samba kat's Rio Stories

Someday it'll happen

2011-03-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

My last day in Rio and for the very first time I'm on a fast reliable internet connection, so I'm posting a couple more quick stories now. This has been my first trip in years sans laptop... my first DAY sans laptop in at least five years running. quite a weird and lovely experience.

I have to go catch a cab to the airport in about half an hour. Am right now scarfing down my last Guarana, my last little ball of cheese bread, soaking in my last 90-degree heat and searing sun for months, and getting my last sunburn. I still have so much I want to write about, especially the terrifically stunning Bangalafumenga moments (the parade at the Botanical Garden, and their last show in Lapa last Saturday). But I just wanted to point out one thing about women being drummers, here in Rio. It's been stunning how rapidly it's changed, in the last five years. When I first got here in 2005, women drummers were still kind of rare, and Mangueira (that bastion of tradition) still did not allow women in the bateria at all. Now they're just all over the place! Mangueira was the last holdout, actually; they folded a few years back and started letting women play, and they now regularly recruit the best female percussionists in all of Rio. There's even a little show group of the Women of Mangueira. There are at least three all-female blocos that I know of (two in Rio and one in Niteroi). Quite a few of the more "modern" blocos, the ones that play a variety of rhythms and that play more than just samba, are more than 50% women now. (Banga, for one, is probably about 2/3 women).

In the escolas, women are extremely common in tamborim and chocalho - those are the traditional "women's instruments", to some extent - and have crept to a surprising degree onto caixa and surdo.

One of my Rio friends said she'd seen a little tiny girl at a Grupo Especial escola a few weeks before Carnaval, about seven years old or so. You frequently see little boys in the bateria, and playing damn well too, but only in the last couple years have I ever seen little girls. A new generation of girls is growing up inside the baterias. Most of the little girls just play at being passistas (the sexy dancers) but now at least they have a choice, and they know they can be in the bateria too if they want.

Anyway, this little girl was pretending to be one of the escola directors, the guys that give the cues. She was correctly giving all the start and stop hand cues, signalling the breaks correctly. And watching the mestre - the conductor/director of the whole bateria, the guy in charge of everything - like a hawk.

My friend (a woman percussionist herself) asked the girl, "Do you want to be in the bateria when you grow up?"

The girl said "No. I want to be mestre."

Mangueira's 9 was for "second surdo"??

2011-03-18T12:27:00.001-07:00

So, in the midst of the Libya crisis and the Tokyo nuclear reactors overheating and the ghastly tsunami videos and everything, somehow the fact that the Rio escola-de-samba Mangueira got a 9 for bateria from one Sambodromo judge has just been fascinating me, and is just about the only news story I'm following right now. (Possibly because it helps me avoid all the other horrible news).

In a statement to the press that utterly mystified me, the judge who gave the Mangueira bateria an unheard-of 9.0 (that's very low) says it was not because of the "paradona" (the silent 20-second break). (That had been the dominant theory circulating, including among the bateria players.) The judge said the silent break was fine. He says the 9 was because Mangueira was using a second surdo, and that Mangueira is supposed to have only a first surdo, and he thought the second surdo messed up the pure tone of the first surdo. He said, it's fine for escolas to innovate but you shouldn't mess with tradition.

OK so.... First off. WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT? I've got a video of the bateria entering the Sambodromo and I've stared at that video about twenty times, in slow motion, backward and forward, and I can't see a second surdo anywhere! My video's not exactly definitive - it's shaky (hey, they were far away, and I was excited, and did not know I was going to need to be scrutinizing every damn surdo later) and for some idiotic reason I didn't pan all the way to the back of the bateria. But I can see quite a few of the surdos and they are... well, first off, they are STUNNING. That unbelievable power and confidence of Mangueira is all there.... even with the sound turned off, just the sight of those surdo guys, pounding, pounding, pounding that 2 in perfect synchrony, perfect power, perfectly relaxed... everybody singing, everybody dancing, BOUNCING even... so relentless.... so Mangueira. (and hey! Mangueira's got a woman on surdo!)
Anyway, all I see are first surdos and Mangueira's distinctive little third-surdos (called surdo mo'.) Playing the all time classic Mangueira surdo pattern. They did not mess with tradition.
I do think I might maybe possibly see two different SIZES of first surdo (though the size is hard to judge). Perhaps that's what the judge is talking about - maybe he is calling the smaller size a "second surdo"? Which is a pretty lame excuse for giving them a 9...
My other theory is that the judge thought the surdo mo' was a second surdo ... which would be embarrassingly ignorant if that were the case.

Second. Suppose Mangueira had indeed added a second surdo. So what? What on earth does it mean to say "It's fine to innovate, but don't mess with tradition"... let's see... giving them a 9 would therefore mean it is NOT fine to innovate, wouldn't it?

Third. A NINE? Even if Mangueira'd added a weird new surdo part, even if they'd broken with tradition, even if this is a judge who likes tradition, even if you want to penalize them for breaking with tradition - ok, give 'em a 9.8, sure! But a NINE? An entire point off? Many Carnaval championships are decided by less than a point, so that's potentially a death blow to the entire escola. A nine should mean they could barely play! That they couldn't hold tempo, that they fell apart! You don't give a 9 to a bateria that's playing better than almost every other bateria in Grupo Especial!

I'm not the only one who was confused by the judge's statement. The Mangueira mestre himself (a new mestre this year btw, Ailton Nunes) misunderstood this statement to mean that the judge was penalizing Mangueira for NOT having a second surdo, which actually is the opposite of what the judge said. Ailton made an appropriately baffled statement to the press about it.

Anyway, the judges all have to post the explanations of their scores a few weeks after Carnaval, but those have not been posted yet. Stay tuned... You may now return to your regular news of war, death, destruction.

Rio Carnaval results

2011-03-10T14:31:00.001-08:00

Have finally clawed my way to an internet access point and am actually typing on a normal keyboard for the first time this trip. Good lord, it´s Thursday already...Ash Wednesday was yesterday, the Rei Momo has handed the key of the city back to the mayor, and Carnaval is actually finally over. And last night I slept for nearly 14 hours and woke up at two in the afternoon, since I´ve been up pretty much nonstop since Friday. I hadn´t gone to bed before dawn for the last five days running, and usually would snatch only 4 hours sleep or so, 8am to noon, and then run out to catch the 2pm blocos. Saturday night I never get any sleep at all, since I always have to run from the Grupo de Acesso parades (which end at 7am) straight to the Banga parade (which starts at 9am, clear across the city).

