Rio Stories meets Bio Stories

For any of my Rio Stories samba readers who happen to also be interested in the outdoors, birds, or biology: I'm starting a new little blog about my biology fieldwork at:

www.biostories.blogspot.com

I'm currently in Grand Teton National Park (northern Wyoming, USA) studying birds, and am adding a few sporadic entries now and then, whenever I have electricity. I will later be adding entries on my other research projects too.

Or if you're only interested in samba, never mind about the bio stuff, and I'll see you at California Brazil Camp (week 1!), or in Rio and Salvador later this year for the upcoming Carnaval season. I'll be updating the sambagypsy and riostories blogs then, once my fieldwork ends.

Bloco X'ers, wish I could meet you in Poland in a couple weeks! It sounds so fun! But I had already locked in my crossbill and sea turtle field schedules for the summer, before the Poland dates were set. I miss you all & hope to see you all next year. Lions and Gatas and Axe Dide, it goes without saying that I miss you too.

Gotta get back to my campsite now; the sun is setting and the bison rush hour is about to start.

cheers, Kathleen (sambakat)

Salvador stories on sambagypsy

Just a note to my riostories readers that I am in Salvador now, and am posting short stories to the sambagypsy blog at sambagypsy.blogspot.com. I had a major lucky strike yesterday stumbling across Olodum & Ile Aiye during the live broadcast of the FIFA announcement of the 2014 World Cup cities. Yes, Salvador will be one of them! (cue enormous street party.) Note to my Bloco X friends: You WILL be coming to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup, won't you?

Sadness...

... My thoughts go out to everyone on the Rio-Paris flight that just disappeared over the Atlantic, and their friends and families.

Vitor's email

Email from Vitor, my Império Serrano director of the Ala of the Devoted, Monday morning, after the terrible Wednesday when Império Serrano was unjustly and mysteriously sent down to Grupo A.. I print his letter in its entirety, along with most of the letters that Vitor forwarded, to give you a sense of the pain and heartbreaking disillusionment suffered by a good escola that is sent down unjustly. (And, bateria fans, note the long paragraph that builds up to a scream about the injustice of Imperio's fantastic bateria being sent to Grupo A.) (PS I have permission from Vitor to forward his emails to samba blogs & translate them to English, as best I can.)

*******

Subject; The robbery of 2009

Hi my friends of the Devoted.

Since last Wednesday I've been thinking about what I should write to you all. It's already been 5 days and I'm still not sure. I still haven't recovered from the blow.

The ala of the Devoted is 6 years old, and since then we've made great advances in our goal of making a difference with our work. We offer to our people a quality service that is something different. We have prices [for costumes] that are lower than the average, we're more organized, and in place of that we "charge" our members that they must show energy, dedication and quality during the parade.

I am certain that after 6 years, this model is working better and better. Our members are happy with the parades, and the director of the escola loves our work. Therefore, from the point of view of the ala of the Devoted, everything's going very well.

But there's one thing that has been making me very uncomfortable. I just can't face anymore coming to our "virtual space" [email] to ask everybody to be sure they sing the samba, to ask that everybody arrive on time, to ask this or that of you. I have to confess that I have run out of energy, run out of motivation. I know that I shouldn't be passing on this sort of thing to the whole group, but I can't help it, I'm really being sincere, this is how I am. I can't stand any more to be organizing everything. Because it seems useless.

It seems that everything is decided between the robbers' gang of the "animal bankers" [the street-lottery gangsters who illegally fund the rich escolas]. They can't stand to see a strong Império, a great Império. Perhaps they fear this.

The truth is that in 2009, Império had a very good parade. Worthy of being in the Parade of Champions. Everybody who paraded knows this. Anybody who didn't parade could see it in the newspapers and the websites the day after the parade. The possibility that we could be demoted to Grupo A didn't even pass through my mind.

It was one of the great thefts that I have ever witnessed in my 25 years of participating in the parades of Sapucaí. [Sapucaí = the location of the Grupo Especial parades]

I want to thank everybody for the innumerable emails of support that I received in the past few days. This ala has always been a circle of very dear friends. Thanks to [list of names...] and many others who wrote offering support and best wishes for our parade.

