Paulo phase, given that for him, as for Bonnachi, lectures were a sidelight with respect to musical tours whose popularity far exceeded that of the most celebrated man of letters? All this may help to explain why the impasse was resolved, thanks only to a drastic measure: an intercession on Viggiani's behalf by the Italian ambassador Baron Giulio Cesare Montagna.

Ambassadorial powers did not or could not, however, resolve the problem of locating a prominent man of letters to introduce the Futurist leader at the Cassino much as Aranha had done at the Teatro Lirico and de Carvalho had done for the 22 May radio show. So Viggiani was forced to make the rounds. Perhaps he had waited to resolve the matter until 21 May. If so, he had waited too long.

The arrival in Sao Paulo contrasted starkly with that in Rio. Unlike the vivid portrait of the ocean theater of the Carioca capital painted in Brazilian Velocities, Marinetti's diaries register the presence of no reception party or host. They simply state: "S. Paulo. Station. Journalists. Fascists."6' An oversight by Viggiani ensured that MArio de Andrade would fail to appear just as he had snubbed the Rio welcome. "Viggiani sent me a telegram saying that Marinetti was to arrive on Sunday," de Andrade wrote in a subsequent letter to Bandeira; "I waited at the train station with a student of mine."62 And wait he did. The Italian was actually slated to arrive on Monday, so de Andrade's absence helped to trigger a short- circuit in an awkward relationship that, from the start, had been fraught with ambiguities.

Even if the reception that greeted Marinetti and Benedetta disappointed and Viggiani's arrangements proved faulty, news of the speaker's raucous last speech had done much to stir up excitement in SAo Paulo. So it was that the 24 May lecture, held in the Cassino Antirtica, attracted one of the largest paying crowds ever seen on the South American lecture circuit: 1,108 spectators out of an available 1,328 seats.63 This near-full house, like the second Rio audience, included a significant number of students who, whether inspired by antifascist or antifuturist convictions or by a love of brawling and food fights, came prepared to play the participatory and adversarial roles that Marinetti had long ago assigned to the audiences of the first Futurist soirees.6 According to the Jornal do Comercio, the evening began at 9 p.m. with Marinetti's appearance on the stage under a hail of projectiles of all shapes and sizes. The next hours were spent in efforts on the speaker's part to shout over the public's roar.65 His eventual withdrawal was followed by the intercession of Moacir Chagas and "other men of letters [who] mounted the stage and asked the audience to allow Marinetti to talk. They did not succeed."66 Who were these men of letters? Clearly their prestige was insufficient to silence the young crowd. The hubbub was interrupted only when wild applause greeted Benedetta's appearance on stage. The Futurist poetess was momentarily able to calm things down but, as soon as her husband returned to speak, the roar revived. The reporter concludes: "Mr. Marinetti could simply not perform."67




The judgment has been repeated by historians. But just how incongruous was this mass melee with Marinetti's improvisatory theory of performance? Wasn't its only flaw that, contrary to the ideal Futurist script, according to which a heroic act of the will would eventually transmute the most intransigent student jeers into applause, the battle ended in a draw? The description in his diary seems clear on this point:

Nine o'clock. The cavalry charges against the students who try to clamber over the walls and to invade the Theater of the Casino Antarctico. Inside the roar of the Ocean. Orchestra of yells yelps jokes. Impromptu orators in the gallery. A well-known antifascist writer speaks out against Futurism. He declares himself the leader of the antifuturist movement. The curtain rises. Delirious crescendo of whistles applause. Rain of vegetable projectiles bomblets triktrak that explode on stage.... I am able to speak and shout: By booing me in advance you boo yourselves."

The closing taunt, the pleasure with which the landing projectiles are onomatopoeically evoked in the words-in-freedom verse "rain of vegetable projectiles bomblets triktrak that explode on stage," the coolness under fire which press accounts attributed to the poet: all suggest that, even if this was not the precise show he had planned, Marinetti did in fact perform--a point understood by sectors of the popular press, though by few intellectuals." He performed as if on the battlefront, the site that for Futurism represented a normative ideal to which all communicative forms, be they poetic, theatrical, or oratorical, ought to aspire.70 Futurism's enemy was silence, indifference, and polite applause, its means a semiosis of the punch and the slap capable of activating, mobilizing, and polarizing. It measured success not in terms of persuasion but in terms of physical intensity. The latter was, of course, abundant on the evening of 24 May: "the noisiest and most violent Futurist soir6e of my entire existence!"71

Also abundant were profits. The first battle of the Cassino Antirtica put a total of 7:985$700 contos [1 conto = 1,000 mil-rdis] into Viggiani's pockets, of which fully 1:597$140 was Marinetti's share. Added to his earnings from Rio, this meant a yield of 3:315$660, a relatively handsome sum measured according to then-current wages and/or exchange rates. In 1926, one American dollar equaled 7$000 Brazilian mil-rdis, which is to say that in less than ten days Marinetti had already earned the equivalent of $474 in U.S. currency.n Compared with the unofficial minimum wage--a mandatory minimum wage was introduced in Brazil only in 1941 --which in 1925 the newspaper A Classe Operaria had pegged at between 200$000 and 250$000 mil-r6is, this would amount to 13-16 months of labor.74 Hardly a failure, the trip was turning lucrative.

The best was yet to come. On 27 May the second Sao Paulo lecture was delivered at the Cassino Antrtica and, in order to avoid a repetition of the prior mob scene, the cheapest ticket prices were raised six-fold. The target of this shift in pricing strategy appears to have been students, to judge by Marinetti's diary,



120 South Central Review which notes that "[a]t the Esplanada I encounter a mob of students who, gathered at the gate, had been unable to enter the theater because the gallery seats had gone from 1$000 to 6$000 [mil-]rdis."75 But despite (or indeed because) the Sao Paulo press had been filled with stories about the riotous first show, the audience was still enormous: 835 paying spectators-273 less than on 24 May, but 239 more than at the first lecture in Rio. Because of the inflated ticket prices this audience yielded a whopping gate of 9:279$000 for the impresario, of which fully 1:855$800 was due Marinetti (raising his total to 5:171$460 or $739 in 1926 U.S. dollars).

Instead of a protracted battle, the second evening at the Cassino AntArtica assumed the form of a brief skirmish after which Marinetti was able to perform his lecture-show without opposition or interruption. The riot three nights earlier had its effects. It led to a much expanded police presence: "Mob outside the theater," his diary reads; "Cavalry. Better police protection. ... During the first twenty minutes fisticuffs expulsion of a few troublemakers."76 It had also precipitated a debate among journalists and intellectuals most of whom, only faintly understanding the true nature of the poet's road show, expressed dismay at the audience's "uncivilized" response. Mdrio de Andrade seems a case in point. "The first evening was truly a terrible and shameful one" for the Paulista intellectual milieu, he wrote, less concerned with Marinetti than with the reputation of the rival cultural capital; "Rio behaved in a much smarter and more civilized form."77 Yet de Andrade was also quick to understand that the best way to neutralize the Futurist founder was to respond to him in a cool, reserved fashion. Indeed, he did so with such effectiveness as to stoke the fires of what we will later describe as de Andrade and Marinetti's "hallucinated enmity" (or inimizade desvairada), "hallucinated" because of the diverging motivations of the two parties.

The relatively smooth unfolding of the second lecture has led one historian to dismiss it for its "serene laying out of his ideas, that, in fact, were only an assemblage of cliches" much as the prior show was dismissed because of Marinetti's inability to overcome the mob.78 Since the "cliches" in question encompass both Futurism's central leitmotifs and readings from two of the poet's most famous experimental poems, the judgment appears hasty at best (and ignores, once again, the nature and target audience of the poet's show). The building of "assemblages" from prior publications, poems, and tracts was a standard feature of Marinetti's practice from 1909 onward and, coincidental with the montage-based poetics of Zang Tumb Tumb, serves as the mode of composition of texts such as Guerra sola igiene del mondo (War: The World's Only Hygiene [19151), Futurism and Fascism (1924), and Marinetti e il futurismo (Marinetti and Futurism [1929]). Adapted here to the realities of a large-scale lecture-show, it cannot be invoked as a symptom of a debased, consensus-seeking fascist Marinetti any more than the riotous response of Brazilian audiences can be explained by claiming that the performance was hackneyed.79 If the spectacle seemed less electrifying on 27 May, it was not because the performer's message somehow slackened, but rather because the dynamics of the event were altered by




the early expulsion of raucous audience members. Marinetti's diaries express a hint of regret that the battle did not go on a bit longer:

After 20 minutes of interrupted and often drowned-out speech, I win I impose the logic of agitatory Futurism moderator and equilibrator of the race in the red-hot atmosphere of contradictory speeds simultaneities of mechanical civilization.

Against fashion. Against luxury. For virility, sexual difference, hot dynamism, without any decrease in animal affective sentimental values....

Poetry. Applause. After a brief pause I declaim Automobile Bombardment. Applause.80

The distinction between the before and after is clearly marked in Marinetti's prose. The first twenty minutes are depicted telegraphically, according to the conventions of words-in-freedom poetry. Unpunctuated (like his account of the events of 24 May), they celebrate the speaker's victory over a worthy and resistant collective opponent. The remaining portion of the show instead assumes the form of a far cooler, more neutral sort of list. Gone is any trace of audience opposition and with it the possibility of imagining the stage as a heroic battlefield. In its place the stage appears as a less interactive, more stable space where a causal chain joins the recitation of poetry to applause.

After his 27 May performance, Marinetti delivered still two more lectures as per his agreement with Viggiani. There were signs, however, that he had overstayed his welcome. Grieco was famous for claiming that a "lecturer should never stay for more than two days in a town. Too much intimacy destroys his aura."81 Viggiani violated this principle and paid the price: after a full week in Sao Paulo, his star's aura appeared on the decline. On 1 June, the Futurist founder performed before an audience of 305 spectators at the Teatro Parquet Balneario in Santos. The facility could hold as many as 722 spectators, so both the attendance figures and profits were still excellent." The protest gestures were by now becoming more regular, organized, and elaborate. In his diary Marinetti commented: "According to Consul Marinangeli, they [my opponents] are clearly paid to do this. ... They depart only to return to the hotel where among the palms bamboo they stage a candlelight procession that simulates my funeral."" The death sentence would be confirmed only two days later when the poet delivered a final SAo Paulo lecture on the topic of painting from Giotto and Michelangelo to Boccioni. This time the prices were again set high, but gone were the students rushing the gate, the police, the intensive press coverage, the air of agitation and controversy. The result was the tour's first modest turnout. Only 164 out of the 1,328 places in the Cassino Antirtica were filled." Though certainly not a small town, SaIo Paulo in 1926 could ill afford three lectures delivered by the same writer within less than two weeks. So, in contrast with the crescendo pattern of Rio, the SIo Paulo phase started with a bang and ended with a whimper.

Marinetti's pockets, nonetheless, ended up well lined. The six public lectures



122 South Central Review for which documentation has survived had netted him 5:946$320 contos (or $850 in 1926 U.S. dollars) out of the 30:543$000 that went to Viggiani-this in addition to first-class travel costs for him and Benedetta, several other honoraria (including a perhaps sizable one from the SocietA Dante Alighieri, where he spoke on 22 May), and a generous per diem covering first-class eating and lodging, both provided by the impresario.ss So Marinetti had good reason to conclude that he was "very satisfied with [his] Brazilian sojourn, which has yielded results exceeding even [his] wildest imaginings."" The first portion of the trip had provided a small windfall.

A full account of the journey's continuation is beyond the scope of the present essay, but let it be said that its mixed success was a direct result of expectations created by Argentine press coverage of the Brazilian portion of the tour.87 The press's emphasis on the putatively causal link between Marinetti's political pronouncements and the various riots and food fights placed the entire trip in serious jeopardy. On the one hand, it made Viggiani, the theater owners, cultural circles, and host intellectuals fear the worst-namely, that they were being used for political purposes, that their facilities could be damaged, that they would be politically tainted, that they would lose money and/or prestige. On the other hand, it ran the risk of undermining Marinetti's larger goal-to foment a "triumphal explosion of Futurism in South America." However close their historical ties, Futurism was not reducible to fascism nor fascism to Futurism; and the political controversy stirred up in advance of his arrival ran the risk of hijacking the larger cultural-political message. The situation was salvaged by having Marinetti hum an apolitical mantra even before he disembarked on Argentine soil. "I have come to Argentina, just as I came to Brazil," he would tirelessly repeat to the press and on the radio, "with the sole intention of broadcasting Futurism's theories and nothing more."8

From a financial standpoint the second phase of the journey also proved lucrative, though, in a letter, Benedetta would sum the experience up as a "wild success, glory, glory; as always, [with] very modest financial rewards."89 At least twelve lectures were performed between Argentina and Uruguay:

1) Teatro Coliseo, Buenos Aires, 11 June 1926; topic, "On the Origins and True Concept of Futurism"; 498 spectators (total capacity 1,770 places); total gate receipts of 1,744 pesos, of which 323.80 for FTM.9

2) Main Hall, School of Architecture, Faculty of Exact, Physical, and Natural Sciences, Buenos Aires, 12 June 1926; topic, "Futurism and Architecture"; no attendance or financial data available.9'

3) Teatro Coliseo, Buenos Aires, 15 June 1926; topic, "Theater and Futurism"; 528 spectators, with total gate receipts of 2,200 pesos, of which 415 for FTM.9

4-6) Asociaci6n de Amigos de Arte, Buenos Aires, 17-19 June 1926; partial data available only for 17 June: unknown attendance; total gate receipts of 38 pesos, of which 7.80 for FTM.



Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Joao Cezar de Castro Rocha 123

7) Asociaci6n Wagneriana, Buenos Aires, 17 June 1926; topic, "Music and Musicians from Wagner to Russolo"; no attendance data available; total gate receipts of 700 pesos, of which 140 for FTM."

8) Circulo Italiano, Buenos Aires, 18 June 1926; topic, "The Futurist Poets: Buzzi, Folgore, Carli, Settimeli"; no attendance or financial data available.9

9) Teatro Argentino, La Plata, 19 June 1926; 126 spectators (total capacity 1,612 places); total gate receipts of 274 pesos, of which 21.15 for FTM.

10) El Circulo, Rosario, 25 June 1926; unknown attendance; total gate receipts of 600 pesos, of which 120 for FTM.

11) Teatro Coliseo, Buenos Aires, 27 June 1926; topic, "Sport, Play, Luxury, Fashion, Hair, and Tactilism"; 433 spectators; total gate receipts of 1,522 pesos, of which 279.40 for FTM.93

12) Teatro Artigas, Montevideo, 29 June 1926; 398 spectators; total gate receipts of 354.20, of which 65.84 pesos for FTM.

Adding together figures from the eight lectures for which gate receipts are available, one arrives at a profit of 1,373 Argentine pesos. The sum may be compared to the estimated annual income of a working-class household of four, estimated at 1,995 pesos for the year in question, or to the annual salary of a high-school teacher, with the highest possible grade of seniority, set at 3,300

96 pesos.

IV Uma Inimizade Desvairada (Marinetti vs. MHrio de Andrade) I return enchanted to Brazil. Rio de Janeiro inspired in me the most vivid and pleasurable impressions. In this city, I felt my sensibilities physically and intellectually sharpened in a most serene and joyful manner

From an intellectual standpoint, it gratified me to encounter in Rio an intense literary and artistic movement, counting on beautiful intelligences and capacities far above the average. Futurism is understood and defended by an elite, equally skillful both in prose and poetry. Graqa Aranha and Ronald de Carvalho shine among the precursors of the new art.

In spite of the tumultuous reception with which Sao Paulo welcomed me, this city also inspired some remarkable impressions.



124 South Central Review I have met an avant-garde of intellectuals that brilliantly represent Brazilian literature. I keep a grateful remembrance of the shining group of futurists of S~lo Paulo. Above all, I single out Guilherme de Almeida and Mrs. Olivia

Penteado.97. Like every good epic journey, Marinetti's ended where it began: in the "ocean

theater" of Rio de Janeiro. So it was that, in early July 1926, the day before his return aboard the ocean liner Giulio Cesare to Italian shores, the founder of Futurism sought out Sdrgio Buarque de Holanda, a member of the original welcoming party, to whom he granted the interview quoted above. Published in the pages of O Jornal on 11 July 1926 under the title "Marinetti in Rio Again: His Impressions of South America as Told During a Visit to O Jornal," this final public appearance completed the cycle of self-promotional activities stipulated in his contract with Viggiani.