On Ash Wednesday is the Apuracao, the reading-of-the-scores of the escolas de samba. Even after seeing five Carnavals here, it´s extraordinary to me how intensely interested the entire city is in the results of the judging. (Note to new readers: the massive parades of the escolas-de-samba in Rio are judged. It is a competition.) People follow the apuracao as intently as if it were the World Cup or the Super Bowl. What´s really funny is that it´s just a guy reading numbers... for about an hour and a half. But somehow it´s simply fascinating, as this or that escola starts to pull ahead in its total score.

The actual event takes place in the Sambodromo itself, right under the famous arched statue at the end of the parade route. Each escola has a little team of key people - the president, the carnavalesco [parade designer], the mestre-sala and porta-bandeira [the flag couple], the puxador [lead singer], mestre of the bateria [director the drummers] and so on - all seated at a table under the arches. Plus a battery of die-hard fans waving flags from the bleachers.

On a higher table sit the LIESA officials who will read the scores. One by one they go through each of the ten judging categories, which are (let´s see if I can remember all ten...)

- Evolucao - roughly, parade flow)
- Harmonia - singing. Singing quality, enthusiasm, and whether all paraders know the words. When that judge looks at you, you´d better be singing, or at least faking really well! Or, in the immortal words of an Imperio Serrano director who ran screaming past me during my first parade as we approached the judges´ booth: "SING, DAMMIT! SING, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! SING, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS! AND LOOK LIKE YOU´RE HAPPY!"
- Enredo - the theme of the parade. Each escola has a new enredo each year. (Enredos this year included Charles Darwin, hair, fear, a famous musician, a famous author of children´s books, the sea, etc.)
- Samba-enredo - the song. Each escola has a new song each year, written to match that year´s theme, and that one song is sung over and over in an endless loop during the parade. By the end of the hour-and-twenty-minute parade you either LOVE the song or you hate it with a passion. It´s always interesting, and mysteriously unpredictable, to see which songs grow on you and which don´t. (The escola with the best song this year, everyone seems to agree, was my own beloved Imperio Serrano. They won an Estandarte de Ouro for it).
- Comissao de frente - "comission of the front", this is the dance group that opens the whole parade. Typically it´s a very inventive, clever, choreographed show with amazing acrobats and dancers, illustrating some aspect of the enredo. (The comissao de frente that really got the crowd´s attention this year was Unidos da Tijuca - it was half dance and half magic show, involving the dancers´ bodies falling apart. The dancer´s heads seemed to fall off of their shoulders, and later the tops of their bodies somehow separated from the bottom halves.)
- Mestre-sala & porta-bandeira - the porta-bandeira is the woman who carries the escola flag, typically wearing a gown that is approximately the size of a pickup truck and covered with some ten million gems, and she whirls the flag around in an incredibly majestic sort of stately dance, while the mestre-sala [her consort] flies around her like a little satellite zooming around the sun. Each samba escola has its own unique flag; and each escola flag is so beloved, and is presented to the judges with such intense pride and respect by the porta-bandeira and mestre-sala, that it makes (say) right-wing Republicans´ reverence of the American flag seem kind of casual and ho-hum in comparison. Anyway, the mestre-sala and porta-bandeira have probably the heaviest burden of anybody in the parade, since those two people are responsible for a tenth of the escola´s total score, all by themselves. (The TV kept showing the porta-bandeira of Mangueira, who, during the reading of porta-bandeira scores, had her head down on the table for the entire time, her face hidden from view. She was gripping the mestre-sala´s hand so hard that both their hands were shaking. Thank god, they got 10´s, or I think she might have died on the spot)
- Bateria - the samba drummers. Usually there are between 250-400 drummers, all under the command of the mestre of the bateria and his crew of directors. This is, of course, the category that most fascinates us musicians.)(
- Alegorias & Aderecos - Floats and their decorations.
- Fantasias - Costumes.
- Conjunto - Overall effect (roughly).

So they go through each category one at a time. Ten categories. Five judges for each category (one in each of the five judges´ booths that are at different locations along the parade route. Nine escolas (this year. It´s usually 12). That´s a lot of scores to read! The top score is 10; and in Grupo Especial, the top league of samba escolas, the scores are supposed to be between 8 and 10. Typical Especial scores are clustered in the 9.8, 9.9, 10 range.

What that all adds up to is an hour and a half of the announcer saying things like "Evolucao. First judge. For the escola Mangueira....[dramatic pause]... NINE POINT NINE. For Unidos da Tijuca .... [dramatic pause]... TEN!"

But what´s always fascinating to me is how riveted the whole city is by this reading-of-the-scores. EVERY bar, and I mean EVERY bar in the entire city, is carrying the live TV feed of the reading-of-the-scores. EVERY escola has a big-screen TV set up in its rehearsal hall, with legions of fans waiting with bated breath for every number. If you take a taxi ride during the apuracao, the taxi radio will invariably be tuned into the radio broadcast, with the taxi driver muttering comments under his breath. And with every TEN (or, DEZ, in Portuguese) there´s a huge cheer from the fans from that escola, and moans of despair from fans of the other escolas.

Today I read an interview with the score announcer. He said, quite seriously, "You can´t just read the scores. You have to interpret them," as if the reading of the score is an Oscar-worthy performance. He said he gives great thought to how long a pause he uses before saying each number. The newspapers all commented on his especially dramatic five-second pause before Beija-Flor´s final score of the day. (which was a ten, when he finally got around to reading it)

And everybody´s got an opinion, about EVERY score. Me, I was invited to an Apuracao Party at the house of some Brazilian friends. It was a crowd of maybe 15 or 20 people, all of whom had watched all the escola parades all weekend. Everybody´d brought their little kids, and even newborn babies, and there was an endless flow of beer and a huge spread of sandwiches and cashews and little chocolate treats (and that rarest and finest of Brazilian delicacies, imported Pringles potato chips). And with every score, people were FULL of opinions. The afternoon unfolded like this:

Announcer: "Comissao de frente. Escola Beija-Flor.... TEN!"
Woman next to me: "WHAT? Are you KIDDING me? A TEN? OK, I could not make head or tail of that dance. There was the little boy and that giant box, and then these people in blue all spring out of the box and then run back into the box and suddenly the box falls apart and the people in blue are all holding up this woman dressed in white, right? WHAT WAS IT SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT?"
Man: "It was perfectly clear! The box was a radio! The people in blue were music! Didn´t you see the musical notes on their costumes? And the woman in white represented voice, the power of the singing voice, and the little boy was a young Roberto Carlos, which was the theme, right? So the whole dance was about how Roberto Carlos was inspired as a young boy by the music and singing that he heard on the radio. IT WAS OBVIOUS."
Woman: "All I can say is, IT DIDN´T MAKE ANY SENSE TO ME. I couldn´t see those little notes on the blue costumes. It should make more sense if it gets a score of ten."