Bit by bit, this week, I'll be sending out the photos of our parade. They came out very well... I think you'll like them. There are also photos online. [...]

In this moment of profound sadness and disappointment I can only thank all of you for your dedication and for the help that you have given to the ala.

The people of the back line were perfect - thanks Bernardo, Lenita, Samagaio, Sylvia, Miriam, Ivo, Katya.

I was very glad to get to meet Alex and Carlos, what great guys! The folks of Omar, Claudia, Omara and Marcia, also were just wonderful - thanks for your presence and your dedication. Others new for 2009 were Marcos and Gabriela, it was wonderful to meet you this year, I hope you had a great time! [more thanks to specific people snipped]

I agree very much in the analysis of my friends [names...], much more skillful with words than I am, and therefore I asked them for permission to append below their thoughts on the robbery of 2009.

hugs
vitor


******************
[first appended email - name removed]

When Imperio Serrano fell to Grupo A in 2007, it deserved the fall. This year, much to the contrary, Imperio had a wonderful parade - lovely, happy and animated. It was, without doubt, the escola that most engaged the public (if not the only escola to do so) - and it became victim of a robbery. A terrible robbery, practiced by the celebrated criminals who run the Rio Carnaval. But the crime is only the latest in a long string.

Imperio was one of the best escolas of 2009, according to the spectators of TV Globo, the listeners of Radio Tupo, and the critics on the site Carnavalesco. In the newspapers, the parade was unanimously praised, especially in light of the fact that the escola had managed to put on a good carnaval despite its financial condition. Example: Instead of presenting immense but defective floats, as did Mangueira (the inclusion of Mangueira in the champions is a joke), Imperio brought to the avenue smaller but perfectly constructed floats, and - even more important - floats that made sense in terms of the parade's theme (which did not occur in the majority of parades - the case of Mocidade being the most flagrant).

I won't bother commenting on the faults of the mediocre and unprepared (corrupt?) judges of Liesa. If Carnaval continues in the hands of this current set of thieves, the movie will play over and over: the escola that rises to Grupo Especial, falls again the following year, even if it is better than all the others. [note from KH: This has happened every Carnaval that I've seen, the only exception in the last decade being the very curious case of Vila Isabel, which benefited from a very curious change in the rules that only occurred in the year that Vila rose to Grupo Especial -and then the rules were changed back.]

There are untouchable escolas.

This happens occurs right under the noses of a public power that is saddled with a subservient press - the majority of journalists who were covering the event were not in the least bothered by swapping their critical conscience for an offering of cheese balls, a plate of sushi and a few shots of whiskey.

****
2nd email (name removed)

I saw all the parades with an open mind and I can say truly: only 4 escolas-de-samba had better parades than Imperio SErrano in 2009 - and they placed in the first four places, including Portela.

Imperio was robbed; hit by the gang of bandits that runs the carnaval of Rio de Janeiro.

What happened yesterday (Ash Wednesday) was, unequivocally, was not just the absolute rejection of the type of carnaval practiced by Imperio [an honest carnaval], but in fact the absolute opposite of carnaval. The negation of it.

It is hard, for anyone who took part in this parade, for anyone who was there, for anyone who felt their heart swell and who believed so much, for anyone who felt the reaction of the public in the stands, for anyone who saw the tears runing down the faces of the ladies, it's hard to take - to understand - this death - this assassination.

I would like, sincerely, to say "enough", that I'm tired, that I am done with escolas de samba, that from here on it will just be a memory. But no. I still believe. I don't really know in what; I don't know how; but I still believe. I believe very much in the force of Imperio Serrano - I need Imperio Serrano.

Maybe it would be easy to write here that, in spite of everything, it was worth it; that what matters is what we did, what we built from the ground up, from the asphalt, like a real escola de samba. But this, too, would be egoism. It would be a lie. It would be to ignore, among those that paraded, the feeling that resulted, the extraordinary feeling, that we put there, in the avenida, with every step and smile; with every measure a rare moment. But no; for anybody who was there, for anyone who make Sapucai shake with the song, for anyone who "ladeaou o miudinho" [sorry, don't know what that is - KH], for anyone who saw my Renata, beautiful, radiant with happiness, for anyone who noticed the improbable passista [samba dancer] that Joao turned into, joking and loving every second, for all those who were so happy to see the beautiful flow of the parade, for anyone who was at the parade at Imperio Serrano, whether parading or watchign the parade, whatever the results, it makes you to ask - makes you want to scream: apologies for the twelfth-place finish, to the incredible bateria of our escola. For that is what hurts.