The interview mostly recapitulates the observations of a tourist (observations that had already been aired in prior Argentine interviews)." It also contains surprises, notably on the Paulista front. Aranha and de Carvalho seem plausible enough as Rio's "precursors of the new art" (though neither was mentioned in the 1924 Manifesto of World Futurism). But Guilherme de Almeida and Olivia Guedes Penteado as "shining Futurists"? To any contemporary student of Brazilian modernism, steeped in the writings of towering figures such as Mirio de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade, the second pairing seems incongruous. Although a co-organizer of the 1922 Week of Modem Art, de Almeida was a cultural conservative who had never quite relinquished his ties to Parnassianism and Symbolism. He was described unflatteringly in Marinetti's diary as "extremely delicate, refined, ultra-elegant, face and body of an old monkey powdered up with parisianism and Mallarm6 he declaims with ardor and virile gestures a poem of his on The Dawn.""99 The portrait nicely captures the ambiguities that in 1930 would lead de Almeida to join the very institution that the key participants in the Week of Modem Art most reviled: the Brazilian Academy of Letters. At de Almeida's side during the above-noted reading stood the charming Penteado. The evening's hostess-a well-regarded collector and the owner of a "pavillion whose pure Futurist architecture was adomed with Futurist paintings"-appears in the diary as "Mrs. Penteada Telles [sic] ... a lover of the avant-gardes and Futurism.""0 Also at de Almeida's side was a second declaimer, omitted from the interview and the scene: M6.rio de Andrade.

To the erasure of Mirio's name-symptomatic of the ongoing battle for hegemony between Rio and Sao Paulo--one must add the lack of any reference to Oswald de Andrade. Paulista modernism's sheen was directly traceable to these two writers-so much so that, were it not for the partnership they forged during the early 1920s, the modernist movement might never have gained ascendancy. M0irio de Andrade's assigned role was that of the visionary. His main concern was the movement's intellectual stance.'0o' Oswald de Andrade was instead the movement's dynamo. A gifted agitator, he succeeded in mobilizing its




forces and rallying to its cause a wide array of distinguished allies. Together, MArio and Oswald formed the team that, while it lasted, ensured the success of the Week of Modem Art as well as numerous prior and subsequent triumphs. When the team split up, the different paths pursued by each gave rise to two parallel universes of modernist literary criticism and historiography, universes whose legacy can be felt even in the present.

Awareness of this backdrop is essential in order to fully understand Marinetti's remarks to de Holanda: they are literally passdist. The Futurist founder ended up choosing as his key allies figures that future literary historians would consider secondary or minor within the pantheon of Brazilian modernism. That it was necessary to choose sides Marinetti intuited correctly, as is made clear throughout his diary. A typical entry is that of 26 May:

2 years ago Del Picchio with Aranha Carvalho Bandeira Andrade de Almeida Prado staged modernist Futurist week at Municipal Theater. Now he's at odds with Andrade, attacked Almeida's last book. Mkrio de Andrade, Tallarico, and many other journalists visit.'02

Beyond the misspellings and erroneous datings (the Week of Modem Art took place four years earlier) lies an accurate insight. By mid-1926 Brazilian modernism was splintering along aesthetic and political lines. Right-wing, left- wing, and apolitical modernisms were beginning to diverge, to battle for recruits, to seek an audience, clientele, and state patronage. Even before it had come out into the open, the sifting process had created the need for a rhetorical shift. Whereas in 1922 a phrase such as the "modernist Futurist week," although already fraught with problems, could still have been uttered by some of the event's organizers, in 1926 it seemed to some less a winning formula than a stumbling block. The shift in perceptions reflects several intervening years of efforts to leave behind the negative iconoclastic image of the 1922 Week in favor of a vision of modern artists as "builders" of a new nation. Within this setting, a battle over nomenclature erupted and left in its wake a semantic split. The term "Futurism " became generically associated with a noisy, indiscriminate, and only thinly substantial assault on all manifestations of the past, while its positive counterpart, "modernism, " came to refer instead to those substantial new forms of culture deeply informed by the realities of nationhood. The split's impact on Marinetti's visit is everywhere in evidence from the cartoons published in contemporary daily newspapers to the celebratory and critical discourses that framed his stage shows to the numerous words-in-freedom pastiches published in newspapers by contemporary satirists. His arrival came several years after the fullness of time. Had he visited Brazil two years earlier, "the affectionate encounter of Italian Futurism and South American Futurism" might have engendered far less anxiety.

There would have been another perhaps decisive advantage if the trip had taken place in 1924 and not 1926. The author of Zang Tumb Tumb would have had the opportunity to meet a figure who could have played a crucial mediating



126 South Central Review role: Oswald de Andrade. In mid-1926, however, Oswald was abroad. He returned to Brazil only in the month following Marinetti's departure and thus is absent from Brazilian Velocities, the July interview, the polemics, and the diaries. Oswald's sympathies for and affinities with the Italian movement dated back to 1912 when, in the course of his first voyage to Europe, he had read with interest the 1909 "Manifesto and Foundation of Futurism," a text whose impact on his own conceptions should not be overlooked. ?3 During the teens and twenties his principal ties were to the French avant-garde, most famously of all to Blaise Cendrars.'04 Yet in 1921 Oswald could still find no higher term of praise for MArio's Pauliceia Desvairada (Hallucinated City) than to designate its author as "my Futurist poet."'05 To a degree far greater than any of his peers, Oswald's understanding of Futurism encompassed its insights into the self- promotional nature of the contemporary culture industry. He regularly provoked (and welcomed) public attacks and criticism much like those which had greeted Marinetti. And he saw modernist artistic practice and public self-staging as intimately intertwined, managing to merge the two in his contributions to the Week of Modern Art.

If Oswald's absence represented a missed opportunity, MArio de Andrade's presence must have seemed like an affliction, particularly as the trip dragged on. MArio was a literal man of letters who built for himself a powerful network via a system of epistolary exchanges so extensive that it came to encompass the majority of the new generation of Brazilian writers and critics. While usually analyzed only in terms of the personal relations between correspondents, this massive body of writing provides the basis for an "institutional" history of Brazilian modernism that would substantially challenge many long-held pieties.'"6 This epistolary system's effects were multiple. It allowed Mirio to choreograph and control events, to shape the intellectual horizons of younger writers, and to cast himself in the role of daily chronicler of the history of Brazilian contemporary literature. The last of these would prove the most important function, for it established him as the key arbiter between his generation and successive generations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Mirio's networking talents, it was he who in 1922 had taken the initiative to establish direct contact with Marinetti, sending him a copy of his Hallucinated City, bearing the dedication "To / F. T. Marinetti / with warm affection and admiration."''07 Marinetti was all too eager to reciprocate and named both MArio and Yan de Almeida Prado (along with Blaise Cendrars) among the "unknowing or declared Futurists" listed in his January 1924 Manifesto of World Futurism, a text reproduced without modification in Futurism-Manifestos by Marinetti and His Followers.'08 No subsequent contacts appear to have occurred until shortly before Marinetti's 1926 visit when, as de Almeida Prado recalls it, "out of the blue I received a note from another impresario announcing that Marinetti was going to undertake a South American tour and that, naturally, he was counting on my support."'" MAirio too must have received such a note, but, by the time it reached him (which is to say in advance of the 13 May disembarkation),




Viggiani's cause was lost. Whatever good will existed on Mirio's part had evaporated, whether due to ambivalence regarding his inclusion in the 1924 manifesto, to nationalist and antifascist sentiments, and/or to anxieties regarding the Futurist founder's circus show/lecture tour and its impact on the Brazilian scene. This much is clear from an undated letter sent to Prudente de Moraes Neto on the eve of the poet's arrival:

I arrive in Rio aboard the Zelandia. Wait for me at the quay to arrange things. I'm not sure which hotel I'm staying in. So, plan to be there and embrace me. I am going to welcome Marinetti. Ha! Ha! Ha! It's Viggiani who's paying for everything. Ha! Ha! Ha! Otherwise I wouldn't go. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! To welcome Marinetti. Haha! Ha! Ha! (This is a new little ditty.)"o

De Andrade's initial coolness towards foreign avant-gardist interlopers was well- known. In the March 1924 issue of Revista do Brasil, for instance, he had published a mostly amicable article about the arrival in Brazil of Blaise Cendrars but had gone on to hint that the Swiss poet was in reality Blaise Sans-Bras (Armless Blaise). (Cendrars, who had lost an arm, was held up in Brazilian customs due to questions regarding his conformity with immigration laws.) The article quipped:

The authorities in Santos tried to prevent him from disembarking because of his handicap. Fortunately for us, a solution was found. But the authorities' efforts fill me with sincere pride. After all, what benefit do we derive from mutilated men? Brazil doesn't need limbless men, Brazil needs arms."'

De Andrade's source may have been none other than the Manifesto of World Futurism, which several months earlier had listed the author of La Prose du Transsibdrien (Prose of the Trans-Siberian) as "the wireless [le Sans Fil] Blaise Cendrars, filmer of negro dreams," playing on the echo Sans-Fil and Cen- drars."2 That his intentions were less friendly than Marinetti's, however, is confirmed by de Almeida Prado, who notes that de Andrade disliked even Cendrars at first because he "abhorred the arrival in his parish of another pope.""3 The case of Marinetti's arrival is even more clear-cut, as indicated by the mocking "Ha! Ha! Ha!'s" that stud the above-quoted letter (which presage, in turn, the icy fagade MArio would put on over coming weeks). The target of its opprobrium seems as much Viggiani's largesse as Marinetti's naive confidence that he would be surrounded by fellow Futurists. Why had the impresario paid MArio's way to the welcoming ceremony? Surely because his attendance would have been of considerable value in marketing Marinetti's lecture tour as a media event. Named in the 1924 manifesto as principal rival of Aranha for the leadership of the modernist movement and author of the notorious January 1926 open letter, de Andrade was a key symbol. His presence in the welcoming party would have transformed the event into a spectacular double reunion, an



128 South Central Review "affectionate embrace" not only between Italian Futurism and South American Futurism, but also between the Carioca and Paulista wings of modernism."4 A 4 June letter to Luis da C~mara Cascudo, who later became Brazil's most important folklorist, hints at de Andrade's awareness of the potential symbolism:

The newspapers reported that I went to Rio to welcome Marinetti. That's an outright lie. I didn't go. I intended [pretendi] to go, changed my mind later, and am persuaded that I did the right thing."s

The defiant stance appears to soften in another letter, written to Bandeira sometime between the two just cited, in which Marinetti functions as a screen for concerns about perceptions within de Andrade's epistolary network:

How are you doing? I felt terrible about what happened: all of you waiting for me and me not there. But, believe me, on the eve everything fell half apart, only to fully fall apart on the morning of my departure .... You can't imagine what a strong reaction the honor that I was about to grant Marinetti was causing, especially among my many friends. I had to provide them with explanations and, for that matter, still have to do so by answering the many letters I received on this topic."6

Mirio was maneuvering on both sides of the fence. On the one hand, he needed to apologize to his waiting friends (though not to Marinetti) so as not to alienate potential allies within the Rio-based modernist circle. On the other hand, he was looking for an excuse for his absence, but an excuse that would underscore his leadership role in Sao Paulo, hence the invocation of "strong" pressures against his cooperation on the part of local friends. Elided amidst the slippery moves and countermoves is any definition of the "honor" denied Marinetti. Would it have consisted in the mere facticity of de Andrade's welcoming gesture (which might well have been interpreted as a gesture of submission to a European master), or would it instead have derived from his consent to the ceremony's symbolism and promotional use (a recognition, in turn, of Marinetti's mass- marketing approach to modernism)? The answer appears to be "both" in the earlier-cited letter to Luis da Camara Cascudo, which goes on to describe two meetings with Marinetti:

Here in Slo Paulo I saw him only twice and my disillusionment was great. His work had never interested me (because it is flat and dumb [pau e besta]), but I had at least expected a livelier, more engaging fellow.

Three days after his arrival in Silo Paulo I went to see him [for the first time on 26 May]. I felt that I had no choice but to do so since he had long been considerate to me back in Italy. I arrived and the first thing I told him was that I hadn't attended his lecture because I disagreed with the methods ofpropaganda he was using. He reacted



Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Jolo Cezar de Castro Rocha 129

coolly and blamed his manager. Then he went on and on, exhausting me with matters I already knew about. I said good-bye and hope that I succeeded in dispelling any illusions regarding the MArio whom he imagined a Futurist. I also hope that this marks the definitive end to our contacts.

The second time was at the modem salon of Dona Olivia Penteado. He was a total snore. I elected not to seek him out any longer and feigned indifference. I was told that he left feeling indignant. So much the better. In Rio he was warmly embraced by the moderns and was honored-undeservedly, in my view-by being introduced by Graqa in the theater and Ronald on the radio. I cannot fathom their enthusiasm for him, especially Manuel Bandeira's. "7

Mixing private concerns with public matters, writing as if for a limited- circulation newspaper, de Andrade filters his chronicle of Marinetti's tour through a highly personal, self-interested lens. His key concern is to sever all genealogical ties to the Futurist founding father in the service of claims to superiority and autonomy. The immediate bones of contention are the "methods" characteristic of a lecture tour that, directed at a mass audience, would exploit all the possible meanings of the word "propaganda": advertising hype, media saturation, scandalmongering, showboating on stage, the preaching of promiscuously intermingled cultural and political gospels, and photo opportunities. That the deeper bone of contention, however, remains the Rio/Sao Paulo turf battle is confirmed in a letter to Bandeira, written before the 26 May visit:

So I haven't seen him thus far and it seems that, disgusted [by the raucous reception he received on 25 May], in the theater [of the Cassino AntArtica] he stated that all of Brazil's Futurists were in Rio de Janeiro. I'm unsure whether this is true, but no doubt it is since it was repeated by many of today's newspapers. But tomorrow, Wednesday, I'll be visiting him. If he doesn't want to receive me, so much the better. At least this will permit us to avoid a fierce argument, for I fully intend to speak out openly about my views regarding the way he has operated here [do procedimento dele aqui] and to state that I did not attend the lecture because I am unwilling to be a party to the spectacle of more or less staged shouting matches.""

Though an unwilling Marinettian Futurist, de Andrade was nettled by the implications of Marinetti's reported taunt. His response was to call into question not just the poet-performer's modus operandi (arguing, for instance, that the crowd reaction on 24 May was "more or less staged"), but also Marinetti's standing as leader of the world Futurist movement. To this end de Andrade replied to the assertion that Brazil's true Futurists were all in Rio by letting Marinetti know that, as far as he was concerned, Italy's true Futurists were all



130 South Central Review ex-Futurists. The point was made twice in the course of his 26 May visit. First, he harangued his interlocutor with "questions concerning Folgore and Palazzeschi, my favorite Italian authors at that time," which Marinetti is said to have "answered involuntarily" (presumably because both stood outside the movement's Marinettian mainstream)."9 Second, he honored Marinetti with a copy of A Escrava que ndo Isaura (The Slave Who Isn't Isaura [1925]), which he inscribed with the dedication "To F. T. Marinetti / the futurist agitator / with the greetings of Mirio de Andrade, S. Paulo 26/V/926." The gesture seems anomalous to Fabris: "To someone who disagreed with Marinetti's methods of action... these words cannot fail to surprise."'20 Yet the book was less a gift than a disguised bomb. It featured numerous provocatory statements like the assertion that Folgore was "perhaps the greatest and certainly the most modern of the Italian Futurists."'2' It exalted Palazzeschi, providing a full transcription of his poem "La Fontana Malata."'22 Most of all, it contained the following appraisal of Marinetti's work:

Marinetti invented words-in-freedom. That is, Marinetti discovered something that had always existed, and made a serious mistake by taking as an end-product what was actually little more than a fleeting means of expression. His words-in-freedom verses are intolerable in their hermeticism, falseness, and monotony.m

The offering was, in reality, a snub, and its dedication to "F. T. Marinetti / the futurist agitator" must be read as the erasure of another dedication: to "F. T. Marinetti / the futurist poet."

MArio's challenges to Marinetti had as their ultimate target Aranha. Denounced in the January 1926 open letter as a passeist, Aranha had wagered that by welcoming Marinetti as the global patriarch of the movement he would counter such accusations and shore up his national leadership claims. His preamble to the first Rio lecture had thus hinted at genealogical parallelisms between the Italian and Brazilian scenes. "Marinetti founded and organized the liberation movement," he began. "This is his enormous contribution. ... Confronted by this contribution, how ludicrous it is to debate whether Marinetti's Futurism is now passeist."'24 In the next few paragraphs, Aranha transitioned smoothly over to the Brazilian scene, implying that the recognition of Marinetti's inaugural role amounted to recognition that, as principal animator of the Week of Modern Art, he himself was worthy of the same sort of honors due Marinetti. Mrio de Andrade responded to this gambit by accepting the latter proposition and turning it on its head. Aranha had indeed cast himself in the role of a Brazilian Marinetti and, according to the principle of "like father, like son," both were equally outmoded. But a degree of degeneration was unavoidable. Whereas the one had at least engendered an epochal avant-garde movement before World War I, the other was little more than a modernist simulacrum.'" In both cases, de Andrade concluded that the most effective strategy would be to publicly distance himself from Marinetti and to privately




saturate his epistolary network with letters telling his version of the story and diminishing the Italian's importance.