Announcer: "Fantasias. Escola of Salgueiro... TEN."
Woman seated next to me: "Yes, that´s exactly right, they really had lovely costumes this year, don´t you agree?" [Long discussion ensues about this or that costume:] "Personally I really liked the hoop skirts, they were so charming this year, just adorable," "Yes, but why would such-and-such escola be scored lower? They only got a nine point eight, but I really think that they were every bit as good as Salgueiro´s..." "No no no, Salgueiro´s had more attention to detail and were much more creative..." "But didn´t use see so-and-so´s headdresses?" "But without Ilha being judged we just can´t make sense of these scores! Didn´t you all see Ilha´s kangaroo costumes?!" "But Tijuca´s Velociraptors had the same idea -" "But BOTH the kangaroos and the velociraptors were really inspired by Beija-Flor´s elephant and giraffe costumes from four years ago, don´t you remember those?) [Long discussion ensues about Ilha´s kangaroo costumes vs. Tijuca´s velociraptors vs. Beija-Flor´s giraffes]

Announcer: "Floats and decorations. Porta da Pedra... NINE POINT EIGHT. Imperatriz... NINE POINT EIGHT. Mocidade... NINE POINT SIX. Beija-Flor...TEN!"
Crowd around me responds to this with: "VAI MORRER! VAI MORRER! VAI MORRER!" (You´re gonna die!) - This judge´s scores seemed so clearly skewed toward Beija-Flor that the crowd instantly assumed the judge had been bought. The "you´re gonna die" chant was in jest, but in fact, the escola competition is so fierce and bloodthirsty, and the politics of Rio´s crime-ridden escola neighborhoods so dangerous, that people have indeed been assassinated over matters of escola politics.

Announcer: "Bateria. Escola of Mangueira..... NINE."
We´re all waiting for the announcer to add "...point nine" but he doesn´t. Slowly we realize it´s just NINE, as in nine point zero, as in 9. Just nine. Mangueira is one of the very best baterias of all of Rio and they´ve just gotten the worst bateria score we´ve seen in years.
Everybody talking simultaneously: "WHAT? WHAT IS THAT? NINE? REALLY? NO WAY! THAT´S CRAZY!" One of my musician friends, who plays in the Portela bateria himself, says: "Where do they FIND these judges? Do they just grab random people off the street to be judges? They must just drive around and find someone and say, Hey, you, you there by the bus stop! You look like you don´t know anything - would you like to be a bateria judge in the Sambodromo this year? I mean, come on, this is just unbelievable!"

[The rumor on the net later was that the 9 was because Mangueira happened to hit their long 20-second break exactly when they passed the last judge´s box. That is... they were NOT PLAYING AT ALL when they walked past that judge! In which case he really should have given them an 8, the lowest score possible. However, one of my most knowledgable sambista friends has since passed me a little clue from a media interview in which the 5th judge commented that "another surdo" was messing up the clarity of Mangueira´s traditional one-surdo sound. This is utterly baffling to me, because if he´s talking about the 3rd surdo, he´s out of his mind - Mangueira´s always had a third surdo.)

And so it goes.

As the scores start piling up it becomes clear that:
- Beija-Flor is winning by a landslide. Beija-Flor is a truly formidable escola - they´ve already won three championships in recent years. They´re generally one of my favorite escolas: hard-working, dedicated, traditional. And I love the silky swing of their bateria, with its beautiful frigideira section. But their parade left me cold this year (I´m not really familiar with Roberto Carlos, their theme this year; and definitely not a fan of gigantic weepy-looking Jesus statues - their last float. Ilha´s kickass Charles Darwin parade was much more my style) Anyway, it´s a bit peculiar how big the landslide is, since regardless of what you think of Roberto Carlos or Gigantic Jesus, the Beija-Flor parade had some technical flaws that seem to have been overlooked by the judges. They did have a really good parade - nobody´s disputing that - but they shouldn´t be winning by such a huge margin.
- Unidos da Tijuca´s clever, fantastic parade has received some oddly low scores. Perhaps it´s just not a traditional enough parade for the judges? However, their magic-show comissao de frente did receive five perfect 10´s.
- Salgueiro´s terrific bad luck with float breakdowns will bump them from 3rd to 5th, but has neither cost them the championship nor kept them out of the Parade of Champions. They went horribly over the allowed time - a shocking ten minutes over - leaving the Salgueiro paraders literally in tears at the end of the parade route. But in the end they pulled through ok.
- Everybody´s increasingly frustrated that Portela, Grande Rio and Uniao da Ilha were excluded from judging this year. This was because of the devastating fire at the escola warehouses some three weeks ago, which destroyed all of Grande Rio´s floats and costumes, and half of Portela´s and Ilha´s costumes too. (That´s over two thousand costumes destroyed for both Portela and Ilha, over four thousand for Grande Rio. That´s a lot of costumes to make in three weeks). At the time it seemed like a kind thing to exclude those three escolas from judging, but now it´s suddenly apparent that we are all just dying to see what the judges thought of those elements that were not affected by fire: the wonderful Portela bateria, for example, and the porta-bandeira, the singing, the parade flow, the song, the theme.

What´s more, Ilha did such a phenomenal job reconstructing their entire parade that people are now saying they might have actually won!

And in fact, Ilha did win the prestigious Estandarte de Ouro award for best escola. This is an unofficial award, given annually by the O Globo newspaper, but it´s quite prestigious. Kudos to Ilha for pulling this off; they really showed a lot of guts and creativity in being able to reconstruct more than two thousand costumes, and a giant float of a walking spider, in three weeks, and in the end put on such a great parade. (By the way, they also won best parade theme - for the Charles Darwin theme. Go Darwin go!)

So three escolas have parties tonight: Beija-Flor of course, because they won; Salgueiro, because they were so relieved that they still managed to get into the Parade of Champions (the top 6 escolas) despite their appalling string of float breakdowns; and Ilha, because they won the Estandarte de Ouro despite the horrific fire.

