Festival of Conception Book

Images of surf and sand, samba lines, bars, and the ornate crumbling colonial architecture of Brazil's Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos are backdrops for this reflection on his own life's meaning and direction by Craig Carrozzi. With companionable, street wise language, he gives us sounds, visions, and the characters that shaped his love affair with Bahian culture and his choice to plunge into the depths of the artistic life. The narrative crystallizes a metaphor expressed in the book's title. The Festa da Conceicao (Festival of Conception) is one of Salvador's oldest religious festivals, but not its classiest. Carrozzi is warned by a rich expatriate New Yorker that this celebration attracts mostly lowlifes, that it “can get very dangerous for foreigners,” and that he should really skip it and wait for the “truly important and grand” Festa de Senhor do Bonfim. Hearing that the middle class ignores the Conceicao, he responds, “you’re making it sound better by the minute,” and of course he goes, and we with him, through the streets of the Upper City, then down into its depths, getting lost along the way, through an encounter of frustrated love with a classy prostitute and an ugly tiff with drunk revelers which almost turns into serious violence. Through all the noise and confusion, the modern world intrudes very little. We walk almost everywhere, which helps reduce the experience to its most essential elements and enable the clear conception of his own future which the author reaches at the end of the journey. From the dancing mud will indeed grow the bright lotus. Carrozi’s fluency in Portuguese and Spanish give him an ear for a world few non-Brazilians can know close-up, as we get to banter with bartenders, street vendors, Rasta musicians, and others. We float with young hipsters on a bus trip across Bahia, and unexpectedly catch Gilberto Gil sitting in with a local band. The color and enthusiasm with which Carrozzi paints his characters, who are for the most part quite ordinary people, calls to mind, especially in its earthiness, some of Henry Miller’s travel writings, though it lacks Miller’s wild-eyed and blustery ignorance. It also occasionally recalls fellow ex-Peace Corps author Paul Theroux’s stylish first-person accounts of “Third World” countries and their inhabitants. All in all, Festival of Conception is a great read for the vicarious traveler. The text is complemented by eight original illustrations by Shely Johnstone in the Brazilian block art style. Intriguing scenes of people and places in Bahia.