Caught up as an unwitting pawn in this local genealogical struggle, Marinetti opted for the alliances that seemed closest at hand. He omitted MArio from his pantheon of "shining" Paulista Futurists, replaced him with de Almeida and Penteado, and affirmed his ties to Aranha and de Carvalho as "precursors of the new art." His diaries suggest that his reaction to the "feigned indifference" exhibited by the author of Hallucinated City in the course of their second meeting, at the home of Penteado, was hardly indignation, for during the ensuing month of travel he would continue to publicly invoke de Andrade's name as that of a supporter. Rather, his reaction was a private countercharge:

I encounter Mbrio Andrade [sic], Guilherme de Almeida. I declaim Bombardment. MArio Andrade, rude tall guy with face of good white negro declaims a sigh-filled and milky nocturne of his.'26

The one-time ally of the Manifesto of World Futurism resurfaces here as a decadent poet wandering amidst mellifluous words and symbolist metaphors, poet whose natural abode would surely not have been the streets, mobs, and factories of the modern metropolis sung in the 1909 founding manifesto. Having agreed to disagree, Marinetti and de Andrade swapped accusations of passdism, though mostly privately. They did not see each other again. De Andrade was no longer invited to any of Marinetti's public or private appearances, and he failed to attend the other two lectures Marinetti delivered in SAo Paulo. But de Andrade would have the last laugh. Broadcasting the story of Marinetti's visit across his national epistolary network, he etched in stone the version of events that this essay has tried to contextualize and to revise.

V Epilogue: The Lecture Biz

"Short on Money? Lecture!" This was the title given by Joel Silveira to an interview with Grieco, the era's most prolific lecturer."27 According to the journalist, rumor had it that Grieco, after numerous years of performing regularly throughout Brazil, had earned the tidy sum of "nearly 300 contos." Grieco replied, "300 contos of r6is? More, my dear, I have earned much more than that. You cannot fathom what a gold mine is the lecture business."'28 Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that Marinetti's "proclaiming to the great public and mass newspapers the beauty of modern life" had indeed marked an innovation on the South American scene.'29 It crafted a new image of the public intellectual as mass media showman and businessman. Thanks to only six lectures delivered in French, working hand-in-hand with a professional promoter, the Italian poet had been able to saturate the Brazilian public sphere for two weeks and to earn nearly six contos, a sum earned above and beyond



132 South Central Review first-class living and travel expenses for him and his wife. The novelty resided not in money-making per se, but in the boisterous character of the Futurist road show.

Lecturing had long been recognized as a potential source of extra income for Brazilian intellectuals. It was thus hardly surprising that epistolary networks like that of MArio de Andrade should be readily translateable into (potentially) lucrative lecture circuits. A 19 March 1926 letter to Bandeira alludes to such a conversion:

I am going to Bahia, Recife and Rio Grande do Norte where a dear friend of mine (whom I have never seen in person) resides: Luis da Caimara Cascudo. ... He will line up two lectures in the north, one in Recife and another in Natal. This money, along with the two contos I will bring along, will cover expenses for the trip.13

Only one week before this letter was composed, de Andrade had written to his "dear" but faceless friend:

I have a serious elocution problem, I am not capable of coming up with an improvised talk, I scramble everything and the ideas become boring and poorly conveyed. Therefore, I am obliged to write down the classes that I have to teach.'3'

The juxtaposition of these two letters points to the personalized nature of the conventional literary lecture circuit. Da Cfimara Cascudo had not hesitated to organize fully two lectures despite de Andrade's self-proclaimed limitations as a public speaker and the fact that the two had never met.

The analogy between Mario de Andrade, leader of Paulista modernism on tour in the Brazilian northeast, and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, leader of Italian Futurism on tour in South America, might seem tempting. Both were "foreign" lecturers traveling for the first time to unfamiliar regions on a cultural-political mission. Both were inspired by self-interest, curiosity, and the need for supplementary income. But here the similarity ends. Marinetti was an able improviser, entertainer, provocateur, and crafter of slogans whose mode of self- staging relied upon the existence of a public sphere made up of layered but separate public and private patronage networks. De Andrade was the product of another context. Not far removed from a traditional South American man of letters, he found himself obliged to shape his entire writerly persona around a cultural system directly dependent upon state funding (dependent, in turn, upon personal ties). It is therefore unsurprising that, as would be the case with many other Brazilian modernists, part of the mature phase of de Andrade's career was spent in the garb of a public functionary.132 To state the matter otherwise, the traditional social role assigned to the South American man of letters exemplified what, in his extraordinarily influential 1936 book Raizes do Brasil (Roots of Brazil), Sdrgio Buarque de Holanda called the "cordial man" (homem cordial).33




A member of Marinetti's welcoming party and the editor of his final interview, Buarque de Holanda argued that Brazilian society was characterized by a hypertrophy of the private space whose aftermath were literal "men of the heart"--men whose decisions are always "cordial" (cordis [Latin] = heart) or passionate because guided more by personal acquaintance than by universal principles or laws.

Within a social framework of this kind it becomes easy to envisage the audience of de Andrade's northeastern lectures. For it, his skill or lack of skill as a reader, improviser, and orator mattered little, if at all, because its core would have been made up of correspondents and readers, "dear friends" who, though not yet encountered face to face, were already admirers of de Andrade's work. Marinetti's audience was of a different kind. So it is hardly surprising that his road show appeared as either a scandal or a failure when viewed from the perspective of the "cordial" lecture circuit. Far from a given, this audience's allegiance and/or familiarity would have to be earned--earned on the basis of the lecturer-performer's ability to literally embody the values espoused by his movement, to fuse medium, vehicle, and message in the service of a pre- established advertising slogan: the triumphal explosion of Futurism in South America.

Appendix I: Marinetti's Yelocitd brasilianeTM

A) Commentary:

The autograph manuscript of Velocitct brasiliane, found in the Marinetti Archive at the Yale Beinecke Library (series IV ["Writings"], box 37, folder 1665), appears to be based upon an initial draft composed (and, in part, performed) during the first days of Marinetti's visit and then reshaped soon after the Futurist leader's departure from the South American continent on 12 July 1926. It represents a second- or third-stage redaction, mixing materials from the first two chapters of a more ambitious yet very rough eight-part travelogue entitled Varie velocitc~ dal mio amoroso possesso di Rio de Janeiro (Various Velocities from My Amorous Possession of Rio de Janeiro [Beinecke series IV, "Writings," box 37, folder 1660]). Aside from the latter's allusions to the return trip from Buenos Aires to Rio, both texts are concerned with episodes that predate the events narrated in the surviving segment of the poet's diary (published as "Tourn6e nell'America del Sud," in Taccuini, 516-41) whose first entry reads "Thursday May 20." Since the ship Giulio Cesare reached Brazil only on 13 May 1926, this means that the source material for both was culled from the first week of Marinetti's sojourn.

Several points need to be made by way of introducing Velocitci brasiliane to



134 South Central Review contemporary readers. Like so much of Marinetti's literary production, this words-in-freedom narrative is rigorously autobiographical and puts itself forward as a kind of Futurist reportage. At once hyperlyrical and hyperbolic, it blurs the boundary between fantasy and fact. Proof to this effect arrives in the form of a second version of the events that it recounts-that of Benedetta, excerpted from a post-trip essay in which she celebrated the "avant-garde genius" of Aranha:

On board the Giulio Cesare, Rio de Janeiro, 7 a.m. The boat tied up only a few minutes ago. ... Enormous mobile cranes twist their powerful pierced necks towards us to snap up our load. In the distance the primitive tin wood huts heaped up the hill of the Moro della Favella [sic], abode of blacks. I join Marinetti on the bridge. Enclosed within the affectionate circle of the Brazilian poets Carvalho, Bandeira, Pongetti, Silveira, Almeida, Agrippino Grieco, Italian friends, journalists. As soon as he spots me he introduces Graga Aranha, poet and head of the avant-garde group of Brazilian Futurists."35

The overlap is so close as to raise the prospect that Benedetta's recollections were already shaped by her prior knowledge of VelocitM brasiliane.'" Whatever the case may be, the text's closeness to lived experience does not imply a rigid adherence to chronological sequence. On the contrary, as was typical of Marinetti's practice of writing, passages from VelocitU brasiliane were freely spun off and reworked in other texts and contexts. In the chapter devoted to the "great Futurist banquet of Tunis," found in Una sensibilith italiana nata in Egitto (An Italian Sensibility Born in Egypt) for instance, snippets from the poem's beginning and end recur, interwoven with recollections of other journeys to Argentina (for the tumultuous 1936 meeting of the Pen Club), Egypt, and Tunisia, and intercut with descriptions of two "premieres" from the 1926 trip: Aranha's presentation of him in Rio de Janeiro's Teatro Lirico on 15 May and the riotous scene of Marinetti's first performance in Sao Paulo's Cassino AntArtica (24 May). A play composed during the homeward journey aboard the Giulio Cesare, L 'oceano nel cuore (Ocean in the Heart, performed with sets by Benedetta in November 1927), bears equally close links, though introducing fantastic elements such as Carioca carnival scenes.

Even more striking is the recycling performed in Novelle con le labbra tinte (Novellas Wearing Lipstick [1930]), where the Brazilian and Balkan contexts are intermixed. Entitled "The Logic of Ahmed Bey," the novella revisits a scene from Marinetti's war epic Zang Tumb Tumb and describes his 1912 encounter with the young Turkish diplomat Ahmed Bey in Adrianopolis. Spotting Bey weeping alongside the headless cadaver of his brother, Marinetti (in the guise of a reporter for the Parisian daily Gil Bias) helps him to carry the dead body to a nearby mosque.'37 Fifteen years later, Ahmed Bey surfaces once again, bankrupt and exiled, in a most improbable context: on the decks of the ocean liner Massilia, which is steaming along the Brazilian coast towards the Carioca




capital.'m A reunion scene at sundown concludes with the following valediction by Ahmed Bey:

Do you believe what they say about the bay of Rio? Is it as beautiful as is claimed? As for myself, I doubt it. Nothing in the world can equal the splendorous sunsets of Pera. Good night! Tomorrow at dawn we will pronounce our definitive verdict concerning this marvel ofmarvels! . . .m

Marinetti goes to sleep, Ahmed Bey lingers until dawn. As announced, the hour ofjudgment arrives as a curtain/sun rises over a tropical theater/landscape lifted, word for word, out of Velocitti brasiliane. Whereas in the latter the spectacle's appearance had induced a scene of coupling or "amorous possession" between the Futurist poet and the feminized bay, in Novelle con le labbra tinte the vision proves too much for the forlorn Turk. With a cry of "[i]t's just too beautiful! It's more beautiful than the Bosphorus! Poor Istambul!" he launches himself over the side of the Massilia and dies a death whose aesthetic and patriotic cause only Marinetti can know.140

What these examples go to show is that Velocitt brasiliane and the Brazilian experiences and fantasies that it documents were of some significance to Marinetti's later development. Disembarking in Brazil, he imagined himself entering an ideal world-a Futurist paradise combining raucous publicity, tropical splendor, a dazzling palate of new plants and words, fast automobiles, and industrial noise, a paradise inhabited by friends and fellow travellers such that the coupling of poet and bay finds its immediate counterpart in the "affectionate encounter between Italian Futurism and South American Futurism." Such at least were Marinetti's hopes as he and Benedetta stepped off the Giulio Cesare and into the vortex of Brazilian cultural politics.

The edition that follows provides not only the text of Velocitc brasiliane but also the erasures made in the process of its redaction. Comparable passages from Novelle con le labbra tinte and Una sensibilitci italiana nata in Egitto, as well as biographical and historical references, are all indicated in the notes. Bracketed numbers refer to the page numbers of the original manuscript.

B) Text: [1]

Velociti Brasiliane Rio, palcoscenico del teatro Oceano

Sul ponte di comando del Giulio Cesare, a fianco di un magnifico italiano il comandante Isuardi. Alba. La nave inebriata fende col cordame nero di prua un vasto semicerchio di oceano viola.141

Fende piu su un vasto semicerchio di profili di montagne neri irritati e convulsi con fuochi di bivacchi rosei gii vermigli mal celati dai denti di sega delle cime lontane. In alto la nave fende un vasto [2] semicerchio di cielo verde tutto



136 South Central Review smeraldi e pappagalli sgargianti sognati dai bambini negri che giocano sotto i

fel:issim;a...n.tibamb.142" La nave fende pid in alto un vasto semicerchio di nuvole d'oro caldo, e ancor pid in alto un vasto semicerchio di cielo blu madonna estasi verginitA tenerezza materna.143

La nave infila poi un cerchietto zenitale di nuvolette d'oro pallido che diventa l'aureola vibrante del trinchetto.44

Ora la nave avanza trascinando con se come una sposa distratta tutti questi nastri e veli di [3]mafreoceano e di cielo che le fasciano l'alto petto dalla prua alla cima dell'albero maestro.'45

Alla nostra sinistra Pan de Azucar m.w

in fna,

di, aft; di

zu....r&

mi appare come un gobbo immenso efsegi~e- curvo inseguito da un altro -et~e monte gobbo il Corcovado.'" Davanti alla prua il cielo intaccatodalle dai denti di sega dei monti si screpola e si spacca con entusiasmo roseo. Laggiit quel mistico forno chiuso fiata dalle commessure scarlatte un profumo tale che insapora tutto l'oceano.'47 Subitamente una colata d'oro liquido straripa dalla piii lontana catena di montagne e l'oceano muta il suo viola in un azzurro argentato e freddo.14 Con traballante e fischiante gioia di cordami infantili la nave ha alza[4]to tutte le sue metalliche orecchie bocche tasche da vento per udire bere insaccare note d'oro liquido fluidi pani dorati, languide frecce d'oro, farfalloni d'oro, gabbiani d'oro.149

La prua metodicamente frange raggere di legno dorato e onde di bronzo schiumoso. 1 Si alzano spiralicamente i vapori della caldaia oceanica e il sole di cubico caldo massiccio rovescia gidi nuovo bollore vermiglio nel cavo delle montagne che sembrano orlate d'oro impaurito.1

Evidentemente la baia di Rio de Janeiro [5] e innamorata del Giulio Cesare, questo promontorio d'Italia dal tagliente profilo imperiale152 che si stacca dalla penisola in cerca di porti degni delle sue dimensioni. La bella baia sicura di piacere e capace di amare offre tutte le curve delle sue spiagge e delle sue montagne e spalanca i suoi moli stringendo geometricamente il transatlantico sempre pid~t-s contro il suo cuore di traffico bollente.

In fretta il Giulio Cesare scrolla via dai fianchi la rampicante burocrazia di piloti polizia passaporti sanitA e vaccinazione e voluttuosamente sfiora [6] la banchina di sbarco. Dall'alto di questa cattedrale di ferro che non prega ma impone, domino le grandi gru metalliche, le tettoie dei depositi, highe-seale una lunghissima scala pesante portata a spalle da negri-neritorridi, i frenetici colli di cigni gigli di mille fazzoletti lo strombettante dinamismo delle miile automobili piene ebbfi- di barbagli e anguille solari, tutto un ingranamento di bene oliate velocitA futuriste.