Final results:

Grupo Especial: (top group of samba escolas)
1. Beija-Flor
2. Unidos da Tijuca
3. Mangueira
4. Vila Isabel
5. Salgueiro
6. Imperatriz
7. Mocidade
8. Porta da Pedra
9. Sao Clemente

Excluded from judging due to fire: Grande Rio, Uniao da Ilha, and Portela. Grande Rio, which was worst affected by the fire, had to parade under a torrential downpour that lasted exactly, precisely, the duration of their parade. How ironic.

Due to the fire, no escola will be demoted from Grupo Especial this year, but as usual 1 escola will be promoted from Grupo de Acesso. (The winner was Renascer de Jacarepagua. See below) This means Grupo Especial will have 13 escolas next year (instead of 12); so next year 2 escolas will be sent down.

Mangueira won best bateria in both the newspaper-based awards (Estandarte de Ouro and Tamborim de Ouro).

Grupo de Acesso results:(second group of samba escolas)
1. Renascer de Jacarepagua
2. Viradouro
3. Estacio de Sa
4. Cubango (This is the escola I played with last year. Their parade was great; a lot of people thought they´d win.)
5. Santa Cruz
6. Imperio Serrano (who I have paraded with 3 times.)
7. Imperio da Tijuca
8. Innocentes de Belford Roxo
9 Rocinha
10. Caprichosos (demoted to Grupo B). Caprichosos´floats were unfinished. One of my Cubango friends said "When I walked past the floats just before the parade, the Caprichosos guys were still actually painting their floats! And some floats were still just the iron framework! I thought maybe their theme this year was about iron."
11. Alegria da Zona Sul (demoted to Grupo B). This is the friendly little escola that tourists often run into along Copacabana beach. They´re usually in Grupo B, and back they go to Grupo B again - they´re just a bit too disorganized to stay in the upper leagues.

And that´s the results.
Till next year.
Today, Thursday, just hours after their celebration party, Beija-Flor announced its likely theme for next year. And so it begins again...

Grupo Especial Sunday night

2011-03-07T12:27:00.000-08:00

Well, it's 4pm and I just woke up - spent all night at Grupo Especial. Dawn was breaking as the Mangueira bateria came thundering past us. It had started to rain too, but nearly the whole crowd stayed till the very end, drenched and exhausted, to see Mangueira. (the oldest escola of Rio, the most famous, the most powerful, and also with the most unique samba rhythm.)

What a day. The Banga parade that morning, was, I thought, the best Banga parade ever. Crowd estimate was 50,000 people. It had been dumping rain nonstop for the whole carnaval weekend, but, not only did it not rain on Banga, but by the end of the parade the clouds had broken and sun was streaming down as we played our last ciranda. An INTENSELY happy, joyful crowd; tremendously wonderful music. Rodrigo Maranhao said to the crowd "In 14 years it has never rained on a Banga parade. Never."

A few hours later, the sun disappeared again, and by Mangueira it was raining.

Ok, I had this plan of giving the grupo especial report today, but I just got a text from my Cubango buddies (the escola that I played caixa with - in the sambodromo parade - last year) who say they are all going to the Sargento Pimenta bloco's street parade in a few minutes and do I want to come along?

Sargento Pimenta... Sergeant...Pepper? Looking it up I discover it's a new bloco that plays only Beatles songs... with a samba bateria (several hundred drummers playing Brazilian samba). Because, Sambista Commandment Number One: Everything Is Better With A Samba Bateria.

And it's four blocks from my house. As soon as my stupid camera finishes uploading all its Grupo Especial videos I am out of here. But the quick report is: Unidos da Tijuca totally kicked ass and clearly the crowd favorite. The jawdropping baterias last night were Portela (beautiful silky swing and very cool breaks), Imperatriz (now featuring timbal and berimbau!), Unidos da Tijuca (stunning as always), and of course thundering unstoppable Mangueira.

BTW Mangueira's apparently taken to heart the comment of the judge (friend of a friend of mine in fact) who docked them a tenth of a point recently for lack of innovation - because Mangueira's now got some elaborate breaks, AND a couple of timbals who are dramatically featured in the breaks. (Take that, Imperatriz!)

And Portela did an amazing job reconstructing its thousand of burned costumes in just three weeks! Some floats were unfinished; I guess maybe they decided to prioritize getting costumes done so all their community members could parade, instead of finishing floats. Good call.

Tonight is the second and final night of Grupo Especial. Me & a Danish saxophone player that I met in Banga are going to try to get done cheap tix from scalpers halfway through the night.

Camera's done. Oh! I can hear Sargento Pimenta approaching outside! Gotta run!

2011-03-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

Right! So! I think it posted! For technical reasons I cannot back up and proofreader, nor view the actual blog, so damn the autocorrect glitches and full speed ahead. I'm sitting here pecking away on my iPhone because I got here two and a half hours early to save seats for a bunch of friends, including two who are playing in the bateria (400-person drum band) of Portela. (These two are Dudu Fuentes, one of the brilliant musicians of the band, and Carnaval parade group Banga, and his wife Olivia, a dear friend who for many years has been one of my most helpful and informative samba contacts). They've just shown up, and all their friends, a chattering horde of friendly Brazilians. Helicopters are hovering overhead - a robotic camera is zooming along an elevated track above the parade route - the lights are blazing. The sound system abruptly roars to life with the Brazilian anthem, and then the Rio city anthem. Everyone's singing along enthusiastically - despite the reputation of Grupo Especial as being too overpriced for local Brazilians to afford any more, in fact the crowd around me in Sector 7 is mostly Brazilian. Mostly middle class, true, but heart-and-soul cariocas nonetheless. Most have saved up all year to buy a ticket for just 1 of the parade nights - the night when their favorite samba escola, the "escola of their heart", is parading.

BTW, this year's fire resulted in Portela and Mocidade swapping nights - Portela was switched to Sunday and Mocidade to Monday - causing tremendous chaos among Portela and Mocidade fans who'd already spent a month's rent on a ticket for the other night. The directors of both escolas arranged a meeting where Portela and Mocidade fans could exchange tickets. Dudu and Olivia also caught in this net - they'd known they would parade on Monday with the Portela bateria, and bought Sunday tickets to watch the other parades. Then Portela was switched to Sunday! So their huge bags of costume pieces are sitting all around us; they'll have to miss half of tonight's show because of having to dash out to play in the Portela bateria (of course, then they'll be IN the show, but that's a different thing.

