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This character came up to me
Asking for a cigarette
And by the accent, the way, the voice, the maneirisms
We realized it was a doll.
Everyone said she was gay,
but not to me, I don’t know... To me she wasn’t
She used to hang with this crowd, right?
I always confuse
I don’t know whether to call him or her.
He was a strong guy,
Guy, I say, he was a strong transvesti.
By the way, like I said, I don’t know if it was a transvesti, what it was.
It wasn’t too much to our side
‘Cause we already had the most glamorous side,
The most feminine side.
“I’m Gilda transvesti”, she said.
He played the role of happy queen
It he was or not I don’t know
Look, I can’t say that If he was or not
Because I’ve never tried it and have never seen.
Maybe he wasn’t even a homosexual
But Gilda was the first one to break
That serious nessof the people from Curitiba.
Was a happy ***
KISS ON THE DAMNED MOUTH
This is downtown Curitiba
XV November street
In this part of the small Luis Xavier avenue
the space is dedicated
to small-talk,
intrigues, conspiracies and all kinds of manifestations.
An institution of Curitiba,
the Damned Mouth,
Gilda’s territory
She never said her name right.
Sometimes she said she’d been born in Rio
Sometimes she said she’d been born in northern Paraná
What was his name again?
Rubens Aparecido Rinque,
Didn’t know that.
He is said to have come with one of these companies
that came to do shows here
and stayed
I think Gilda was
a person who lived freedom.
So he wanted to kiss everyone, they ran away from him.
She always asked for the coin,
If the person would’t give her a coin,
she would kiss him in front of the girlfriend.
The guy who came from the north, for instance, to know Curitiba
and visit his relatives would go for a stroll on XV street,
didn’t know about any of this.
He would go to XV street,
talk to Gilda and say: “Look Gilda,
that is my grandfather, my uncle, my cousin.
Go over there and kiss him.
Said: “Go and kiss that man over there
He would go and kiss, the man would kick him
Some of them take it like good sports.
I gave a lot of coins to Gilda and
got kisses too, right
No!
But there would have been no embarassment if it happened.
There were many atempts
I wold run from Gilda
or give money not to be kissed
that's obvious
I remember dodging and stuff and
was it just a light kiss?
It was just on the face
begger,
transvesti,
alcoholic
and at the same time a sweet type.
Oh, Everyone,
I mean EVERYONE respected, loved Gilda.
It's called charisma
Gilda had something that was charisma
Gilda broke the obstacle,
the taboo of placing right on XV street
a transvesti who became famous
She was modernity at the time
She was Curitiba letting go of being provincian
and becoming a big city, a capital really
It's 'cause the people found themselves in Gilda's freedom
Gilda alive
Curitiba dead
Gilda is a sin behind the door
Gilda ill spoken
Gilda well thought of
They still bite you The teeth of the damned mouth
And I know that I've never loved her for real
Now I know the pain of missing
Anfrisio Siqueira
was the name of the mouth's president.
Then he really went after GILDA
It was something funny, right?
Because Anfrísio was a
government man, important,
and all of a sudden would get bothered
by a person of the people, right?
So Anfrísio got really pissed with her
because she would make people ridiculous
The problem was that he didn't want to allow Gilda in the mouth because he thought
the mouth's tradition should come from other things,
not anything
that had homosexualism.
Everything was prohibited
And she was very bold at the time Because she didn't have, I think,
a clear notion of her limits, right? Of what she could and couldn't, right?
I've never thought of Curitiba
in this time of the year, it can be so cold,
but thank god curitibanos aren't cold.
In the old days there was a club, the Operário,
which held the carnival ball,
it was fantastic. People would come from around the world to attend the ball.
I've been in the Operário for eleven years
And do you think you can win this year?
Curitiba, a capital said to be anti-carnival,
Daddy's idea was to have at least one day of carnival
where the people could have fun on the streets,
so in the 70's the Banda Polaca was born
The greatest character of the Banda Polaca
who would always go in front
of Band was Gilda
And she would shove herself to the front
and be more successful than the polacas
But Gilda would parade with the Polaca Band, and they didn't allow it,
so they had Gilda arrested.