Per6, a cento metri davanti a noi sonnecchia primitiva e quasi preistorica la collina di Moro de la favella,

.if-- gi",di zer-i aft,6"li, guartirz [7] ornata in

cresta da palme regali, tutta gibbosa di un sudiciume di scatole scatolette scatoloni in legno zingo detriti che servono di case ai negri piui antisociali e guardano dall'alto l'insolente ricchezza veloce delle avenide. Intanto le grida di W il Futurismo! W Marinetti! scoppiano sulla banchina, dove la piid grande gru automobile elefantescamente piantata colle zampe larghe sul binario incornicia sotto la sua pfe rigida proboscide alzata l'intero gruppo dei futuristi [8] brasiliani. In mezzo ai poeti Carvalho,153 Olanda,s54 Almeida, 55 Moras,'s Bandeira,'" Pongetti,L1 Silveira,'59 Grieco'" appare Graga Arfnhal'6 il forte quarantenne dal viso quadrato volitivo e ottimista che mi sorride e mi saluta cogli occhi intelligentissimi e accoglienti. Ex-ministro del Brasile a Parigi durante la guerra, romanziere e autore dramatico illustre di V Chanaau e di Malazarte,62 venne nominato grande accademico, tent6 di rivoluzionare l'accademia, non vi riusci perfettamente e diede le sue dimissioni, [9] conquistandosi cosi il prestigio e il titolo di capo del futurismo brasiliano.163 Mentre egli sale la scala seguito dai filturisti con la lentezza grave imposta dai gradini, l'ansia dell'incontro affettuoso fra il futurismo italiano e il futurismo dell'America del Sud diventa quasi dolorosa, a

forA ."'iensito; cosicch6 ricevo

con acuta emozione da Graga Aranha e dai suoi amici futuristi il tipico abbraccio brasiliano senza bacio ma seguito da un lieve battito della mano sulla schiena. [10] Presento la futurista Benedetta, e subito la nave viene conquistata all'abordaggio da un popolo di intervistatori fotografi e cinematografi. Gli italiani del Brasile ci salutano colla fervida gentilezza dei loro rappresentati: il console Fontana, e l'addetto Ciano mandati dall'ambasciatore Montagna, Luigi Sciutto capo i4 rappreseontante del Fascio, e il Comm. Vella presidente della Dante e il giovane amico futurista Colasanti.

Gidi sfilano sotto i vari plotoni di esecuzione delle macchine fotografiche.

-"eLn-"L [. Le comoditA del [111] Grnd Palace Hotel vengono per il

momento trascurate e ci lasciamo rapire Benedetta ed io dalla automobile ultraveloce di Graga Arfnha. Colle sue lunghe strade puntate come fucili-s!at contro la baia, Rio Janeiro spara le sue Fiat Alfa-Romeo Citroen nel fresco azzurro delle onde. Ma questi furbi proiettili virano ampiamente rasentando il tuffo e schizzano via sulla spiaggia d'asfalto sotto i fichi selvaggi i camerus'M e le palme bamb i. Fra l'oceano e gli alberi rom[12]bano i motori. Sono giovanissimi, spensierati, esuberanti, accaldati. Correre abbaiare ruggire, crepitare urlare. Ogni automobile contiene una tigre. Giocano i motori ad imitare le bestie del serraglio. Un camerus affranto di sonno caldo luci carezze e insetti, mostra svogliatamente alle automobili p--xpi ti;t

c., ch. p

:seia1c: una tavela brvna rd alempa-elet come un suo frutto naturale un negro dalla scorza bianca caduto a



138 South Central Review terra [13] sotto il peso delle sue lunghe braccia foglie nere. Un fico selvaggio cova sotto le sue penne vaste una cameriera negra in rosa grassa tonda come un uovo pasquale. 11 caldo aumenta malgrado la corsa refrigerante. Come topi frenetici si slanciano le automobili di qua di la nell'immensa trappola delle montagne che comincia a stringere in alto le sue sbarre di vapori oceanici. [14] Via! Via! Lontano fuori! A se potessero dare la scalata ai dirupi! Tutte oliate di riflessi ironici esse strombettano il loro disprezzo contro il lento sciacquio dei tagliatori di montagne che armati di potenti getti d'acqua, rammoliscono metodicamente calcari argille e tufi. o, C r a, c i

teffateFbilJ [14 bis]

Approfittiamo di un varco fra due alte fette di montagna tagliata per seguire fino all'avenida Atlantica l'immensa citti che sparge sulle -infinite spiagge arcuate della baia migliaia di villette ad un solo piano ombreggiato da un folto giardino. In alto i pennacchi delle palme regali sono i ventagli distratti dei caldi vapori oceanici. Piid in alto gli urub 65 ruotano lentamente librandosi come aeroplani.

--Caro ArAnha, Rio Janeiro 6 un frutto tropicale che ha un delizioso succo: la velocitA delle sue automobili. [15] M

.n.n e .onte.. wn&.mm. d%

....est. delizis" pf' "i"h .....amm. Pochi

minuti dopo avevamo la sorpresa gradita di trovare al Palace Hotel il nostro appartamento trasformato .in1-paradisiaa una fresca e odorosa foresta tropicale con piramidi di mammau lunghi mezzo metro, aranci e mandarini giganti, regimi monumentali di banane di 20 qualitA diverse. Letto tavolo scrivania dovunque profumava l'equatore. -ueeelente. Disprezzammo decisamente la [16] sala da pranzo per g-de-- 1 80lpa di Rio Janeirei- assaporare la crema bianca vanigliata del frutto do conte cuore di saporito di Rio de Janeiro!'66

F. T. Marinetti

C) Translation:

[1] Brazilian Velocities

Rio, stage of the Ocean theater

On the bridge of the Julius Caesar, alongside that magnificent Italian, Commander Isuardi. Dawn. The drunken ship with its black prow cordage sections a vast semicircle of violet sea.

Higher still it sections a vast semicircle of mountainsides black irritated and convulsed by bivouac fires now rosy once vermilion badly shielded from distant




summit sawteeth. Higher still the ship sections a vast [2] semicircle of sky all green from emeralds and gaudy peacocks dreamed up by black children playing beneath bamboo.

Higher again the ship sections a vast semicircle of hot gold clouds and higher still a vast semicircle of blue Madonna ecstasy virginity maternal tenderness sky. The ship then threads a supernal circle of pale gold cloudlets as its foremast's vibrant halo.

Now the vessel advances as if a distracted bride dragging all the ribbons and veils of [3] ocean and sky enfolding her breast from stern to mainmast.

On our left Sugarloaf looms as an immense hump hunched chased by Corcovado, another hunchback mount.

Before the bow heavens punctured by mountain sawteeth chap and crack with rosy enthusiasm. Down below through its scarlet joints that mystical furnace puffs a perfume that flavors the ocean as a whole. Suddenly liquid gold overflows the banks of the most distant mountain ridge and the sea swaps its violet for a silvery cool blue. With the swaying and whistling joy of childish cordage the ship has raised [4] every metallic ear mouth windsack so as to hear drink bag liquid gold notes fluid gilded loafs languid golden arrows gold gulls. The bow methodically cuts an aureole of gilded wood and waves of foamy bronze. Vapors from the oceanic boiler spiral upward and the sun a massive hot cube pours downward into the mountain hollow new vermilion boilings seemingly garlanded with pallid gold.

Clearly the bay of Rio de Janeiro [5] has fallen in love with the Julius Caesar, an Italian promontory with a razor sharp imperial profile that detaches itself from the peninsula in the pursuit of ports worthy of its proportions. The beautiful bay certain to enchant and ready for love, tenders the curves of its beaches and mountains and throws open its quays, geometrically pressing the Transatlantic ever more firmly against its hot traffic heart.

The Julius Caesar quickly shakes off its flanks the clambering bureaucracy of pilots police passports health vaccinations and voluptuously brushes up [6] against the landing pier. From atop this iron cathedral that dictates and asks not, I oversee great metallic cranes, warehouse rooftops, the longest and heaviest of ladders riding on torrid negro shoulders, a thousand handkerchiefs waving like frenetic swans' necks, the trumpeting dynamism of cars loaded with glare and solar eels, the whole a machine of well-oiled Futurist velocities.

But only one hundred meters away slumbers the primitive almost prehistoric Morro de la Favela [7] crested with royal palms a humpback of filth of boxes/tins medium little big in wood zinc rubbish assembled into homes for the most antisocial negros and staring down from above at the insolent speeding riches of



140 South Central Review the streets.

Meanwhile cries of Long live Futurism! Long live Marinetti! erupt on the pier, where a vast car crane its wide paws splayed elephant-like across the quay frames under its rigid raised proboscis the entire group of Brazilian [8] Futurists. Amidst the poets Carvalho, Olanda, Almeida, Moras, Bandeira, Pongetti, Silveira, Agrippino Grieco appears Graqa Aranha the sturdy forty-year old with the square deliberate upbeat face who smiles and greets me with the brightest most welcoming of eyes. Ex-Minister of Brazil in Paris during the war, famed novelist and dramaturge of Cana~ and Malazarte, he was named a grand academician, tried to revolutionize the Academy, failed in part, and resigned, [9] thus earning for himself the prestigious title of chief of Brazilian futurism. As he slowly lumbers up the steep stairway followed by Futurists the expectations raised by the affectionate encounter of Italian Futurism and South American futurism become almost painful; so it is with powerful feelings that I receive from Graqa Aranha and his Futurist friends the characteristic Brazilian embrace without a kiss but followed by a slight pat on the back. [10] I present the Futurist Benedetta and right away the ship is boarded by a conquering horde of interviewers photographers and filmmakers. Brazil's Italians welcome us with the impassioned kindness of their representatives: Consul Fontana and attach6 Ciano, sent by Montagna the [Italian] Ambassador; Luigi Sciutto, head of the [Rio] fascio; Commander Vella, president of the Dante [Alighieri] Society; and our young Futurist friend Colasanti.

Beneath parade various execution squads of photographers. The comforts [11] of the Palace Hotel are slighted for the moment as Benedetta and I allow ourselves to be abducted in Graqa Aranha's ultrafast automobile.

With its long avenues aimed like rifles at the bay, Rio de Janeiro fires its Fiats Alfa-Romeos Citroens into the waves' fresh blue. But these shrewd bullets manage a wide-angle turn, barely avert a plunge and squirt off along asphalt beaches under wild figs chamaerops and bamboo palms. Motors pulse [12] between the sea and trees. Young as could be, carefree, exuberant, excited. Speed bark roar, crackle howl. In every car a tiger. The motors ape the beasts in a seraglio. A chamaerops overcome with sleep heat beams strokes and insects, lazily displays to the passing cars as if its fruit a white-shelled negro fallen to earth [13] due to the weight of his long black foliage arms. A wild fig hatches under its vast plumage a negro maid rosy fat rotund like an Easter egg. The heat rises despite the cooling race. The autos hurl themselves here there like frenzied mice in the huge mountain cage that from above begins to shut its ocean vapor gate. [14] Scram! Scram! Get lost! If only they could scale the cliffs! Well-oiled with irony the latter trumpet their disdain for the slow lapping of the mountain




tunnelers who, armed with powerful jets of water, methodically soften limestone clay tuff. [14 bis] We take advantage of a gap sliced between two mountain loafs so as to track the vast city all the way to Atlantic Avenue along whose bay-arched beaches extend thousands of one-story villas shaded by thick gardens. Above them loom the plumes of royal palms absent-minded fans for hot ocean vapors. And above them vultures wheel slowly hover like airplanes.

--My dear Aranha, Rio de Janeiro is a tropical fruit whose delicious juice is the speed of its automobiles. [15] A few minutes later came the pleasant surprise of finding our suite in the Palace Hotel transformed into a fresh and fragrant tropical forest with pyramids of half- meter-long papaya, oranges, giant mandarins, monumental bunches of twenty sorts of banana. Bed table desk everywhere the scent of the equator. We deliberately shunned the [16] dining room in order to savor the white vanilla cream of the sweetsop Rio de Janeiro's juicy heart.

Appendix II: The Battle of Cassino Ant~irtica (24 May 1926) The following text is excerpted from a speech given by Marinetti on 20

January 1927 on the occasion of the opening of a Futurist art exhibition at Bologna's Casa del Fascio. The speech was reprinted as "Per la inaugurazione della esposizione futurista alla Casa del Fascio," in Universith Fascista--Lezioni (Bologna: Casa del Fascio, 1927): 1-7; it contains his most complete account of the first Sao Paulo lecture:

I will speak to you about the city of Sao Paulo alone for it sheds some light on the state of mind of Italian expatriates who, having departed for South America, live at the mercy of spiritual convulsions because the fatherland no longer corresponds to what they would wish it to be. My arrival in Sao Paulo was preceded by an endless debate between profascist and antifascist Brazilian newspapers (or rather between newspapers expressing sympathy or antipathy towards fascism). The dispute hinged on the fact that Marinetti was a man who embodied the new Italy, whether in its qualities or its flaws. Hence the controversy. The polemics had seemed to me little more than platonic in nature, but instead I found myself face to face with the noisiest and most violent Futurist soiree of my entire existence! I shall describe that evening's scene in the Futurist mode. The newspapers had

announced my arrival and that I would be talking about art. All of Sao Paulo's antifascists organized a demonstration to seal my mouth shut all evening long. Their hostility became immediately known to me because, even though my hotel was a half kilometer away, I could hear the noise and howls of people storming the theater. The auditorium was overflowing an hour before the lecture and the



142 South Central Review black Brazilian cavalry was rushing the mob.

I succeeded in gaining entry thanks to endless circling around a little passageway that was clogged with people. I ascended the stage and was greeted with cries of "Down with Italy and long live Matteotti!""67 The cry would echo savagely all evening long. I replied with higher violence still, making full use of my lungs. I replied with a characteristic, Futurist phrase of immediate impact, a phrase that was repeated by the newspapers: "Between the prewar Italy of Nitti and the Italy of Mussolini there is the same difference as between a pile of horseshit and a magnificent pureblooded stallion."68

This affront to the antifascists present at the soiree also became something of an artistic affront directed at antifascists and passeists. I glorified today's Italy, listed everything that has been accomplished, glorified Futurism, identified fascism and Futurism; I affirmed that these two elements can never give rise to laziness or stagnation, that fascism and Futurism sweep away all prejudice, that fascism is the response of all Italian youth even before it became youthful, that fascism stands for everything that the young fought for along the Carso, that it is the actualization of the race's right and will.169 I also said that fascism had achieved everything that Futurism had hoped for as regards the race, the very fabric of the Italian sensibility, giving it political vigor and prestige on the world stage. The antifascists attacked me to cries of "Down with Italy and long live Matteotti!" because they knew well that Futurists have exalted Italianness above all else. The former could well have been critics, denigrators who left Italy when times were rough, when there was little to be had! We, on the contrary, endured an era of sufferings to the cry of "Long live Italy!" sounded despite life's uncertain outcome and despite the Matteottis of the world.

NOTES

We wish to gratefully acknowledge the help provided by Yasushi Ishii and Sylvia Saitta in locating numerous articles, particularly those concerned with the Argentine portion of Marinetti's trip.

1. F. T. Marinetti , "Il banchetto futurista di Tunisi," in Una sensibilitt italiana nata in Egitto (hereafter cited as USINE), ed. Luciano de Maria (Milan: A. Mondadori, 1969), 325.

2. F. T. Marinetti,Marinetti e ilFuturismo in Teoria e invenzionefuturista, ed. Luciano de Maria, I Meridiani series (Milan: A. Mondadori, 1983), 619 (our translation).

3. It is worth remarking that the word modernism designates two separate moments and movements in Brazilian and Spanish American literature. In the latter, modernismo refers to the late nineteenth- century movement associated with the poet Ruben Dario and dedicated to the renewal of literary expression, principally through the assimilation of symbolist influences and elements. In the former, modernismo refers to an all-encompassing revolt against parnassianism, symbolism, realism, and naturalism. Spanish American modernismo corresponds, roughly speaking, to Brazilian parnassianism and symbolism; Brazilian modernismo is part and parcel of the history of Spanish American avant-garde movements.

4. Annateresa Fabris's study of Marinetti's 1926 tour of Brazil is found in O Futurismo Paulista: Hip6teses para o estudo da chegada da vanguarda ao Brasil (Slo Paulo: Perspectiva, 1994), 217-59. Sylvia Saitta has meticulously reconstructed the press coverage and impact (or non-impact) of Marinetti's Buenos Aires visit in "Marinetti en Buenos Aires: Entre la politica y el arte," Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 539-540 (May-June 1995): 161-69.




5. Nelson Osorio Tejada provides an important account of the early reception of Futurism in Latin America in "La Recepci6n del Manifiesto Futurista de Marinetti en America Latina," Revista de Critica Literaria Latinoamericana 15 (1982): 25-37.

6. The original reads: ". .. el solo hecho de que Marinetti insistiera en proclamar la belleza de la vida modema-aunque ello para nosotros resulte una perogrullada, pues lo venimos practicando desde hace muchisimos atos-para el puiblico y los grandes rotativos esto es una enorme novedad" (from an essay by the editors of Martin Fierro 8 July 1926: 5). In the opening paragraph of this essay, they had already stated, "Su visita, sus conferencias dirigidas a la masa, la repercusi6n de sus teorias en la prensa, son una colaboraci6n valiosisima al movimiento de renovaci6n en que estamos empefiados hace tiempo un n6icleo de hombres de buena fe y larga esperanza" ("His visit, his mass-audience lectures, the echoes of his theories in the press, all represent a major contribution to the movement of renewal that a cluster of men endowed with good faith and great expectations have had underway for some time"), 5.