The first escola of the night, Sao Clemente, is lined up at the end of the runway; I can just see their first float. I can hear a distant, faint thumping that must be the bateria, already playing (the sound system's not on yet).

Now the sound system comes back on - the singer hollering " SAI CLEMENTEEEE!!!", the cavaquinho and guitar blitzing away. The song starts! My god, the whole crowd around me is all singing along. The fireworks go off - Sao Clemente is officially starting. The huge clocks along the Sambodromo all set to zero and begin timing the parade (god save any escola that goes over it's allotted time.)

THE BATERIA STARTS. (This time they're miked). Drums! Fireworks! Here comes the parade! Eighty thousand people on their feet singing along. I have to go now.

iPhone report from the Sambodromo

2011-03-06T15:03:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been in Rio since Wed but have been unable to post anything because I'm staying with a friend who has no Internet (oh, the horror!) - and I'm also not in a tourist area so have no Internet cafes nearby. And, of course, Carnaval. When you're racing at 6am from the Sambodromo parades to the early-morning meeting of your next bloco parade, or wandering through the million-person kegger that is Lapa, or maybe just hanging out in Ipanema at one of the beach kiosks trying to make the terrifically hard decision about what fruit to have in your caipirinha (tangerine? passionfruit? mango?) ... getting on the net suddenly seems not very important!

However, this year I brought my iPhone, and sprung for an international data plan that should give me just enough mb to post a few carnaval updates.

So. Short rundown. Took practically of Thurs & Fri to get my cell phone and arrange tonight's Sambodromo ticket. Carnaval officially started Friday, with the ceremonial handing of the key to the city (an actual huge glittery gold key) from the mayor of Rio to the Rei Momo, the "King of Fools"/"King of Mischief"/etc, who rules the city till Ash Wednesday. Immediately began the Carnaval chaos... which for me has been: INTENSELY AWESOME Monobloco show till 4am Friday night, street parades all Sat, the magnificent Grupo de Acesso (second rank) escola parades on Sat night till 3 (well, actually, they go till 7am but I had to leave early). Then today I hauled my butt back out of bed after 3 hrs sleep, booked it over to the Botanical Garden to play repique in the three-hour Banga parade. Then ran into another bloco... and now I'm at the Sambodromo again.

So I'm writing this sitting in the bleachers of Sector 7 of the Sambodromo (Rio's samba-parade stadium - I know some readers are new to this blog so I'll be giving a little more explanation than usual.) Tonight is the first night of the Grupo Especial Parades, the top-ranked parade groups, the multi-million-dollar competition that will determine the champion escola of the Rio Carnaval, which is the biggest show on earth. It's 7:50pm, parades don't start till 9 (and will run all night). My ticket cost three hundred dollars... and that's for the cheap seats! (The really good seats run $1500 and higher.) So I'm perched up in the crowded, uncomfortable concrete bleachers - all open seating - jammed in with 80,000 other people (mostly Rio natives right around me... I seem to be in a clump of Mangueira fans cause they're all belting out the Mangueira song). The crowd is so giddy they're giving huge cheers to anyone who walks along the parade runway. HUGE ovation for the little street-cleaning machines that just rolled by, the four guys driving them waving and bowing like royalty. OK, I'm going to see if all this text can actually post before I write any more... here goes nothing...

Fire updates

2011-02-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

Three of O Globo's news stories from today & yesterday about the Cidade do Samba fire:

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BUSINESSES DONATE 1.5 MILLION REAIS TO ESCOLAS HIT BY CIDADE-DO-SAMBA FIRE; MAYOR EXPECTS TO DOUBLE THIS
By: Simone Candida and Tais Mendes
Feb. 8, 2011
O Globo link (in Portuguese) http://tinyurl.com/4qnpps5

RIO – Mayor Eduardo Paes announced this morning, during the opening ceremony of construction on the João Nogueira Cultural Center, that the escolas hit by the Cidade do Samba fire will receive an additional 3 million reais so that they can rebuild the destroyed floats and costumes. Grande Rio will receive R$1.5 million reais, and União da Ilha and Portela will each receive R$750,000. Paes expects to reach this sum by means of private initiatives. Three businesses have already guaranteed that they will donate R$1.5 million, according to Paes’ Twitter feed. The mayor said that he’s confident that new donors will appear. As of now the businesses did not want their names revealed. The mayor said that if necessary, some of the money can be raised by public contributions.

LIESA director Elmo José dos Santos said that LIESA will begin on Tuesday to erect large tents in front of the Cidade do Samba, which will be used by Portela and Ilha to re-buidl their floats. Grande Rio is occupying warehouse #7, recently vacated by Ilha. The tents should be ready in 3 or 4 days. Until then, the escolas can use the central patio of the Cidade do Samba.

According to Elmo, the escolas have already begun to make new costumes in their rehearsal halls in their home communities. Their fellow escolas are also helping; several have offered float frameworks to Grande Rio for rebuilding the floats.

“They want to parade with dignity on the Avenida. I think this will be a very emotional Carnaval. It’ll be a Carnaval with a lot of ‘chão’ .” said Elmo. [chão = literally ground, earth; in this context, community spirit, grit - KH]

Elmo said that it is almost certain that the fourth floor of the warehouses will be demolished. Construction business Delta, which originally built the Cidade do Samba, is already in the Cidade do Samba isolating the area, but the demolition is awaiting approval by the Fire Department and by the Civil Defense. According to Elmo, such reconstruction work is covered under the contract arranged when the complex was first built five years ago. The maintenance of the Cidade do Samba is the responsibility of RioUrbe, a part of the City Works.

Elmo denied the rumors that there was no fire alarm in the Cidade do Samba and that the sprinkler system has to be activated manually. He said only that there is no need to worry about setting a precedent that every time there is a fire, there might be an alteration of the rules about demoting escolas. [This is in reference to Liesa’s recent decision that no escola will be demoted this year due to the fire - KH]

He did not comment on the request by escola Alegria da Zona Sul, whose warehouse caught fire last weekend, destroying the costumes of six of their parade sections. That escola formally requested LESGA (League of the Escolas de Samba of Grupo-de-Acesso – the group below Grupo Especial] that, just as with Grupo Especial, no escola would be demoted from Grupo A this year.