Requested by my father,
even that wouldn't participate, bacause it didn't help,
like I told you it would just get in the way,
make a fuss, create embarassments,
so it wouldn't be in good taste
When he forbade Gilda he prohibited the... fight
for freedom, for the regain of democracy
It became bipolarized, right?
On one side the dammed mouth with his president Anfrísio Siqueira
and in a little while Gilda was the opposition of all this, right?
Anarchy itself.
Anfrísio simply had a warrant for her arrest issued,
which was very bad of him...
right on carnival, right?
Which she liked so much, would party so much
It's a little hilarious really,
for one single person to end with carnival,
it has to be more than magical,
it has to be mystical, it has to be,
it has to be crazy
But the fact is that there was generalized protesting in the city
of carnival makers and she ended up being released.
I was next to the... car
where the president
of the damned mouth was
and Gilda gut close
and being and open car,
tried to get onto it.
I said: "wow, nice! Gilda will get on the car,
but right then she was kicked on the mouth
by him
I was graciously involved in this episode.
Thinking of a humanitarian action,
I was involved as if I wanted to harm someone.
This is what happened: I was going through Osório park,
Carnival day, I found Gilda full of blood on the ground,
so I looked for the guards in the area to arrange her removal.
I saw Gilda laughing
crying
I don't know where I don't remember when
Gilda is not a man
Nor a woman
Gilda is gilda
Because she can be whatever she wants
Ballerina
Queen
Messalina
***
kicking homeless
*** the ***
Suck the ***
kick the face In carnival
It I'm not mistaken she was stabbed with a pocket knife, a fight on the street and went to...
the ER and... there she died, in the Emergency Room.
And each person had a version, something different,
that... She was found dead in an abandoned house
I, for one, heard that Gilda had been murdered,
that someone hired her death.
you couldn't expect it any other way, 'cause she lived
the worst way possible, right?
In a rat hole, a hiding place, an abandoned house,
and nobody really knows how she died.
If killed, or she died,
if she drowned or overdosed,
No, she died of cirrhosis, meningitis
and another problem that I can't remember, right?
So much so that the casket wasn't opened.
The coroner's office wouldn't let the casket be opened.
We did her burial with all the ...
funerals,... clothes...
I had no embarassment,
none whatsoever
in carrying the casket, as a demonstration of respect
from the city to him, Gilda. To her, Gilda.
None was burried as a homeless,
it could be homosexual, transvesti,
they would tip in, Find a way,
they were closer, more humane at the time.
Martinha was the first
transexual in Curitiba around 1940.
Daniele Cristina was a mirror to all of them.
Unique, first one operated in Curitiba
there is Primavera Bolcan,
Marcia Regina gave this grave,
even the late Gilda who is also burried there.
The Damned Mouth wakes the next day
full of flowers, lit candles, notes from people
The people who spread joy
We must remember every day
That a laugh is worth a lot in a person's life
for over a week new notes were showing up,
and I was already starting to think she would become a popular saint,
if this thing
of posthumous votes for Gilda went on
She did deserve a statue
If anything else, because after she died
Want it or not she did become an icon.
For that and other reasons this sculpture
was removed from the Damned Mouth,
nearby on a bronze plaque you could read
Gilda, the people from Curitiba miss you
Then there was that large tree over there by the cable car,
I say let's put this plaque over there.
The president of the Mouth said he hadn't been consulted, he took it off
You know when and... They want and...stop
the people from being and... The real actor in the strory,
she was Carlitos, she was a showgirl,
she was a samba school dancer,
she was a human being, who cried,
who sang, who laughed, who dreamed
Oh! How much I miss, how much I miss The games and pranks Gilda played
Fifty bucks to kiss a certain someone Relaxed Gilda would go and kiss
Kissed the doctor, doctor the senator, the senator Talked about love and played and played
And on the city's streets she did it all That was more or less the way it was
translator Bernardo Rubim