7. The original reads: ". .. allora Marinetti era milionario, arrivava da Tokio per ripartire alla volta di Madrid, e in teatro si entrava gratis. Ora invece anche Marinetti deve realizzare" (Piero Gobetti, "Marinetti, il precursore," IlLavoro di Genova 31 January 1924).

8. The original reads: "Ho avuto il piacere di fare una grande tournme nell'America del Sud con un impresario che mi stipendiava e guadagnava con la mia voce permettendo anche a me di guadagnare .. ." (Marinetti, "Per la inaugurazione della Esposizione Futurista della Casa del Fascio," in Universitd Fascista-Lezioni [Bologna: Casa del Fascio, 1927], 4; hereafter cited as Marinetti, "Casa del Fascio"); the speech was delivered on 20 January 1927. A longer excerpt describing his visit to Slo Paulo is found in Appendix II of the present essay.

9. The original reads: "II poeta F. T. Marinetti si impegna a fare un giro di conferenze (minimum 8) a Rio de Janeiro, Slo Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires iniziando nel mese di giugno 1926. Il signor N. Viggiani si impegna a organizzare le conferenze nei migliori teatri delle quattro citti suddette .. . restando stabilito che la permanenza in ogni citti non sara minore di sette giorni (ci6 per favorire l'esito delle conferenze con interviste ecc .. .) Il signor N. Viggiani si impegna a pagare a F. T. Marinetti ... la percentuale del venti per cento sull'incasso netto dalle tasse." The document was signed on 16 December 1925 and is preserved in series III, box 53, folder 1978 of the Marinetti Archive at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (hereafter cited as Yale Beinecke). This was actually the second such contract that Marinetti had signed, since an earlier trip, planned for spring 1924 and organized by Giovanni Del Guzzo never took place.

10. MArio de Andrade, Cartas de Mdrio de Andrade a Prudente de Moraes Neto, 1924-1936 (herafter cited as de Andrade, Neto), Literatura de Id6ias Series, Georgina Koifman, ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira, 1985), 193. The book, whose original title reads Futurismo-Manifestos de Marinetti e seus companheiros, was published in Rio de Janeiro by Pimenta de Mello & Co. several months after Marinetti's departure. Aranha authored only a preface to the volume, which contained eleven previously published manifestos (printed in French) and a series of photographic reproductions of Futurist works.

11. There were two exceptions: on 9 May the advertisement bore the title "Futurism"; on 16 May the advertisement read "Tomorrow-Monday 17, MARINETTI's farewell. Usual prices." (The lecture actually took place on Tuesday, 18 May.)

12. In 1838 and 1839, Carlyle lectured, respectively, on "Periods of European Culture" and Revolutions of Modem Europe." In 1840, he delivered his famous lecture cycle on the topic of heroes.

13. Carl Niemeyer's "Introduction" to Thomas Carlyle, in On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), xiii (our emphasis).

14. Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde (New York: Random House, 1984), 154. 15. Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, 166. It is worth comparing this reception with the one that followed

Marinetti's first lecture in Brazil: "[A]udience response and the reaction of the press make it clear that Futurist diction was viewed as a novelty among us, as was the decoration of the set .

.." (Fabris, 222). 16. The original reads: "La notte sul ponte di comando assistiamo all'entrata nella baia di Rio. I veramente uno spettacolo magnifico grandissimo. La citti ha uno sfarzo ultrafuturista di luci-Non

donrmiamo per aspettare l'alba e la visita a bordo del medico per lo sbarco. Poi trecentomila fotografi cinematografisti giornalisti. Ho fatto pi6i fotografie che intutta la mia vita! Sono bombardata celebrit!!" (from a letter by Benedetta Marinetti to her brother Alberto Cappa on Palace Hotel stationery, Rio de Janeiro, undated [but written on 14 May 1926]; accession #850702, series III, box 8, folder 165, Marinetti Archive, Getty Center).



144 South Central Review 17. F. T. Marinetti, Brazilian Velocities (hereafter cited as BV), 9. For the original text of this and

all subsequent quotations, see the critical edition contained in Appendix I which follows this essay. 18. The earliest Jornal do Comdrcio ad was published on 5 May. Also on 5 May, Oscar

Guanabarino began a series of polemical articles concerning Marinetti's tour, according to which "Marinetti founded the school of nonsense [and] fortunately few are the Brazilians who have joined his school" ("Pelo mundo das artes," Jornal do Comdrcio 5 May 1926). On 19 and 26 May, respectively, he presented a highly critical account of Marinetti's ideas and performance style in the first lectures delivered in Rio de Janeiro and Slo Paulo.

19. The misspellings are Marinetti's. For Benedetta Marinetti's version of the same episode, see the Commentary to BVin Appendix I.

20. Although only two issues of Orpheu were ever published, its appearance marked a key moment in the history of the Portuguese avant-garde. First conceived of by Luis de Montalvor and de Carvalho, its true intellectual core was formed by Fernando Pessoa and Mairio de SA-Carneiro.

21. The Week of Modern Art was held in Slo Paulo in February 1922. Considered the pivotal event in twentieth-century Brazilian cultural history, it aimed at a wholesale renewal of the arts, from prose and poetry to music and the visual arts.

22. Renato de Almeida declared Movimento Brasileiro "an instrument of modernist agitation" and affirmed its ties to Aranha: "[It] had been an idea of Graga Aranha, who actually directed it"

("Apresentaqeo," in Graga Aranha: Trechos escolhidos [Rio de Janeiro: Agir, 1958], 18).

23. In a letter sent to Prudente de Moraes Neto on 26 May, right after Marinetti's first lecture in Slo Paulo, de Andrade offered a different explanation of Bandeira's behavior: "What I can't understand at all is Bandeira's enthusiasm and patience; I guess that it has to do with his desire to carry over the blessed Cross [benedetta Croce] into his erotic dreams" (de Andrade, Neto, 195). Mario is of course punningly conflating the names of Benedetta and of the philosopher Benedetto Croce.

24. In his posthumous Gralhas & Pavces, Grieco wrote: "I earned a good deal of money from lectures, although I had to split half of my earnings with the poet Salomro" (ed. Donatello Grieco [Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1988], 11). (Salomlo Jorge was at once a poet and Grieco's manager.)

25. Aranha's A Estdtica da vida (Rio de Janeiro and Paris: Livraria Gamier, 1921) is divided up into four sections which make up two somewhat autonomous units. The first two sections, entitled "The Infinite Unity of the Whole" and "Brazilian Metaphysics," combine philosophical speculations with efforts to define the Brazilian Volksgeist. The last two sections, entitled "Culture and Civilization" and "Ins," approach the Brazilian scene from a global perspective, though they also deal with concrete political problems. Aranha's ambition for A Estdtica da vida was that it provide a coherent ideology for the modernist movement.

26. "O espirito moderno" is contained in Graga Aranha, O espirito moderno (Sio Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1932), 61-65. Much like Marinetti with his endless lists of supposed "Futurists," Aranha mentions Villa-Lobos, de Carvalho, Guilherme de Almeida, Mario de Andrade, Victor Brecheret, Renato Almeida, Jackson de Figueiredo, Grieco, Bandeira, Paulo Silveira, TristAo de Ataide, Menotti del Picchia, Ribeiro Couto, Oswald de Andrade, "and thousands of young spirits eager for destruction and construction. The list's ecumenical character covers over the already present schisms on the Brazilian intellectual scene and is indicative of Aranha's effort to put forward his leadership as a means for overcoming ideological divergences.

27. The original reads: "FaQo da minha atualidade a forja do Futuro" (ibid., 65). 28. Ibid., 81-84. This letter was composed on 18 October 1924. 29. The original reads: "Conferancia com que foi inaugurada a Semana de Arte Moderna no Teatro

Municipal de S. Paulo, em fevereiro de 1922" (ibid., 11). 30. A case in point is "Le Futurisme mondial" ("World Futurism"), first published inLe Futurisme:

Revue Synthdthique Illustrde 11 January 1924: 1-2, but later reprinted in, among other places, Futurismo-Manifestoes de Marinetti e seus companheiros. The manifesto sounds a call "against all backward turns" (an allusion to the contemporary resurgence of classicism) and then proceeds with a list of "declared or unknowing Futurists" ("futuristes sans le savoir, ou futuristes d6clar6s") that includes, in addition to Jorge Luis Borges, Mirio de Andrade, and Yan de Almeida Prado, figures such as Cendrars, Cocteau, Drieu la Rochelle, Max Jacob, numerous Dadaists and Surrealists, Igor Stravinsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Walter Gropius, Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters, and Vachel Lindsay!

31. The original reads: ". .. vock confundiu a funglo de orientar com a de tiranete e chefe politico de comarca" (Mario de Andrade, "Carta aberta a Graa Aranha," in A ManhA1 12 January 1926,




Suplemento de Slo Paulo; quoted in de Andrade, Neto, 186). 32. The original reads: "Graqa Aranha, sei que se queixa dos modernistas de Slo Paulo por terem se

afastado de voc8 ... Antes de mais nada: No verificar que os modernistas de Slo Paulo se afastaram de voc6 vejo um engano. Nlo slo os de Sao Paulo que se afastaram de voce, slo quase todos os do Brasil" (de Andrade, Neto, 185; our emphasis).

33. De Andrade wrote to Prudente de Moraes Neto in a letter dated 11 January 1926--the day before the open letter's publication: "Let me know whether anything comes of my little ditties against Graga Aranha and, above all, the article on him that will appear tomorrow in A ManhX" (Mario de Andrade, Neto, 180-81). Luis da Camara Cascudo received a similar letter dated 3 February: "You should not be surprised by the Open Letter to Grapa Aranha. It was also a matter of hygiene. I don 't deny his importance, his role as our protector or the advantages we derived from it. But Graqa is stirring up a lot of trouble and playing some pretty petty literary-political games. He's been attacking whoever doesn't take his side and, worse still, is doing so on everyone's back" (Mnrio de Andrade, Cartas de Mdrio de Andrade a Luis da Camara Cascudo [hereafter cited as de Andrade, Cascudo], ed. Verissimo de Melo [Belo Horizonte: Villa Rica, n. d.], 50; our emphasis).

34. Pierre Bourdieu's methods of cultural analysis and, especially, his concept of "field of cultural production" are pertinent to the case in point and have been effectively adopted in Randall Johnson's important studies of the institutionalization and canonization of Brazilian modernism. See his "The Institutionalization of Brazilian Modernisrm," Brasil Brazil 4 (1990): 5-23; and "As relaq5es sociais da produgIo literiria," Revista de Critica Literaria Latinoamericana 40 (1994): 189-203.

35. It is worth emphasizing just how extreme a gesture Aranha's rejection of the Brazilian Academy really was. In his letter of resignation, he insisted that he had joined at the urging of its founders: "Machado de Assis and Joaquim Nabuco were so persistent in seeking my collaboration that I accepted, albeit with a skeptical smile" (Aranha, O espirito moderno, 82). The paradox of affirming one's leadership of the modernist movement by stressing ties to the Academy's founders was not lost on Mario, who used this passage to argue that Aranha was a passeist employing a modernist vocabulary.

36. The original reads: "Feci delle conferenze a Rio Janeiro [sic] che 6 una citti arricchita dalla natura in un modo eccezionale poich6 accoppia alla flora tropicale originalissima una disposizione di citti moderna veramente, che ha coscienza di tutto ci6 che i moderno, che 6 la pidi vivace, la pii simultanea: in questa citti non ebbi urti con antifascisti perch6 li sono in minoranza. Vi parler6 semplicemente della citti di S. Paolo che vi illumineri sullo stato degli italiani che si trasportano lontano dalla patria, nell'America del sud dove vivono in preda a convulsioni spirituali perch6 non vedono piid la patria come la vorrebbero vedere" (Marinetti, "Casa del Fascio," 4).

37. The original reads: "Teatro lirico encheu-se completamente enorme assistancia composta maior parte literatos estudantes senhoras etc marinetti obteve triunfo extraordinario sendo delirantemente ovacionado saudando o nome futuristas cariocas paulistas falou membro academia brasileira gragaranha pronunciou notavel oraglo respondendo marinetti agradeceu realizou conferencia sobre futurismo sempre entrecortado manifestag6es" (Agamerican press agency telegram dated 15 May 1926, series 3, box 7, folder 76, Marinetti Archive, Yale Beinecke).

38. The tickets sold rendered total gate receipts of 3:228$000, while Marinetti's share amounted to 645$600, according to documents found in series 3, box 53, folder 1978 of the Marinetti Archive at the Yale Beinecke. Please note that we are following the period's convention for denoting monetary sums, according to which colons and dollar signs function something like commas do in contemporary American usage. The Brazilian monetary system of 1926 was metric. Figures to the left of the colon designate units referred to as contos, each of which was equivalent to one thousand mil-rdis. Figures between the colon and dollar sign refer to mil-rdis (equal to one thousand rdis). Figures to the right of the dollar sign refer to rdis.

39. '"Text is and remains visible. Works are simultaneously hearable and visible. ... The term includes the totality of performance characteristics" (Paul Zumthor, "Body and Performance," in Materialities of Communication, eds. Hans U. Gumbrecht and K. L. Pfeiffer [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994], 219). For a full development of this important distinction see Zumthor's La lettre et la voix: De la "littnrature" mddidvale (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1987).

40. The original reads: "... uma vasta bandeira em cores estridentes, composta de quadriliteros de varias dimens5es, verdes, brancos, vermelhos, amarelos" (Fabris, 222). An Argentine journalist described the stage decoration as consisting of nothing more than a backdrop ("no habia mas que un decorado de fondo") made up of "red pieces above; white on the sides; green, yellow, and blue in the center, which is



146 South Central Review to say a gathering of colors intended to convey the impression of a Futurist decor" ("trozos de genero colorado arriba, blanco a los costados, verde, amarillo y azul en el centro, es decir, una reuni6n de colores, con los que se queria dar la impresi6n de una decoraci6n futurista") ("Un Programa original," in La Razon, 12 June 1926). The flag was probably inspired by the 360-square-meter flag devised for the November 1924 national celebrations of Marinetti and hung in the octagon of Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. The painting was also presented to Marinetti by Fedele Azari and Depero at the 1924 national celebrations.

41. Marinetti, "[Os] campeses da cruzada futurista" (Fabris, 222). For reasons that his essay demonstrates, however generically intended, Marinetti's effort to reunite all the modernists under the label of Futurism was not only naive, but also out of touch with the fractious realities of the Brazilian intellectual scene.

42. The original reads: ". .. para alguns nto se tratou de uma confer&ncia propriamente dita, mas de uma s6rie de considera95es esparsas sobre os mais variados assuntos, acompanhada da recitaqio de alguns poemas" (Fabris, 222).

43. The original reads: "O Sr. Marinetti terminou falando sobre as concepq5es geom6tricas do futurismo ... e discorrendo sobre o fascismo e a grandeza da Itilia presente" ("A conferencia do Sr. Marinetti," inJornal do Comdrcio 16 May 1926).

44. The original reads: "A esta soma aleat6ria, que imbrica um discurso artistico claramente datado com um discurso politico apenas esbogado .. ." (Fabris, 222). Later, Fabris characterizes the second Slo Paulo speech as "a pile of clich6s" ("urnum amontoado de cliches" [229]) and goes on to assert, despite a lengthy prior description of the first riotous Slo Paulo show, that "[t]he Marinetti who visited Brazil in 1926 is unable to scandalize any more. He seeks only consensus, as is amply demonstrated in the course of the 'night of the greengrocer.' ... The consensus-seeking author, thus, rules out this behavior, praises the audiences that, on other evenings, listen to him respectfully and allow him to unfold his thoughts and to be heard; and attributes the catcalls to an incomplete understanding of Futurism, out of touch with the realities of the time" (Fabris, 234). Heavily reliant upon Ma'io de Andrade's account, Fabris posits a convenient (but mostly non-existent) split between a consensus-seeking fascist Marinetti cast in the image of Mussolini's conservative regime and a heroic prefascist Marinetti.

45. Atypescript version of Marinetti's polemic is found in the Marinetti Archive at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities (accession #850702, folder 88). Composed in French (the language of most of his Brazilian harangues), it reads: "Les cheveux longs sont m6diterran6ens et tropicaux... [ils sont] les vers libres et les mots en libert6 de la femme. ... Les cheveux longs cachent et embellissent la grisaille quotidienne; ils donnent I'illusion d'une vie puissante et joyeuse avec des forats, des fruits succulents, des bbtes e des oiseaux. Les cheveux courts sont une chambre cubique d'employ6e, avec le bruit de la machine a 6crire, tandis que les aeroplanes dans le ciel emmalent de longues train6es de cheveux pour orner la tete des gratte-ciels. Les cheveux courts sont l'ambiguit6 et l'equivoque des sexes ind6cis et pessimistes, tandis que le Futurisme irradie sur le monde les longs cheveux de son 61ectricit6 pr6cise, instantan6e, lumineuse, f6condante et novatrice." The polemic was picked up in its masculine form in F. Cervelli's Futurmanifesto contro le barbe visibili e invisibili (n.p.: n.p., 1933).