“That’s a question for LESGA. In LIESA, everything was decided by consensus. The escolas all signed a document that this year no escola would be demoated. There’s no reason to think that every fire would have the same result,” said Elmo.

Next Tuesday, state representative Dionísio Lins will request that ALERJ (the state congress – Assembleia Legislative do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) set up a Special Commission to investigate the fire at the Cidade do Samba. The commission will have five members and will work for 90 days, with the option of another 30. Lins pointed out that many people who were working in the warehouses have said that there were many problems in the initial attempts to fight the fire.

***
DESPITE LOSING COSTUMES TO FIRE, GRANDE RIO, ILHA & PORTELA PROMISE TO SURPRISE THE PUBLIC
By: O Globo
Feb. 8, 2011
O Globo link (Portuguese): http://tinyurl.com/494n8kk

RIO - The members of the escolas-de-samba of Grupo Especial that were affected by Monday’s fire say they will put on a Carnaval that will thrill the public. For example, Grande Rio’s bateria director Mestre Ciça said that they were going to do eight paradinhas (fancy breaks) in the Avenida. He said that even if they aren’t in the running for the overall championship, they’ll be fighting for some of the Carnaval awards, like O Globo’s “Gold Banner” awards. [Gold Banners are given for specific categories like Best Bateria, Best Song, etc. – KH]

“Among our new elements this year, we have 15 timbals [hand drums], which at a certain moment will form the mouth of a big cauldron, with special effects involving smoke, and the queen of the bateria, Cris Vianna, samba-dancing in the middle.”

Grande Rio’s honorary president Jaider Soares said that Mestre Ciça’s bateria will definitely still be using one of its planned new elements: all the drummers will be wearing ultra-modern masks imported from New York. But they have to be bought new, since more than 350 that were in the warehouse were burned.

Jaider, too, promised a great parade for Grande Rio. According to him, there will be five floats (three frameworks have been purchased from escola Inocentes de Belford Roxo) and about 4000 costumes. He said that everything will be simpler than what had been planned. The comissão de frente [opening dance group), for example, was supposed to have one of their members transforming into a werewolf, but that is no longer possible since the costume was burnt.

For the last two days, carnavalesco Cahe Rodrigues has been using a loaned office in Barra da Tijuca to re-design floats and costumes. “We’ll put on a beautiful Carnaval, for the people. We’ll use between 3 and 4 millino reais for this reconstruction,” said Jaider. He pointed out that the most elaborate costumes – the “luxury costumes” used by celebrities who parade with the escola – were saved because they were being constructed in private workshops.

União da Ilha, too, promises a Carnaval with almost everything that they had originally planned. The costumes are being re-made in simpler form. The float of the giant spider with moving legs, which was burned, is going to be re-built from scratch. Meanwhile, this week Portela is beginning to re-make its costumes with teams of volunteers in Madureira.

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GRANDE RIO, PORTELA AND UNIAO DA ILHA RACE THE CLOCK TO RECOVER FROM THE CIDADE DO SAMBA FIRE
By: Rafael Galdo
Feb. 9, 2011
O Globo link (Portuguese): http://tinyurl.com/4wxmphk

RIO - “Rise up, shake off the dust and get back up.” For the members of the three escolas hit by Monday’s fire at the Cidade do Samba, those famous samba lyrics [from “Volta Por Cima” – KH] have become their motto. And, after the shock of seeing their carnaval turn to ashes, Grande Rio, Portela and União da Ilha intensified their efforts this Wedneday to resume preparations for the parades. In Grande Rio, carnavalesco Caha Rodrigues spent the day re-designing costumes and floats. He’s already planning an homage to the artists of the warehouse that caught fire.

“They’ll all be on the last float. Ironworkers, decorators and carpenters who saw their work burned,” he said, explaining that he’s preparing another large float, an abre-alas (opening float bearing the escola’s name), and five tripods (small three-wheeled floats).

To put together these floats, the escola received on Wednesday two float frameworks from the escolas Inocentes de Belford Roxo and one from Unidos do Viradouro. 3000 costumes will be made using donated sewing machines that have just arrived at warehouse #7 of Cidade do Samba, where the escola will make its carnaval. As for the materials needed to make the costumes, Cahe said that it’s dribbling in slowly, and that they’re missing some items like wires and feathers.

“They’ll be light costumes, so that the paraders can have fun. Right now, we have to swallow our tears. Until Carnaval, we’re not going home. I’ll be sleeping in a hotel here in Centro.”

Grande Rio is also receiving the support of fans like 68-year old seamstress Marina Mendonça, who after 15 years without parading has offered her help. The same wave of solidarity has reached União da Ilha. Ilha’s Carnaval director Márcio André said that they’ve received 30 sewing machines loaned by a business. Other escolas, like Viradouro and Mocidade, are also helping Ilha. Ilha is inviting its fellow escolas to come to its technical rehearsal this Saturday in the Sambódromo.

Meanwhile, this Wednesday, workers from Ilha and Portela resumed float-decorating work in stands mounted at the Cidade do Samba, since the tents that will serve as the warehouses for the two escolas are not ready yet.

Portela also began making costumes in their “Little Portela” rehearsal hall in Madureira, where sewing machines have arrived on loan from neighboring escola Império Serrano. Volunteers have been meeting there.

“I took a course in headdress-making at the escola, and so I’ve come as a volunteer to put into practice what Portela taught me,” said Maria Isabel Mota, one of the volunteers. She was working side-by-side with famed escola VIPs like Natalino Maia de Melo, president of Portela’s Velha Guarda (Old Guard).

Freedom from judging - what will they do?

2011-02-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

It just occurred to me that something very rare might occur in the Grupo Especial parades this year. Three groups will parade, but (according to Liesa's press release a few hours ago) their parades WILL NOT BE JUDGED. That's unprecedented. Though I'm still waiting for details to confirm this, it could potentially mean that they will be freed from the usual constraints on their parades. Escolas are always paranoid about losing a precious tenth of a point on this or that tiny little detail, and this makes them pretty conservative, following Liesa's every little regulation with slavish obedience. But now those three escolas can do whatever they want. They can go over the time limit; they could have horses! trained monkeys! trumpets! Full frontal nudity! (All those are against regulations.) Paraders could have all the gaps in parade that they want! They can stop under the judges' booth, take their costumes off and do cartwheels! They can bring beer and - at laaaast - be able to bring their digital cameras! Most of all, paraders will be singing the song because they WANT to, not because they have to.