Unlike 2007, in which we deserved the fall, this sending-down of Imperio is a scandalous blow against samba itself - and it was given by the delirious love of dirty money by the filthy bandits in public power, just as I described in the article "Shall we judge the judges?" (see link) [link wasn't included in the forward - KH]

We should not be quiet; we cannot. No more. And this will be, I believe, the official position of Imperio Serrano - to break convention - with the carnaval of the hidden "animal bankers" (bicheiros), with the filth that is called Liesa. Open your mouth to the world; shout it out. Without fear. Imperio is not an escola of thieves - and we will not go on with our head bowed despite the evidence that this carnaval is the whore of the bandits of organized crime. Imperio Serrano won't play a rigged game. Now is the time that we must take the position of pride and greatness is that is historically that of Imperio. It is long overdue. We will demand, without pause, of the mayor, that he take control of this event that is put on, in large part, with public money. The mayor Eduardo Paes, if he doesn't want to be connected to organized crime that was conceived and bought by Cesar Maia [previous mayor of Rio] needs to understand the LIESA, the Independent League of the Escolas de Samba, is immoral and is the enemy of Rio de Janeiro, whose best values insist on justice.

This is not the time to let things lie.

(And that Jorge Castanheira, president of Liesa, with his "pinta de sindico competente" [?] isn't anything more than a puppet of the animal-lottery thieves; the carnaval of Rio de Janeiro, in fact, is commanded by bandits in the control of Capitao Guimaraes, the torturer - it is lamentable that even TV Globo, showing this face, legitimizes this group of thieves as if they were a serious administrative entity.)

I have sympathy for Mangueira and especially for Mocidade - but, in this carnaval, it is quite an open question whether they should have ranked in front of Imperio. Mangueira practically fell apart in the Avenida; Mocidade exercised all the possibilities of bad taste. And what can I saw of Porto da Pedra, Viradouro and Unidos da Tijuca? What did these groups make of their spectacle if not the insolent cultivation of mediocrity?

[paragraph snipped - KH]

It costs me much to believe, naive that I am, but I am at last convinced that the result of Ash Wednesday was established exactly 12 months ago, when Imperio Serrano won Grupo A. Right then, in the moment when we rose from Grupo A, so happy and hopeful, we descended. (The same will happen with Uniao da Ilha in 2010, and escola that, in the end, doesn't deserve the rise; it has benefited this year from the persecution of Estacio de Sa.)

[paragraph snipped - KH]

But Imperio will return. Imperio is the heritage of Rio de Janeiro. And we go to the fight [rise to the challenge]. We go to the fight!

The second fall of Império

(this is a post from sambagypsy - cc'd to the riostories blog because it's highly Rio-relevant.)

I have been too overwhelmed and sick at heart recently to write any blog entries. My job has spiralled into a nightmare of endless 16-hr days (and I don't get paid hourly). I've had terribly bad news about a family member whose metastatic cancer has taken a frightening and deadly turn for the worse, and have been terribly worried about another family member with another health problem. I forgot my sister's birthday... I haven't been able to call her any day since then to apologize, because I never get done working till 1am. I spent most of Sunday miserable over the news that one of my bands had been accused of theft of a valuable leather jacket (!) and stealing of beer (well, frankly, that one's a lot more possible) and had been banned from one of the major venues in town - after a show that we'd really worked our asses off on. (A day later came another email saying oops, sorry, we found the "stolen" jacket behind a chair. By then I'd spent a whole day stressing about it.) I got called into my boss's office today to be reprimanded for the heinous act of asking my TA to help me with the impossible pile of grading that I have - my TA being the only thing that has kept my 16-hr work days from turning into 20 -hr workdays. Apparently they don't allow TAs at this school to help with exam grading... I hadn't known. Yesterday I got a crisp email informing me that one of the classes I am due to teach next fall has been drastically changed without my knowledge (they'd forgotten that was teaching it, forgot to invite me ot any of the meetings about it); this will require another dozen hours per week of prep time per week, and will turn next semester into the same nightmare that this semester has been, and the semester before, and the one before that. The news about the phys lab should have been a minor thing, and I'd shaken it off and was puttering around my room again, and then I just started to cry.