46. The original reads: "Quais os mais belos- os cabelos longos ou os curtos? Este 6 o problema do momento .. ." (Jornal do Comercio 9 May 1926).

47. The original reads: "DIVERSOES--Ha hoje as seguintes: Teatros: Lirico-Conferencia

Palacio--A Garota" (Jornal do Comhrcio 18 May 1926). 48. In the 9 May 1926 issue ofJornal do Comdrcio readers would have encountered the following

half-page advertisement: "JAZZ EPIDEMIC: A FUTURIST 'FILM'-AN HOMAGE TO THE MODERN SPIRIT. The supremacy of the absurd! Of the illogical! Of the incoherent!" Since, as is

typical of the period, the signifier "Futurist" here denotes the entirety of feelings associated with modern life, it stands to reason that attending a lecture by the founding father of Futurism would itself be thought of as an inherently modern activity.

49. This was an audience that also almost doubled Marinetti's personal profit. The total gate receipts amounted to 5:841$000, with Marinetti's share rising to 1:072$920 (series 3, box 53, folder 1978, Marinetti Archive,Yale Beinecke).

50. The original reads: "Iersera seconda conferenza marinetti lirico traboccante varie migliaia spettatori tutti ordini sociali predominando elemento universitario stop interesse suscitato divulgazione




affermazioni futuriste conferenziere determino irrequieta intensa aspettativa che inizialmente ostacolo normale svolgimento conferencia stop nonostante frequenti interrumzioni marinetti riusci brillantemente dominare imponente uditorio riaffermando con energia teorie artistiche politiche futurismo stop serata culmino trionfo spirituale propagandistico marinetti che salutato frenetica unanime ovazione fu accompagnato da imponente acclamante corteo albergo palace stop tutta stampa rileva importanza avvenimento duplice aspetto artistico politico" (press telegram dated 19 May 1926, series 3, box 7, folder 76, Marinetti Archive, Yale Beinecke).

51. Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), ed. Sheridan Warren Baker (New York: Norton, 1973), 25. As we will argue in our conclusions, the longevity of the first of these models on the South American scene must not be underestimated.

52. The original reads: "O pdblico bradou, sibilou, esperneou, deu os mais vivos sinais de vida" (C. A., "O Sr. Marinetti e n6s," inJornal do Comdrcio, 20 May 1926).

53. See F. T. Marinetti, Taccuini: 1915-1921 (hereafter cited as Marinetti, Taccuini), ed. Alberto Bertone (Bologna: II Mulino, 1987), 515-19.

54. The original reads: "Banchetto All'Ambasciata d'Italia: La Contessa Montagna ambasciatrice (austriaca mediocre) alza grottescamente la coppa di Champagne per il brindisi all'altezza del naso. Sorriso mellifluo. Brindisi diplomatico. Tutti la imitano con strizzatine d'occhi false smorfiette idiote. L'ambasciatore Argentino grosso scialbo gentile parla malissimo il francese. Il ministro degli esteri brasiliano occhiali faccia spenta parla poco" (ibid., 519).

55. The original reads: "Parlo in italiano, poi in francese atutto il Brasile e alla 61ite di Rio" (ibid., 520).

56. The original reads: "[I]eri sera salone radio sociedade presenza scelto numeroso pubblico marinetti pronunciou efficace interessante discorso diramato tutto brasile dopo brilhante prolusione poeta ronaldcarvalho circa grande risonanza opera artistica politica futurismo italiano marinetti envio patriottico saluto italiani brasile espose consueta vivacita oratoria lucidita espressione originali geniali teorie rinnovamento artistico politico stop declamo inoltre mirabili liriche stop successo calorosissimo incontrastato marinetti partito spaolo tenervi altro ciclo conferenze" (Marinetti press telegram dated 23 May 1926, series 3, box 7, folder 76, Marinetti Archive, Yale Beinecke).

57. In a letter sent to Luis da Camara Cascudo on 4 June, Mirio de Andrade expressed his bewilderment at Marinetti's success: "In Rio, the moderns gave him full support, and he was granted honors that I don't think he deserves: at the theater, he was introduced by Graqa Aranha; in his radio lecture, he was introduced by Ronald de Carvalho. I can't understand the enthusiasm they felt for Marinetti. Above all, I fail to understand Manuel Bandeira" (de Andrade, Cascudo, 63).

58. The original reads: "Qui grande grande sucesso. Tutti i giornali da una settimana non parlano che di Marinetti di Benedetta e del Futurismo. ... Vorrei mandarti giornali ma sono una tale quantitk che non so scegliere" (Benedetta Marinetti to Alberto Cappa, 24 May 1926, accession #920092, box 7, folder 3, Marinetti Archive, Getty Center). Benedetta's sense that Marinetti's tour was proving highly successful appears in line with the perceptions of other witnesses. When Marinetti and Benedetta arrived at Hotel Esplanada in Slio Paulo, telegrams from Aranha and Renato Almeida awaited them. The first reads: "empeche henir [sic] gare occasion votre depart renouvelle affirmation ma solidarite ravi de l'apport fecond triomphal que votre presence et paroles ont donne puissament a notre mouvement moderniste bresilien" ("could not come train station occasion your departure renewal affirmation my solidarity delighted by fecund triumphal contribution that your presence and words have powerfully given to our Brazilian modernist movement" [telegram from Aranha to Marinetti, 24 May 1926, series 3, box 7, folder 98, Marinetti Archive,Yale Beinecke]). The second is terse but eloquent: "A Marinetti, para recordar a sua passagem gloriosa e futuristica pelo Rio de Janeiro, em 1926" ("To Marinetti, in remembrance of your glorious and futuristic sojourn in Rio de Janeiro in 1926" [telegram from Renato Almeida to Marinetti, 24 May 1926, series 3, box 7, folder 86, Marinetti Archive, Yale Beinecke]). By the time they reached Argentina, on 14 July, Benedetta was already reporting a very different story: "Qui gli antifacisti avevano cercato di impedire lo sbarco di M. facendolo passare per un invitato politico. Confusione inenarrabile! Siamo saturati di politica" ("Here the antifascists tried to keep M. from disembarking, tryingto pass him off as a political envoy. Unbelievable ruckus! We are up to our nose in politics") (letter to Alberto Cappa, dated 14 July 1926, accession #850702, series III, box 8, folder 160, Marinetti Archive, Getty Center).

59. The original reads: "Ore 5. Viene Viggiani (tomato da S. Paolo)" (Marinetti, Taccuini, 520). 60. The original reads: "... . 6 quasi certo que nIo passa, nesta viagem, dum delegado do fascismo.

NIo se iluda com o Viggiani, niLo. Aqui em Slo Paulo, confer~ncia dele foi imposta pelo embaixador da



148 South Central Review ItAlia, pois que o Viggiani estava sem teatro na

mno e o Cassino em que o Marinetti falou, ontem, 6 da

empresa Bonnachi, inimigo mortal do Viggiani. t preferivel pois ficar de sobreaviso. Viggiani veio me convidar pra apresentar o Marinetti no teatro. Me recusei e parece que todos se recusaram como eu" (Mirio de Andrade, Cartas e Manuel Bandeira [hereafter cited as de Andrade, Bandeira], Clasicos brasileiros [Rio de Janeiro:

Ediqges de Ouro, 1966], 134).

61. "S. Paolo. Stazione. Giornalisti. Fascisti" (Marinetti, Taccuini, 522). This note was transcribed on 24 May 1926.

62. The original reads: "Viggiani me telegrafou que ele chegava no domingo. Estive na estaqlo com um aluno meu" (de Andrade, Bandeira, 135). Though the letter is undated, its context suggests that it was written on 25 May 1926, the day after Marinetti's first Sio Paulo lecture.

63. The tickets yielded total gate receipts of 7:985$700. Marinetti's share corresponded to 1:597$140 (series 3, box 53, folder 1978, Marinetti Archive, Yale Beinecke).

64. Fabris argues for an antifascist interpretation of the crowd response (229 if.). Though in her previous book, Futurismo: Uma poetica da modernidade (Slo Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1987), she acknowledges the antagonistic nature of Futurist performances (even quoting from "La voluttA di esser fischiati" [69]), here she argues that Marinetti's accusation that those who booed him were "passiists" indicates a falling away from the bellic ideals of the heroic period and a move towards a supposedly fascist-Futurist conformism. This seems at odds with the fact that such accusations were standard fare in the "polemology" of his earlier writings: "Everything that is booed is not necessarily beautiful or new. But everything that receives immediate applause is not beyond the reach of an average intellect and is accordingly mediocre, banal, regurgitated or too fully digested. In making these Futurist affirmations, I have the pleasure of knowing that my genius, the object of frequent booing in France and Italy, will never be drowned in a sea of applause as will your average Rostand! .. ." (quoted in "La voluttA di esser fischiati," in Guerra sola igiene del mondo [1915], Teoria e invenzionefuturista, 310-13). As far as the political implications of Marinetti's tour are concerned, we refer the reader to the above-noted essay by Saitta.

65. In an anonymous essay published as "Desde ayer es nuestro hubsped Felipe T. Marinetti," Marinetti was quoted as saying: "During the two and half hours of my lecture I spoke about Futurism and I think that only the front row of spectators heard anything" (La Prensa, 8 June 1926: 14; hereafter cited as Anon., "Desde").

66. The original reads: "Aparece no palco o Sr. Moacir Chagas e outros literatos pedindo a assist&ncia que permitissem o Sr. Marinetti falar, nto o conseguindo por6m" (Jornal do Comdrcio 25 May 1926).

67. The original reads: "O Sr. Marinetti nio teve apresentagio" (Jornal do Comdrcio 25 May 1926).

68. The original reads: "Ore 9. La Cavalleria carica gli studenti che tentano di scavalcare i muri e invadere il Teatro del casin6 Antartico. Dentro il ruggito dell'Oceano. Orchestra di urli guaiti motteggi. Oratori improvvisati in loggione. Un noto letterato antifascista parla contro il futurismo. Si dichiara capo del movimento antifuturista. Si alza il sipario. Fischi applausi in crescendo delirante. Pioggia proiettili vegetali bombette trictrac che scoppiano in platea. ... lo riesco a parlare e urlo: Fischiandomi anticipatamente vi autofischiate" (Marinetti, Taccuini, 522).

69. A case in point was the reviewer ofA Gazeta who saw the ruckus as a consecration: "If catcalls can be considered the consecration of his literary school, then no great man ever received so grand a consecration as that provided by the academic youth of Slo Paulo. For nearly three hours the adolescent larynxes operated with stridency, maintaining a supreme diapason of enthusiasm" (quoted in Fabris, 228). Marinetti's own recollection of the evening, whether truthful or compensatory, was favorable, to judge by an open letter ("El Futurismo-Una carta de F. T. Marinetti") published in the Buenos Aires newspaper La Naci6n on 19 June 1926: "Only on the first evening in Sio Paulo could the more or less self-conscious passeists harbor the illusion of having defeated me. All the same, I spoke for three hours, swimming above a tumultuous ocean of perforated and whistling heads." In his Argentine lectures he regularly bragged about the hail of vegetables, a fact which irritated the sharply antifascist La Vanguardia: "The lecture took on comic overtones when the orator referred to the vegetable shower that he had endured, evoked the 'triumphs' obtained in Slo Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Marinetti thinks that there are folks who assume that, because a Futurist, he enjoys being booed and that, for that reason, the boos have been so frenetic and abundant" ("Marinetti-Su primera conferencia ha sido un rotundo fracaso," La Vanguardia, 12 June 1926).




70. On this subject see Jeffrey T. Schnapp, "Politics and Poetics in F. T. Marinetti's Zang Tumb Tuuum," Stanford Italian Review 5.1 (1985): 75-92.

71. The original reads: ".. .. mi trovai di fronte a una serata futuristica la piti rumorosa, la piti violenta di tutte quante della mia vital" (Marinetti, "Casa del Fascio," 4).

72. The figures are taken from Paulo Neuhaus, Histdria Monetdria do Brasil, 1900-1945 (Rio de Janeiro: IBMEC, 1975), 184. The approximate exchange rate was one American dollar for 7 mil-r6is (7$00O).

73. The minimum wage was established in 1941 and took into account differences in the cost of living on a region-by-region basis. The result was that it was set at $200 mil-r6is in Rio de Janeiro, while in Slo Paulo it was set at $220 mil-r6is. Despite the chronological gap, these figures remain suggestive as regards Marinetti's income in the course of his tour. On this subject, see Jolo Saboia, Saldrio minimo: A experiincia brasileira (Porto Alegre: LPM, 1985), 26.

74. "Uma situagqlo invejivel," A Classe Operdria 12 (18 July 1925), as quoted in A Classe Operdria no Brasil, 1889-1930: Documentos: VoL II: Condip9es de vida e de trabalho, rela95es com os Empresdrios e o Estado, eds. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro and Michael M. Hall (Sio Paulo: Brasiliense, 1981), 131.

75. The original reads: "All'Esplanada trovo sulla porta folla di studenti che non erano entrati in teatro per l'aumento del loggione da 1$000 reis a 6$000 reis" (Marinetti, Taccuini, 525).

76. The original reads: "Folla fuori del Teatro. Cavalleria. Servizio di polizia migliorato.... Nei primi 20 minuti cazzotti espulsione di alcuni disturbatori" (ibid., 524-25).

77. The original reads: "E na primeira noite foi de fato um horror vergonhoso. ... O Rio se portou muito mais espertamente e civilizadamente" (de Andrade, Cascudo, 63-64).

78. The original reads: "Consegue expor serenamente suas id6ias, que nLo passam, na verdade, de um amontoado de cliches" (Fabris, 229).

79. Fabris's assertions are belied by events such as the hail of vegetables with which Triestine students greeted Marinetti in early 1924, in the context of a lecture on the Futurist theater. In an open letter to them (printed in L'Ambrosiano on 12 January 1924), he would write: "This unexpected welcome made me fourteen years younger, allowing me to relive the first Futurist battles: an era when Paris's Temps glorified me with this characteristic sobriquet-the most booed man of the century." Harsh and provocatory in its rhetoric, the letter closed: "Get lost, you young Triestines! Aren't you ashamed to receive a Futurist lesson from your professors? ... But I hear Arturo Labriola [a revolutionary syndicalist and, later, socialist leader] crying out: 'Why berate the Triestines? Their violence is typically Marinettian!' (Labriola is always saying that today's youth are either Dannunzian or Marinettian.) Naturally, my dear Triestines, I felt that your violence against me had something genuinely Marinettian about it And for this very reason, I who have taught, glorified, and distributed blows [cazzotti], didn't come to blows with you that evening. I preferred to send you an open letter that opens like a wide-open door onto the future of your divine city" ("Lettera aperta ai miei fischiatori triestinit" in Bruno Sanzin, Marinetti e ilfuturismo [Trieste: n. p., 1924]). Three years later, at the 24 November 1927 premiere of L 'oceano del cuore, the confrontational tactics remained the same as Marinetti personally shouted down his play's detractors.

80. The original reads: "Dopo 20 minuti di discorso interrotto e spesso sommerso, vinco impongo argomentazioni sul Futurismo eccitatore moderatore e equilibratore della razza nell'atmosfera rovente delle velocitit simultaneitA contraddittorie della civilti meccanica. Contro la moda. Contro il lusso. Per la virilith, differenziazione dei sessi, dinamismo caldo, senza diminuzione dei valori animali affettivi e del sentimento.... Poesia. Ovazione. Dopo breve pausa declamoAutomobile Bombardamento. Ovazione" (Marinetti, Taccuini, 524).

81. The original reads: "Nunca deve o conferencista ficar mais de dois dias numa cidade do interior: a intimidade destr6i a aur6ola" (Grieco, 9).

82. The tickets sold rendered total gate receipts of 2:322$000; Marinetti's share corresponded to 397$400 (series 3, box 53, folder 1978, Marinetti Archive, Yale Beinecke).

83. The original reads: "Sono evidentemente pagati per fare questo, osserva il console Marinangeli. S.. Vanno via poi tornano sotto I'albergo fra le palme bambu in processione con moccoli accesi simulano il mio funerale" (Marinetti, Taccuini, 532). These notes were written down right after the lecture, on 1 June.