There is potential here for three free-wheeling, invigorating, and extremely creative parades. Done on a shoestring and in just a month. Kind of the way escola parades used to be, way back in the old days when it all started. Though I'm terribly sorry for the three escolas (I'm actually writing to Portela now to see if there's any way to send donations), and terrifically frustrated that I'm not there right now so that I could go help make costumes, I'm also kind of curious to see what they'll do.

Liesa decides not to send down any escola in 2011

2011-02-07T14:57:00.000-08:00

News release from Liesa, 7 Feb 2011:

The three escolas-de-samba affected by the fire that hit the Cidade do Samba on Monday morning - Grande Rio, Uniao da Ilha and Portela - will not be judged on their parades this year. And Grupo Especial of the Carnaval of Rio de Janeiro will not have any escola sent down in 2011. This decision was made by the Independent League of Escolas de Samba (LIESA) on Monday night.

In addition to this, there will be a change in the order of parades. Portela, which was to have paraded on Monday - along with all the other affected escolas - will parade on Sunday.

****

Another brief report from O Globo, 7 Feb 2011:

The head of the Cidade do Samba, Aílton Guimarães Jorge Júnior, announced that the escolas are mountaing volunteer work parties to help their brothers who were hit by fire. For now, União da Ilha will use warehouse 7, which was unoccupied. According to him, Portela will use the central tent. Portela's floats will remain in the burned warehouse, with the approval of the Civil Defense.

On Monday evening at 7:00 pm, there was a meeting at Liesa's headquarters in Centro to decide the course of Carnaval 2011. According to Guimarães Júnior, no escola will be sent down this year.

Although Mangueira was not affected by the fire, Mangueira president Ivo Meireles offered assistance to the affected escolas. "It's horrible. It's heartbreaking, it's a true catastrophe. Anything Mangueira can do to help the other escolas, with materials or with labor, Mangueira will do. I'm here to offer my solidarity."

The honorary president of Beija-Flor also offered assistance from the escola of Nilópolis. "The work of a whole year was lost. You can't rebuild that in a day. Grande Rio doesn't have a chance of recovery. Whatever Beija-Flor can do, we will do to help the escolas that were hit."

Other escolas were also offering assistance in making the tripods (small three-wheeled floats) inside their own warehouses.

LIESA president Jorge Castanheira, who is in Minas Gerais, said in an interview with Bom Dia Rio that the scale of this loss, just a month from Carnaval, is unfathomable. According to him, each escola had probably invested about 5-7 million reais. But he added, "The problem is not just financial, it's the time needed to rebuild everything."

Details on fire losses of Portela, Grande Rio & Ilha

2011-02-07T14:05:00.000-08:00

More news regarding the Cidade do Samba fire. Translated from O Globo by me.

PORTELA, GRANDE RIO AND UNIAO DA ILHA'S CARNAVALS ALMOST TOTALLY DESTROYED
by: Alice Fernandes, Rafael Galdo & Ana Carolina Torres

RIO- Insurance company representatives have already made an assessment of the escolas' losses due to the fire that hit four warehouses at the Cidade do Samba on Monday morning. Though the details of the losses are still not clear, members of Grande Rio estimate their losses at up to 10 million reais. In Portela, about 2800 fantasias were lost, according to Portela president Nilo Figueiredo. Uniao da Ilha's carnaval director Márcio André said that at least 2300 fantasias were burned, as well as one float and part of another.

The worst losses were in the warehouse of Grande Rio. According to Grande Rio members, 90% of their Carnaval materials were being made at the Cidade do Samba and all of these were lost. Seven floats caught fire, and four tripods (little parade floats) were also burned. The escola lost almost four thousand fantasias. Helinho de Oliveira, president of Grande Rio, said that the only surviving fantasias were about 500 costumes of five commercial alas [alas that take paying tourists - KH] that were not being made at the Cidade do Samba.

He said, however, that the escola will parade. Not with the Carnaval they had planned, but with all its members in the Avenida. "We haven't lost the dream of being champion in the next few years. The samba wasn't burned. Neither has our desire to parade. We'll be on the Avenida even if it's in t-shirts and Bermuda shorts with spangles. We'll show the "força" [force, guts, will] of Caxias," [Grande Rio's home town] said Helinho.

He said that the warehouse of Grande Rio had 12 firefighters battling the fire, six at a time taking turns. But it wasn't possible to contain the flames.

The carnavalesco of Grande Rio, Cahê Rodrigues, said that 98% of their Carnaval materials were ready. The fantasias had already been bagged for delivery to the members.

"I'm in a state of shock. We lost the fantasias of the baianas and the comissão de frente. It hasn't really sunk in. I'm only happy that there were no victims. My mother woke me at 7 am, and my "Good Morning" was to see on TV that my Carnaval was destroyed. What makes the sadness even worse is that everybody was saying that we were a strong candidate for the title." lamented Rodrigues. He added, "I don't know if in 29 days we are capable of a spectacle equal to what we had made. We had many important materials in the warehouse, and a lot of the technology had come from outside. [I think he means from outside Brazil - KH] Now it's all burned, destroyed. We'll do everything possible to reconstruct our Carnaval. The biggest problem is the morale of our workers," he said.

The flag-bearer of Grande Rio, Squel, who arrived at the Cidade do Samba in tears, pointed out that there was a lot of foam used in Grande Rio's Carnaval. She said that one float was entirely made of foam, which is highly flammable. "Practically the entire Carnaval of our escola was being made at the Cidade do Samba. The fantasias of the comissão de frente and the baianas were already done and all was lost. We thought that the Cidade do Samba was safer than this. How could the fire get through the walls?" she asked, trembling and crying.

Ilha And Portela Also Assess Losses

Ney Filardes, president of the escolas União da Ilha, said in a telephone interview with the news program "Bom Dia Brasil" (on Globo TV) that he would not lose his "alegria" [joy, happiness, good spirits]. "We had our workers [fighting the fire] and we also had a fire brigade. Now, it will be as God in Heaven wishes. We will never lose our alegria," said Ney, crying.

Ilha's carnavalesco, Alex de Souza, said that the escola lost many fantasias that were being made on the fourth floor of the warehouse and also a float of a gigantic spider. "We don't have any costumes for baianas or for the bateria. The float of the huge spider, which was the most talked-about float of our Carnaval, was also burned. I think we won't have our rehearsal in Sapucai next Saturday. I think our 3000 members will have to come to the Cidade do Samba and help rebuild our Carnaval."