I haven't "just started to cry" like that since my first terrible, miserable, lonely time in Brazil; in Salvador in winter; when the winter gales off the Atlantic were blowing the street signs right off their poles, and I passed out in my host family's living room one day from a bleeding ulcer. The host family could have cared less; but the wonderful, sweet, underpaid, overworked cook put me to bed and made me his mom's special chicken soup.

I've worked 72 hours from Thursday night to Monday night. I had to miss two rehearsals and am on the point of just withdrawing from all of my bands. I hate this. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

In the middle of all this, Carnaval. I did manage to see some of it at a friend's house (while typing lecture notes on invertebrate biology and plant medicines on my laptop). The only escola that was able to crack me out of my laptop daze was Salgueiro - with an incredible parade with, guess what theme, DRUMS!!! Can you even imagine a better theme?? They had some of the most beautiful floats I've ever seen - gigantic drums with acrobats on bungee cords leaping up and down to hit them - huge drums whose drum heads stretched out into huge, mobile heads of the animals who gave their lives to make the drums - an entire ala of maculele dancers - a float crowded full of actual mestres of baterias, past and present - and a drum that must have been twenty feet across with lifesize cows running across (well, people dressed as cows).

Salgueiro was the only escola that truly grabbed my attention; the only one that made me actually CLOSE my laptop and just watch the parade.

I was also pleased to see that Imperio Serrano, my beloved escola, one of the few "poor but honest" escolas in Grupo Especial, did a beautiful parade. No broken floats like two years ago when they lost! A magnificent song (they won the best song award this year) and the whole stadium singing along. I thought it was good enought that they had a shot at finishing in the top 6 and being in the Parade of Champions. Imperio's one of the few Grupo Especial escolas that does not have the (illegal) backing of major drug cartel, so it would be pretty cool to see them in the Parade of Champions.

Poor Mocidade had a pretty sketchy parade. And Mangueira, horrors, actually had a very bad parade with several float disasters. They've had some budget problems and some of their floats were actually unfinished! This is usually the kiss of death for a Grupo Especial escola. Could it be that the great Mangueira might go down to Grupo A??

Rumors started to fly that if Mangueira or Mocidade ended up last (the escola that is ranked last is demoted to Grupo A), LIESA (the league of samba schools that runs Carnaval) was going to announce that, due to special unforeseen circumstances, no Grupo Especial escola would be sent down last year.

Rumors started to fly particularly intensely that Mangueira, the famous escola of thieves and drug dealers, was pulling strings behind the scenes.

Wednesday the results came out.

SALGUEIRO WON! I was so pleased! Good for Salgueiro - they really earned it. They haven't won in over a decade.

Mangueira finished in the top 6 in the Parade of Champions. What the ... ????

Mocidade finished second to last.

Imperio Serrano was ranked last and will go down to Grupo A.

I have always known that Grupo Especial was rigged, but the fall of Imperio this year, despite Imperio's beautiful parade, with Mangueira mysteriously in the Parade of Champions despite a terrible parade with unfinished floats, confirmed it for me beyond any further doubt. Or another way to put it is - this year it hit me where it really hurt. Carnaval is rigged. Bought and paid for. I am certain that Mangueria bribed the judges to bring Imperio down instead of Mangueira - since Imperio is politically the weakest escola and can offer no bribe money in return.

I'm reminded of the old joke about an "honest" judge in Latin America: An honest judge is one who will consider bribes equally from all offerers and will, fair and honest, take the biggest bribe. (And Imperio couldn't afford to offer anything.)

So I am sick at heart this week.

I have been waiting since then for an email from Vitor, my ala director in Imperio Serrano, Vitor of the endless enthusiastic emails, who has been slaving away all year for this parade. Usually he sends an email out right after Wednesday's results. He even did two years ago, when Imperio had their catastrophic parades with floats falling apart, and was sent down for the first time. But Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday passed... and no word from Vitor. See the next post for the update.

Parades after Carnaval!