84. The tickets sold rendered a total gate of 1:887$300. Marinetti's share corresponded to 377$460 (series 3, box 53, folder 1978, Marinetti Archive, Yale Beinecke).



150 South Central Review 85. The lecture to the Societi Dante Alighieri, a circle made up of Italian expatriates, is the only

additional lecture mentioned in his diaries: "Conferenza alla Dante. Folla italiana. Entra l'ambasciatore Montagna applaudito. Ovazioni continue interrompono mio discorso sul Futurismo e Fascismo" ("Lecture at the Dante. Italian crowd. Ambassador Montagna enters and is cheered. My speech on Futurism and Fascism is constantly interrupted by applause") (Marinetti, Taccuini, 521).

86. The original reads: "En resumen, nos expres6 nuestro hu6sped, estoy muy satisfecho de mi estada en el Brasil, que ha dado resultados que sobrepasaron todas mis esperanzas" (Anon., "Desde," 14).

87. On this subject, see Saitta, 161-64. 88. The original reads: "Pero repito, agreg6, que vengo a la Argentina, como acabo de visitar al

Brasil, finicamente con el prop6sito de difundir las teorias del futurismo, y nada mAs" (Anon., "Desde," 14).

89. The original reads: "Grande successo, gloria, gloria. Come sempre pochissimo successo finanziario" (quoted in an undated letter from Benedetta Marinetti to Alberto Cappa "on board the Marsiglia [sic]," accession #850702, series III, box 8, folder 160, Marinetti Archive, Getty Center).

90. La Naci6n described the audience as "choice and numerous" ("Conferencias: Origenes y verdadero concepto del futurismo," La Naci6n 12 June 1926); La Prensa as "a swelling public" ("Las interesantes conferencias de ayer," La Prensa 12 June 1926); La Fronda as middle-sized audience: "he couldn't fill more than half the galleries of the Coliseum, when the young disciples of Louie Fuller have no difficulty doing so" ("El debut de Marinetti,"La Fronda 12 June 1926). The first declares that he was "highly applauded at the end [of the performance]" and that the elaborate security measures proved unnecessary; the second notes his exceptional skills as a declaimer of words-in-freedom poetry and describes an enthusiastic audience, eager for an encore; the third claims that he "conquered" while raising doubts about the audience's bemused smile. The antifascist La Vanguardia claims that, on the contrary, "we encountered in the foyer a modest group of well-dressed individuals, among whom a number of young women who we can only assume were 'intellectuals.' No mob, no crush: it was easy to circulate, maybe too easy, so much so that we got our first whiff that the lecture would bomb" ("Marinetti-Su primera conferencia," La Vanguardia, 12 June 1926).

91. In "Conferencias: El futurismo en la arquitectura," La Nacidn (13 June 1926) reported an attentive audience, which accorded him a "loud salvo of applause." Similarly, La Fronda speaks of a well-disposed and "numerous audience" ("Arquitectura futurista,"La Fronda 13 June 1926)..

92. In a far less favorable review than that accorded to the first lecture, La Prensa describes the evening as "extremely well attended" by an audience that "dispensed extremely warm rounds of applause" ("Las dos conferencias de ayer,"La Prensa, 16 June 1926).

93. La Naci6n speaks of a "large audience" which, once again, enthusiastically applauded the speaker's ruminations on Wagner, Debussy, Stravinsky, Pratella, and Russolo ("Conferencias: Marinetti dio una conferencia en la Wagneriana," La Naci6n, 18 June 1926). La Prensa concurs, mentioning that the Wagner Association's main hall was "completely full" ("Las tres conferencias de ayer," La Prensa 18 June 1926).

94. The review in La Prensa, noting that the public was "as large as it was select," describes Marinetti's recitations of various poets as a virtuoso performance and notes the favorable crowd response ("Marinetti habl6 ayer sobre los poetas italianos de tendencia futurista," La Prensa,19 June 1926).

95. La Naci6n reported that, as before, he was "very warmly applauded at the conclusion of his remarks" ("Conferencias: Disert6 anoche en el Coliseo el sefior Marinetti," La Naci6n 28 June 1926); La Prensa mentions a "large and attentive" audience ("OUtima conferencia de Marinetti," La Prensa 28 June 1926); La Protesta's weekly supplement is fiercely ironic and notes its dismay that "some people just don't know when it's their time to pass on" ("Exposici6n Pettoruti, Xul Solar, Nora Borges," La Protesta 28 June 1926).

96. These figures are drawn from Liliana Pascual, San Josh de Flores 1920-30: La Educaci6n

(Buenos Aires: CIS-Instituto Torcuato di Tella, 1977), 19 ff.; cited in Beatriz Sarlo, El Imperio de los sentimientos (Buenes Aires: Catilogos Editora, 1985), 45. We are indebted to Yasushi Ishii for locating this information.

97. The original reads: "Volto encantado ao Brasil. Rio de Janeiro, sobretudo, suscitou-me

impressSes vivas e extremamente agradiveis. Senti nesta cidade minha sensibilidade despertada fisica e intelectualmente, da forma mais amena e festiva.

.... Intelectualmente, surpreendeu-me observar no Rio

um intenso movimento literrio e artistico, tendo a seu servigo formosas inteligEncias e capacidades muito acima do comum. O futurismo 6 compreendido e defendido pot uma legilo de escol, igualmente brilhante



Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Jodo Cezar de Castro Rocha II51

na prosa e no verso. Graqa Aranha e Ronald de Carvalho primam entre esses precursores da arte nova . S. Malgrado a tempestuosa recep~io corn que me acolheu Slo Paulo, esta cidade deixou-me tamb6m excelentes impresses. ....

Encontrei em Slo Paulo uma vanguarda de intelectuais que muito honram as letras brasileiras. Conservo grata recordaqio da cintilante grey de futuristas paulistanos. Destaco, sobretudo, Guilherme de Almeida e a Sra. Olivia Penteado" (Marinetti, O Jornal 11 July 1926; quoted inRaizes de SdrgioBuarque deHolanda, ed. Francisco de Assis Barbosa [Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 1989], 79-83).

98. See in particular "Da Montevideo a Buenos Aires con F. T. Marinetti," Giornale d'talia (Buenos Aires), 8 June 1926: "I met many Futurist artists [in Brazil]. Graca Aranha, the novelistic genius who in Rio's Teatro Lirico presented a most eloquent glorification of Futurism. The poet Ronald de Carvalho, the poet Bandeira, the futurist Silveira, Agrippino Grieco, Pongetti, Renato Almeida. The San Paulo group is headed by Mario Andrade [sic] and Guillermo de Almeira [sic]. A great Futurist musician, Tarsilla de Amar, the Futurist painters Cavalcante Garros, Reis and many others"; the original reads: "Ho conosciuto molti artisti futuristi. Grana Aranha, romanziere geniale che pronunci6 al Teatro Lirico di Rio una eloquentissima glorificazione del futurismo. Il poeta Ronald de Carvalho, il poeta Bandeira, il fiuturista Silveira, Agrippino Grieco, Pongetti, Renato Almeida. II gruppo di San Paolo 6 capitanato da Mario Andrade e Guillermo de Almeira. Un grande musicista futurista, Tarsilla de Amar, i pittori futuristi Cavalcante Garros, Reis e molti altri." Here, as elsewhere, Marinetti demonstrates a strong tendency to misspell and confuse the names of his Brazilian interlocutors.

99. The original reads: "Delicato raffinato, elegantissimo, faccia e corpo di vecchia scimmia incipriata di pariginismo e di Mallarm6 declama con foga e viriliti di gesti una sua poesia sull'Alba" (Marinetti, Taccuini, 529).

100. In an interview entitled "Da Montevideo a Buenos Aires con F. T. Marinetti," Giornale d'Italia (Buenos Aires) 8 June 1926, Marinetti had recalled from among Slo Paulo's wonders "un padiglione di pura architettura futurista adornato da quadri futuristi e che nel giardino della Villa della gentile signora Penteado." He went on to praise the "high artistic and social value of the Futurist tea offered by Mrs. Penteado in my honor, during which I declaimed several of my works and the Brazilian Futurists were applauded for airing their excellent poems and words-in-freedom"; the original reads: "Da ricordarsi per l'alto valore artistico e mondano il the futurista offertomi dalla signora Penteado, durante il quale ho declamato cose mie ed i fiuturisti brasiliani hanno fatto conoscere, applauditi, le loro ottime poesie e parole in liberti".

101. This aspect of de Andrade's activities was often noted by his contemporaries as, for instance, by Menotti del Picchia, who called him "the pope of the new religion" (Correio Paulistano 22 October 1921). (The item was published under del Picchia's byline of"Cr6nica de Helios").

102. The original reads: "Del Picchio 2 anni [sic] fa fece con Aranha Carvalho Bandeira Andrade de Almeida Prado la settimana modernmista futurista al Teatro Municipale. Ora si 6 urtato con Andrade attacc6 ultimo libro di Almeida. Viene Mario de Andrade, Tallarico e molti altri giornalisti" (Marinetti, Taccuini, 524).

103. On this topic see Fabris, 266-68; and on Oswald de Andrade's notion of antropofagia, see Benedito Nunes, Oswald Canibal (Slo Paulo: Perspectiva, 1979).

104. On the importance of the exchange between Oswald de Andrade and Blaise Cendrars, see Haroldo de Campos, "Uma po6tica da radicalidade," in Oswald de Andrade: Poesias reunidas (Sio Paulo: Difusio Europ6ia do Livro, 1966), 32-35; and Aracy A. Amaral, Blaise Cendrars no Brasil e os modernistas (Sio Paulo: Livraria Martins Editora, 1968), esp. 85-95. Regarding the presence of Cendrars in Brazil, see A Aventura brasileira de Blaise Cendrars, ed. Alexandre Eulilio (Slo Paulo: Edi95es Quiron, 1978).

105. Oswald de Andrade, "O meu poeta futurista," Jornal do Comdrcio (Slio Paulo) 21 May 1921, quoted in Estdtica e Politica, ed. Maria Eugenia Boaventura (Slo Paulo: Editora Globo, 1991), 22-25. On the varying meanings assigned to the word Futurism in Brazilian modernism, see Mario da Silva Brito, Antecedentes da Semana de Arte Moderna (Rio de Janeiro: CivilizagIo Brasileira, 1964), 161-78 and 246-51; Afrinio Coutinho, "Simbolismo-Impressionism o-Modernismo," in A Literatura no Brasil, Vol. IV (Rio de Janeiro: Editorial Sul-Americana, 1969), 32-35; and Fabris, O Futurismo paulista, chapters 3 and 5.

106. We are indebted to Silviano Santiago for prompting our reflections on this topic: reflections that will be further developed in the book version of the present essay.

107. The original reads: "A / F. T. Marinetti / com (sic) viva simpatia e ammirazione" (quoted in



152 South Central Review Fabris, 218).

108. Doubts have been raised concerning the identity of the "De Andrade" named in Marinetti's manifesto, but Fabris convincingly shows why Mario de Andrade is the likely candidate (217-18).

109. The original reads: "Um belo dia chegou-me comunicaSgo de outro empresairio com aviso que Marinetti ia empreender tourn'e na America do Sul e contava naturalmente com o meu auxilio" (J. F. de Almeida Prado, O Brasil e o Colonialismo Europeu [Slo Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1956], 392; our emphasis).

110. The original reads: "Chego no Rio a bordo do Zelandia. VA me esperar no cais pra combinar tudo. Ngo sei pra que Hotel yvou. Arranje pois pra estar no cais e me abraqar. Vou buscar o Marinetti. Qua! Qui! Qua O Viggiani 6~que paga. Quai Qua! Qua! Sinlo eu n&o ia. Qua! Qua! Qua! Qua! Busca o Marinetti. Quiqua! Qua! Qua! (Isto e6 ia modinha)" (quoted in de Andrade, Neto, 191).

111. The original reads: "As autoridades de Santos quiseram impedir-lhe o desembarque, por que era mutilado. Tudo se arranjou. Felizmente para n6s, que possuiremos o poeta por algum tempo. Mas o ato policial me enche de sincero orgulho. Que vemn fazer entre n6s os mutilados? O Brasil n&o precisa de mutilados, precisa de bra"os" (from Mario de Andrade, "Blaise Cendrars," Revista do Brasil [March 1924]; quoted in A Aventura Brasileira de Blaise Cendrars, ed. Alexandre Eulilio [SlTo Paulo: Edig5es Quiron, 1978], 160).

112. The original reads: "Voici le Sans Fil Blaise Cendrars, filmeur de roves negres, 6metteur de Radios, craniste solaire du monde entier" ("Le Futurisme mondial," in Le Futurisme: Revue sythdthique Illustrde [11 January 1924], 1).

113. The original reads: "Mirio tamb6m de Andrade, ao qual aborrecia o aparecimento de outro pontifice no seu arraial" (de Almeida Prado, 396).

114. Viggiani's little choreography finds precedents in the prior century like Wilde's 1882 tour to America. As a promotional device, Wilde's manager was in the habit of sending out letters like the following: "I should like to place him in your city. He will be first announced, advertised, and worked up in NY City" (quoted in Ellmann, 152).

115. The original reads: "Os jornais falaram que fui no Rio esperi-lo. r mentira, nLo fui nLo. Pretendi ir depois desisti e estou convencido que fiz bem" (de Andrade, Cascudo, 63).

116. The original reads: "Como vai voce? Fiquei desesperado com o caso de vocas me esperarem e eu nIo ir. Mas imagine que s6 na vespera 6 que tudo meio que se desmanchou e se desmanchou de todo na manhi em que eu devia partir.... Voch

nto imagina como estava causando esp6cie nos meus amigos de toda parte essa minha distinglo pro Marinetti. Tinha que explicar e alias tenho de o fazer pros que me escreveram sobre" (de Andrade, Bandeira, 133-34).

117. The original reads: "Aqui em Slo Paulo s6 estive duas vezes com ele e a desiluslo foi grande. Nunca me interessei pela obra dele que acho pau e besta porem esperava um sujeito vivo e mais interessante. .... Depois dele estar ji tras dias em S. Paulo 6 que fui visiti-lo. Nio podia deixar de ir embora esse fosse meu desejo porque desde a Italia e desde muito que tern sido gentil pra comigo. Fui e a primeira coisa que falei pra ele 6 que tinha deixado de ir a conferencia porque discordava dos meios de propaganda que estava usando. Ficou sem se desapontar e p6s a culpa no empresario. E falou falou dizendo coisas que eu ji sabia e me cansando. Me despedi e espero que se tenha desiludido de Mario que ele imaginava futurista e espero tamb6m que as nossas relaqes terminem pra sempre ... A segunda vez que o vi foi num chi no sallo moderno de Dona Olivia Penteado. Esteve absolutamente chato. Nio o procurei mais e meio que banquei o indiferente. Me contaram que ele foi embora indignado conosco. E milhor assim. No Rio foi apreciadissimo dos modernos e teve as honras que nrio me parece merecidas de ser apresentadas no teatro pelo Graga e na conferencia do ridio pelo Ronald. Nio posso compreender o entusiasmo que tiveram por ele, principalmente o Manuel Bandeira" (de Andrade, Cascudo, 63-64). (The reader should note that, so as to respect chronological sequence, we have altered the order of de Andrade's paragraphs.) In a letter sent to Prudente de Moraes Neto on 26 May, de Andrade offered a variant on his mythical account of his duels with the Futurist founder: "I wanted to talk to Marinetti about the shit that's ticking folks off .... I was with the guy only twice and he made the most idiotic of impressions in both cases. Dull and duller still, blabbing non-stop; worse still, giving that impression that he speaks from the heart: something he can allow himself since he's been living off repeating the same stuff since 1909! ... I couldn't stand him. I spoke my truths and he didn't catch on. He continues to

pester me and now he wants me to translate L Alcova d'acciaio into Portuguese! Take that! I'd translate a banana way before. He talked about this at Dona Olivia's house where he asked to go out and see her modernist room. What I just don't get is Manii's [Bandeira] enthusiasm and patience .. ." (quoted in de




Andrade,Neto, 194-95). 118. The original reads: "Assim, inda n1o vi o homem e parece que de despeito ele afirmou no teatro

que os futuristas do Brasil estavam todos no Rio de Janeiro. NIo sei si 6 verdade, deve ser, poque foi repetido por muitos dos jornais de hoje, mas amanhi, quarta, irei visitA-lo. Si n~o quiser me receber, milhor, porque evitari a discussio que havemos de ter, pois vou disposto a falar sinceramente o que penso do procedimento dele aqui e que nlo fui ao teatro porque nto estou disposto a assistir espetAculo de vaias mais ou menos preparadas" (de Andrade, Bandeira, 135).