OK, just one more post since this might affect people's travel plans for next year. I just noticed a great new trend. Some of the Especial escolas have started doing a full parade the week AFTER the Parade of Champions (2 weeks after the Carnaval weekend). Mocidade and Portela both asked all their paraders to save their costumes for two weeks so that they could do 1 more parade - and - this is the cool part - they're doing it IN THEIR LOCAL COMMUNITY. Full costumes, all the parade sections, porta-bandeiras in full costume, bateria, the works. (Just no floats, because they can't afford to ship the floats all that distance.) In addition, Império Serrano had a gigantic party this weekend too, not a parade exactly but a huge feijoada with the bateria playing.

It's such a great idea - bring the Carnaval back to the people who support that escola all year long; and, what's more, to people who have no way of affording a ticket to see the parade in the Sambodromo.

I don't know if this has been happening all along and I've just missed it, but it's cool. And there's definitely a new possibility shaping up for anybody who can't afford Rio during Carnaval itself: Come immediately after Carnaval (like, arrive on Ash Wednesday or that Thursday or Friday) and stay for the next 2 weekends. You can see the Parade of Champions, the Monobloco parade and all the other cool blocos that parade that weekend - Mulheres de Chico and Banda de Ipanema now parade that weekend too, along with several others - and then these local escola parades & parties the weekend after that. Housing will be a ton cheaper, and you'll get to see some fantastic stuff.

What are you waiting for?

I've followed Carnaval from afar from the last month, from chilly Portland, Oregon. The distant roar of the blocos and escolas have been about all that's been keeping me warm. But with the final Monobloco parade done, I decree this season over. Time to hunker down and practice and turn my attention to my own groups: the Lions of Batucada, Axe Dide, Samba Gata here in Portland, and Tudo Beleza up in Seattle. Time to work on those repinique rolls again... get my crappy timbal playing up to speed... buy my ticket for Bloco X (here's hoping!) ... and get ready for whatever comes next. If you want to hear about my musical life outside of Brazil, I'll be posting to www.sambagypsy.blogspot.com. That's where I post in between my Brazil trips.

If you want to work on your Portuguese, all the escola news & bloco blogs that I've been gleaning my info from are online at:
www.oglobo.com.br
www.extra.globo.com
odia.terra.com.br

And it never stops. Even as I'm typing this, more news items are popping up: Laila's robbers actually called him back later to apologize. (My god, Rio is so insane...) The escolas are starting to talk about their themes for next year; they've got till April to choose a new theme, and then the songwriters get to work. Mangueira's thinking Cirque do Soleil. France is offering a lot of sponsorship money, possibly to Império Serrano, in return for a French theme. (Império's amazing and perfect response to the idea of selling their theme: "In our conception of Carnaval, money isn't everything.")

So it never really ends. It is starting all over again.

I've received so many great emails via this blog, from everywhere from Glasgow to Ohio to... well, Rio actually! The best part has been meeting a lot of those people in person. Not to get too sappy or anything, but honestly I think I have met more new wonderful friends on this three-year samba journey than in the previous thirty years all put together. And the journey keeps branching in new directions that I never could have predicted. Those reading this from Brazil know what I'm talking about. But if you're one of those who hasn't yet been to Brazil, but is getting kind of bit by that samba bug.... and you're starting to think, hmmm, wow, what would it be like to be there....

Why not go see it for yourself?

If you answered... oh, I'd love to do that... but... job.... money.... house... furniture... family....partner.... career...

How long are you going to live?

What is life for?

What are you waiting for?

The Final Bloco Report

From one of the bloco blogs.... The final bloco report:

Rio once again has reclaimed its rightful place as City with the Best Street Carnival. The Monobloco parade alone drew 150,000 people, nearly twice what the Sambodromo holds. The city of Rio today reported that the bloco parades, in total, added up to three million people, this year, which they say topped the biggest street festivals of Salvador and Recife. (Either that or Rio's got 150,000 people who each go to twenty parades...could be.....)


Daniel Pereira's (of the Samba de Rede blog) personal list of awards today is:

Best bloco parade: Barbas

Best samba (song): Bloco de Segunda

Best sound quality: Monobloco!

Best bateria: Monobloco! rah!

Most irreverent: Cutucano Atrás

Most animated crowd: The people of Barangal

Most omnipresent partier: Guilherme Guimaraes Studart

Most original costumes: Boitatá

Worst of Carnaval: The rain

Best dance parties: Fundição Progresso (this is where Monobloco & Banga have all their parties)

Best blocos for "getting" (picking up chicks, etc.): Volta Alice and Carmelitas

Best new bloco: Mulheres de Chico! (yeah!)

Most impossibly crowded bloco parades: Bola Preta and Rancho Flor de Sereno

Valeu, Império

Today is the TRUE last day of Carnaval, meaning, the last day of parades.... I'll wrap up with one more day of escola gossip, and then tomorrow I'll be saying farewell for another year.

- Banda de Ipanema's new parade today is going straight into the sea! Everyone's wearing costumes that they can take straight into the ocean. Rumor is that the band is going to be mostly or all tamborims or chocalhos, no brass, so that they can go swimming too.

- Oh, to be in Monobloco today... Today is the Great Parade.

- In escola news: The Sambodromo had another delirious, drunk and slightly-falling-apart Parade of Champions. Pop star Ivete Sangalo showed up and threw the whole Sambodromo into a dizzy. Later, Beija-Flor's director (Laila, the one who was nearly killed Friday) felt the need to take to the microphone just before Beija-Flor's parade to say that the Rio Carnaval today is completely pure and honest and uncorrupt; unlike the bad old days when votes used to be bought. Everyone was fascinated by this little speech, because it revealed that Beija-Flor is still stinging from the accusations last year of buying votes. And more fascinating still, the Sambodromo crowd actually jeered him when he said that! They almost drowned him out. Seems like everyone thinks Beija-Flor does buy votes. But, everyone also agrees that they don't have to, because they really do put on the best parades. Ironic, huh?

- Portela is having some kind of crisis. The porta-bandeira, carnavalesco, and lead singer all quit on Friday. The porta-bandeira said there were 'internal problems' in the escola. The singer just said "Portela is very complicated." And all the drummers in the bateria are saying that the mestre is probably leaving too. Those are the 4 key jobs in an escola's parade. What's going on?

- But Portela did manage to recruit Sao Clemente's naked girl! Remember the girl who paraded nude in the Sao Clemente parade and cost them half a point? Well, she showed up on Saturday in the Portela passista ala, this time wearing a bikini - and she was nearly assaulted by an absolutely furious Sao Clemente fan. He found her in the parade gathering-area, threatened to hit her and got so scary she had to call the police. Meanwhile, the carnavalesco of Sao Clemente explains, "She was supposed to be dressed as an Indian, so it made sense for her to be nude. She wasn't nude just for no reason at all." And she did try to wear that little tapa-sexo... but it just fell off, hey, what can you do?

- More tension in Mangueira. Police raided the quadra last week and found that the secret bateria tunnel has been sealed. Ivo Meirelles, he former president of the bateria, who has been hiding out in the Mangueira favela, has left the favela; he said on Saturday night that Mangueira was "no longer comfortable." The traficante Tuchinha, who wrote Mangueira's samba, has vanished and his second has just been executed. Control of the Mangueira favela is now thought to be in the hands of his nephew "Pitbull". The paper says he is "known for his violent style." This is all just creepy as hell.

- And Império Serrano's return to Grupo Especial is being widely treated as something like the second coming of Christ. All the Brazilian blogs are full of heart-wrenching letters about how much it means to people: to see a great but poor escola, with so much tradition and history, go through a crushing and humiliating defeat (sent to Grupo A! When Imperio was one of the founders of Especial!) , but work so hard all year and, EVEN IN HEAVY RAIN, put on the best parade of their lives and win again. It has touched some kind of chord. The pummeling rain just seemed to give the whole parade a sort of classic Shakespearean touch and made everybody sing and dance and play that much harder.

I think the Brazilian people see a sort of hope and faith in this story that they rarely see in real life. We Americans are used to this sort of story, the mythology of "all-your-hard-work-will-pay-off"; try, try again; keep on working and all your dreams will come true; it's the American dream, right? But, for most Brazilians, life rarely works out that way. So they are saying: Valeu, Império. [Thank you.]