119. This depiction was given by de Andrade in a recollection published in Didrio Nacional (11 February 1930): "Ficamos assim meio sem vida, ele respondeu com certa mi vontade 's perguntas que eu fazia sobre Folgore e Palazzeschi, meus carinhos italianos do momento" (Mi~io de Andrade, Tdxi e Cr6nicas noDidrioNacional, ed. Tell Porto Ancona Lopez [SAo Paulo: Livraria Duas Cidades, 1976], 192).

120. The original reads: "Para algu6m que discordava dos m6todos de atuagso do homenageado ... os termos da dedicat6ria nIo podem deixar de soar como surpreendentes" (Fabris, 219).

121. The original reads: ". .. porventura o maior e certo mais moderno do grupo futurista italiano" (MArio de Andrade, A Escrava que ndo 6 Isaura, in Obra Imatura [Obras completas de Mdrio de Andrade] [SLo Paulo: Livraria Martins Editora, 1960], 215; our emphasis).

122. Ibid., 260-62. 123. The original reads: ". .. Marinetti criou a palavra em liberdade. Marinetti alias descobriu o que

sempre existira e errou profundamente tomando por um fun o que era apenas um meio passageiro de expressio. Seus trechos de palavra em liberdade slo intoleriveis de hermeticismo, de falsidade e monotonia" (ibid., 239-40).

124. The original reads: "... Marinetti iniciou e organizou a ag~o libertadora ... Diante desta grandeza, como 6 pueril discutir-se se o futurismo de Marinetti ji 6 passadismo" (Aranha, "Marinetti e o Futurismo," in GraVa Aranha: Obra Completa, ed. Afifnio Coutinho [Rio de Janeiro: Jos6 Aguilar Editora, 1968], 863-66).

125. The point had already been made by de Andrade in his open letter: "I was one of those who most resisted the notion that you, who had just arrived from Europe, took up the cause of Brazilian Modernism due to personal interests and not because of a desire to be helpful" (from "Carta aberta a Gra9a Aranha," in de Andrade, Neto, 186).

126. The original reads: "Trovo Mario Andrade, Guillerme de Almeida. . . . Declamo Bombardamento. Mario Andrade, tipo rozzo alto con viso di buon negro bianco declama sospirosamente e latteoleosamente un suo Notturno" (Marinetti, Taccuini, 529).

127. Joel Silveira, "Querem dinheiro? Fagam conferencias," quoted in Bibliografia critica de Agrippino Grieco, ed. Donatello Grieco (Rio de Janeiro: INL, 1968), 329-41. The interview was originally published in 1943.

128. The original reads: "Mais, meu caro, muito mais. Vock nio pode calcular o neg6cio que 6 uma conferOncia" (ibid., 330; our emphasis).

129. Martin Fierro 8 July 1926: 5. 130. The original reads: "Vou na Bahia, Recife e Rio Grande do Norte onde vive um amigo de

coraqglo que no entanto nunca vi pessoalmente, o Luis da Cimara Cascudo..... Ele me arranja duas conferencias no norte, uma em Recife outra em Natal. Com os dois contecos que levarei daqui a viagem se paga" (de Andrade, Bandeira, 174). The letter was sent on 19 March 1926.

131. The original reads: "Tenho plssima

faculdade de elocu9go, sou incapaz de falar de improviso, atrapalho tudo e as idcias saem chatas e mal expressas, por isso sou obrigado a escrever minhas lig5es" (de Andrade, Cascudo, 56). The letter was sent on 12 March 1926.

132. Sergio Miceli's Intelectuais e classe dirigente no Brasil (1920-1945) (Sio Paulo: DIFEL, 1979) is the classic work on this topic. But see also Estado e cultura no Brasil, ed. S&gio Miceli (Slo Paulo: DIFEL, 1984).

133. S&gio Buarque de Holanda, Raizes do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympio, 1936). For the relevance of the concept of "cordial man" to an understanding of literary forms of expression, see Joio Cezar de Castro Rocha, "Ao p6-da-letra: literatura, sistema intelectual e cordialidade" (Master's Thesis, State University Rio de Janeiro, 1994).

134. The commentary, edition, and translation ofBVYare by Jeffrey T. Schnapp, with expert help from JoAo Cezar de Castro Rocha on the annotations. We are indebted to Lawrence Rainey for his help



154 South Central Review in checking and deciphering several passages of the manuscript.

135. The original reads: "A bordo del Giulio Cesare, Rio de Janeiro ore 7 del mattino. Da pochi minuti il transatlatico ha attraccato ... Le enormi gru automobili girano gin il loro collo potente e traforato verso di noi per beccare il nostro carico. Dietro le primitive capanne di latta legno ammucchiate sulla collina diMoro della Favella, abitazione di negri. Raggiungo Marinetti sul ponte della passeggiata. Chiuso nel cerchio affettuoso dei poeti brasiliani Carvalho, Bandeira, Pongetti, Silveira, Almeida, Agrippino Grieco, di amici italiani, giornalisti. Appena mi scorge mi presenta: Graga Aranha, poeta e capo del gruppo d'avanguardia futurista brasiliano" ("Letteratura brasiliana d'avanguardia. Graga Aranha diplomatico ex accademico e poeta futurista," II Tevere 6 January 1927).

136. A verbal echo suggests as much as the original reads: "Ha lo sguardo volitivo diritto di chi per abitudine guarda in faccia profondamente la vita e gli uomini, senza lasciarsi influenzare dalle superficialiti, dalle mode, dalle facili illusioni" (ibid.; our emphasis). Compare with BV 8: "il forte quarantenne dal viso quadrato volitivo e ottimista che mi sorride e mi saluta cogli occhi intelligentissimi e accoglienti" (our emphasis).

137. The reference to Gil Blas is autobiographical inasmuch as Marinetti's service as a war correspondent provided the source materials for Zang Tumb Tuum. On this subject see the above-cited essay by Schnapp, "Politics and Poetics in F. T. Marinetti's Zang Tumb Tuuum."

138. Much as he would do in the composition of Velociti brasiliane, Marinetti fuses his two arrivals in the port of Rio, one from the north-his May arrival-on the Giulio Cesare, and one from the south-his July return-on theMassilia, after which he again departed for Italy on the Giulio Cesare.

139. The original reads: "Croyez-vous tout ce que l'on dit de la Baie de Rio? Est-ce vraiment si beau? A mon avis, il y a al du bluff! Je pense que rien au monde peut egaler en splendeur les couchants de Pera. Bonsoir! Demain A l'aube nous prononcerons notre sentence definitive sur la merveille des merveilles de la terre! .. ." (Novelle con le labbra tinte [hereafter cited as NLT] [Milan: Mondadori, 1930], 137).

140. The original reads: "C'est trop beau! C'est plus beau que le Bosphore! Pauvre Stambul!" (NLT, 140).

141. The identical line is found in Varie velocith dal mio amoroso possesso di Rio de Janeiro (hereafter cited as VIMAP), but with reference to his return from Argentina on the Massilia: "Sul ponte di comando, la nave inebriata fende col cordame nero di prua un vasto semicerchio di oceano viola" (4).

142. Cf. VV~MP 4-5, which, in conflict with Velocite brasiliane, seemingly refers to the landscape encountered during his second arrival (as do all the passages cited in subsequent footnotes): "Fende pill sfi un vasto semicerchio di profili di montagne neri irritati e convulsi un tumulto e fuochi di bivacchi rosei vermigli mal celati fra i denti di sega delle cime lontane. Fende piii sUi un vasto semicerchio di cielo verde smeraldi e pappagalli sognati dai bambini negri che giocano nei cortili delle mie vene." The passage is reworked in "La logica di Ahmed Bey" in Novelle con le labbra tinte (137-38) with variations only in the opening passage, which reads: "Alba. Sul ponte di comando del 'Massilia' con Ahmed Bey. Comprendo subito che non si e coricato. Tenta di reprimere e nascondere con molti sorrisi una disperata angoscia crescente. Ora la nave inebriata ... ."

143. Cf. VVMAP 5: "Fende piii sil un vasto semicerchio di nuvole d'oro caldo. Fende piii sui un vasto semicerchio di cielo blu madonna estasi verginiti dolore tenerezza materna." In NLTthe passage appears as: "La nave fende pid in alto un vasto semicerchio di nuvole d'oro caldo, e ancor pid in alto un vasto semicerchio di cielo blu madonna. Estasi. Verginiti Gioia di entrare nella tenerezza carnale della Baia" (138).

144. Cf. VJMAP 5-6: "La nave infila poi un piccolo cerchio di nuvole d'oro pallido che diventa l'aureola tremante del trinchetto." InNLT, "La nave infila poi un cerchietto zenitale di nuvolette d'oro pallido che diventa l'aureola oscillante del trinchetto" (138).

145. Cf. IVMAP 6: "La nave avanza trascinando con s6, come una sposa distratta tutti questi nastri e veli di mare e di cielo che le fasciano l'alto petto vibrante dalla prua alla cima dell'albero." InNLTthe passage reads: "La nave avanza trascinando con se, come una sposa distratta, tutti questi nastri veli e sciarpe di oceano e di cielo che le fasciano I'ampio petto dalla prua alla punta dell'albero maestro" (138).

146. InNLT: "Alla nostra sinistra Pan de Aqucar mostra la sua gobba smisurata, or ora emersa dal diluvio. L'insegue un altro monte gobbo, il Corcovado" (138-39).

147. Cf. V~MAP 6-7: "Davanti alla prua il cielo intaccato dai denti di sega dei monti si screpola e si spacca d'entusiasmo roseo. Quel mistico forno chiuso fiata dalle commessure vermiglie un profumo tale che insapora l'oceano." In NLTthe passage reads: "Davanti alla prua il cielo, segato dai monti, si




screpola e si spacca con entusiasmo roseo. Laggiit: quel mistico fomo chiuso fiata dalle commessure scarlatte un profumo tale che insapora tutta l'atmosfera" (139).

148. Cf. VMAP 7: "Subitamente una colata d'oro liquido straripa dalla catena di montagne e I'oceano muta il suo viola in un azzurro argentato e freddo." InNLT: "Subitamente una colata di bragia liquida straripa dall'estrema catena di montagne, e di colpo scenograficamente l'oceano muta il suo viola in un turchino argentato e freddo" (139).

149. Cf. VVkAP 7-8: "Con traballante e fischiante gioia di cordami scugnizzi la nave ha alzato tutte le sue metalliche orecchie bocche tasche da vento per udire bere insaccare note d'oro liquido pani fluidi dorati languide frecce d'oro, farfalle e rondini d'oro spiche d'oro." In NLT the passage reads: '"Traballio fischi cinguettamenti e cigolare dei cordami infantili che contengono I'anima dei passeri o forse li chiamano da lontano. Festa oceanica. La nave ha alzato tutte le sue metalliche orecchie bocche tasche da vento per udire bere insaccare golosamente note d'oro liquido, fluidi pani dorati, vermigli zuccheri filati, languide frecce di miele, farfalloni di porpora e voli di gabbiani simili a fiamme di punch" (139).

150. Cf. VVMAP 8: "La prua frange fasci di raggi solari raggere di legno dorato e onde schiumose di bronzo." In NLT the passage reads: "Metodicamente la prua frange raggere di legno dorato e onde di bronzo schiumoso" (139).

151. Cf. VVI AP 8: "Si alzano i vapori della caldaia oceanica e il sole si affretta di gettare nuovo bollore vermiglio nel cavo delle montagne d'oro impaurito."

152. It is "imperiale" because it bears the name of Julius Caesar. 153. Ronald de Carvalho (1893-1935) was a poet and diplomat, and senior member, along with his

close associate Graca Aranha, of the group of modernists who organized the Week of Modem Art; author of, among other works, Toda aAmirica (Rio de Janeiro: Anurio do Brasil, 1926); Estudos Brasileiros (Rio de Janeiro: Briguiet, 1931); and Pequena Hist6ria da Literatura Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro: Briguiet, 1919). For additional information on de Carvalho and the other poets named in the welcoming scene, see section II of this essay.

154. S6rgio Buarque de Holanda (1902-1982): one of the period's most influential literary critics. The editor, alongside Prudente de Morais Neto, ofEstitica, one ofthe key mid-1920s modernist journals, he interviewed Marinetti before his return to Italy in July 1926.

155. Guilherme de Almeida (1890-1969) was the first modernist poet to gain entrance to the Brazilian Academy in the wake of Aranha's expulsion. Associated with the soft "twilightist" current, he was the author of Meu (1925), CanFges Gregas (1924), Epigramas Ir6nicos e Sentimentais (1920-1933), andNatalika (1924).

156. Prudente de Morais Neto (1904-1977) was an important critic and editor of the review Estetica (published 1924-1925), which strove to reshape the iconoclastic vitality of the Week of Modern Art into a cohesive cultural-political program.

157. Manuel Bandeira (1886-1968) was one of the central figures in twentieth-century Brazilian literature. Bandeira's work is collected inPoesias Completas (Rio de Janeiro: Americ-Edit, 1945); and Poesia eProsa (Rio de Janeiro: Aguilar, 1958). For further information, see Dazi Arrigucci, Umildade, Paixdo e morta: A poesia de Manuel Bandeira (Sio Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1990).

158. Tasso da Silveira (1895-1968) was the Rio de Janeiro-based founder and leader of the Festa literary group that assembled in the wake of Marinetti's visit Festa adopted a sharply polemical view of Slo Paulo modernism and argued for a native "spiritualist" revolt against imported forms of modernism Among da Silveira's early works are Fio d Agua (1918),AAlma her6ica dos homens (1924), Alegorias do Homem novo (1926),As imagens acesas (1928), and Canto do Cristo do Corcovado (1931).

159. Henrique Pongetti (1898-1979) was a prolific writer, journalist, playwright, and magazine editor, Pongetti was the author ofPan Semflauta (1922), Cdmera lenta (1930), Deserto verde (1933), and numerous subsequent novels, film scripts, and narratives.

160. Agrippino Grieco (1888-1973): see section II of this essay for biographical information. 161. Graqa Aranha (1868-1931): as noted in section II, Aranha was an instrumental figure in the

history of Brazilian modernism and a key organizer of the Week of Modern Art. Aranha was a mystical nationalist whose rejection of academicism and celebration of youth did not preclude a relatively traditional practice as a writer.

162. Published in 1902 and largely composed during his period of residency in Europe, CanajT (phonetically transcribed by Marinetti as Chanaau) was Aranha's first important novel. Aranha's one-act play Malazarte was first performed at the Th6&tre de l'Oeuvre in Paris on 19 February 1911. A typescript ofthe work appears to have been in Marinetti's possession even before his trip to Rio.



156 South Central Review 163. In USINE the passage reads: "A Rio de Janeiro arrivando sulla 'Giulio Cesare' sono ricevuto

dai futuristi brasiliani guidati da Graga Aranha ex ambasciatore a Parigi che sfasci6 1'Accademia Brasiliana per diventare capo dei futuristi" (325).

164. The word "camerus" (repeated twice inBV) does not exist in Portuguese, Italian, or French. It appears, however, to be a mis-spelling of chamraerops (chamdrops [Fr.], camerope [It.]), a wild palm referred to in Latin as the chamaerops humilis, fortuni, or excelsa. The chamaerops abounds in Sicily and other parts of the Mediterranean, even though some varieties are able to grow in Northern climes. Similar varieties can be found in Asia and the Americas.

165. "Urubu" is a variety of vulture. 166. In USINE: "Nell'albergo fu da loro disposto un salone frutteto tropicale dove fra molte arance

e molti pomi di insufficiente sapore mi delizia come una bocca ideale il frutto del conte pigna delle pigne.. ." (325).

167. Giacomo Matteotti was a reformist Socialist deputy who was kidnapped and killed by fascist thugs on 10 June 1924 in retaliation for his efforts to disclose the many irregularities that had permitted the fascists to triumph in the April 1924 elections. In the wake of his disappearance, the so-called "Aventine Secession" took place, which saw the wholesale abandonment of the parliament by opposition deputies.

168. Francesco Saverio Nitti was prime minister of Italy between June 1919 and June 1920, during the phase of postwar tensions crystallized by the completion of the Versailles treaty negotiations and the seizure of Fiume. Nitti was a favorite target of the fascist squadrists who, after the sacking of his personal residence in November 1923, left Italy for France.

169. The Carso refers to a limestone plateau extending from the Isonzo river to the gulf of Fiume (today Rijeka) and from Vipacco valley to the Gulf of Trieste. It was the site of some the most ferocious battles between the Austrian and Italian armies in 1916 and 1917.



brazilian velocities: on marinetti's 1926 trip to south america

Documents