As to the suggestion of mayor Eduardo Paes that no escola should be sent down this year, Alex said: "That's the very least that should be done. The situation of Grande Rio, for example, will be very difficult to fix. That escola doesn't have the minimum conditions to parade. [Escolas are heavily penalized and/or disqualified if they don't have certain minimum parade components, including a minimum number of floats - KH] But the result of Carnaval is not really important. First place goes to those who were asleep in the warehouses and escaped with their lives."

The carnavalesco of Portela, Roberto Szaniecki, said that after the loss of the fantasias, the directorship is now beginning to rethink their Carnaval plans so that the escola can parade in the Sambódromo. "At the moment, we're rethinking what we're going to do to have a new structure for the parade. Our escola has the capacity to recover, and this will show our "força"," he said. Portela is mounting a strong plan for re-making the fantasias. Directors of the escola and students from the escola's social-outreach project were invited by the first lady of the escola, Val Carvalho, to help make new fantasias, which will be made in the escola's rehearsal hall in Madureira.

"We've got over a thousand alumni, and they're all going to help the Blue-and-White. We still don't have the details on everything that was lost, but the fourth floor, the worst hit, had the most important costumes, like those of the bateria. The ala of baianas was also lost. But we will do our best and we will put our carnaval on the streets" said Val, who is head of Portela's costume workshop.

The queen of Portela's bateria, the actress Sheron Menezes, was in the Cidade do Samba watching the clean-up work, and said that she would help put the escola back on the Avenida. Her costume was being prepared on the fourth floor and was burned. "I'm here to help, I'm going to the quadra with everybody else to remake the parade," said the actress.

The escola had already begun the work of carrying damaged materials, and some floats that were not hit by fire were being moved out of the warehouse and carried to the central plaza of the Cidade do Samba.

The director of harmonia of Portela, Alex Fab, said that the only reason things weren't even worse was that there had been no deaths. He said that everybody who was sleeping in the warehouse managed to get out in time. "Our Carnaval was 100% destroyed. The scene is disastrous," he said.

Cidade do Samba hit by devastating fire

2011-02-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

I'm kicking this blog back into gear today, two weeks before my next Carnaval trip to Rio, to report a devastating fire at the Cidade do Samba. The Cidade do Samba is the sprawling ring-shaped complex where all 12 Grupo Especial escolas build their magnificent floats and store most of their costumes. Early this morning, it was hit by a fire that badly affected three escolas, destroying all but one of Grande Rio's floats and 90% of their costumes; one float and the bateria, baiana, and 2nd-flag-couple costumes of União da Ilha (the "miracle escola" from Grupo A that just managed to hang on to its spot in Grupo Especial last year, due to the unexpected fall of Viradouro); and unspecified damage to Portela and the museum maintained by the Carnaval organizing group LIESA. Very fortunately, there were no fatalities and only minor injuries.

It is less than a month till the Carnaval parades. LIESA is in heated discussion now about whether to alter the parade, and, particularly, whether to suspend the usual rule that demotes the losing escola down to Grupo de Aceso - since the loser is now very likely to be Grande Rio.

I have seen escolas rebuild to an astonishing degree in just one week after losing floats and costumes to fire, but Grande Rio has lost quite a lot. In my circles Grande Rio is sort of the escola everyone loves to hate, but I think they will get quite an ovation if they can put together any kind of parade at all after this.

My translation of O Globo's first report today is below. Related articles to follow soon.

********
HUGE FIRE HITS CIDADE DO SAMBA IN GAMBOA
by: Alice Fernandes, Rafael Galdo & Waleska Borges

Barely a month before Carnaval, a huge fire hit the Cidade do Samba, in the district of Gamboa, on Monday morning. The warehouses of Portela, União da Ilha, Grande Rio, and of Liesa (which maintains a museum of Carnaval), were hit by flames. General Commander of the firefighters Pedro Marco Cruz Macado said that by early afternoon the fire in the Cidade do Samba was under control and that only small fires were remaining. According to him, the firefighters had been fighting the fire since 7:30am. He said, as well, that no fault was found in the fire suppression system. He criticized the placement of a barbeque (churrasqueria) within the Portela warehouse, especially since the area is full of flammable materials.

According to firefighter Alexandre Rocha, the area is still closed until the Civil Defense can evaluate the building. A 30-year-old man was admitted to Souza Aguiar for smoke inhalation. He is doing well and is under observation.

Warehouse workers said, however, that the "sprinklers" [English] - little anti-fire water showers - did not work. About 80 men participated in the operation, with 20 fire trucks from seven firehouses. According to Alexander Rocha, the Cidade do Samba's annual fire inspection had not yet occurred this year. He also said that there is still a risk of more collapses.

According to witnesses, at least 60 people were inside the complex. The flames spread especially rapidly because of the large quantity of flammable materials. An enormous column of smoke, more than 500 meters tall, could be seen from as far as Niteroi. Passing motorists felt the effects of the smoke. The nearby elevated highway of Perimetral had slowed traffic due to rubber-necking by passing drivers.

The entire area of the enormous Cidade do Samba was closed, with firemen and ambulances arriving constantly. Part of the roof and part of the warehouse of Grande Rio collapsed. It is still not known what caused the fire, nor where it began. According to Portela workers, the fire started between 7:00 and 7:30am in the warehouse of União da Ilha. Yet workers from Ilha said that the fire started in the first warehouse, on the fourth floor, which is Liesa's. According to them, the flames descended through a hole through which the sculptures [the tallest parts of the parade floats] passed, and hit the Ilha float called the "Spider". The fourth floor is the sewing workshop and holds their costumes.

According to early reports, six of Grande Rio's floats and 90% of Grande Rio's costumes were destroyed. One worker from that escola jumped from the fourth to the third floor of the warehouse during the fire. 26-year-old aderecista [decorator, adornment-maker] Saimon Garcia said that he could not get down the stairs. He fell on top of a float and suffered only a few scratches. "The pain is nothing. What we've lost is millions and all of our work."

In União da Ilha, only the spider float was destroyed. The others were pulled out of warehouse just in time. Portela's workers have still not moved their floats. One group of aderecistas who were sleeping in Portela's warehouse described how they ran down the stairs. On the fourth floor were the fantasias [elaborate costumes] of the bateria, the second couple of mestre-sala and porta-bandeira, and the baianas. Several of the school's workers were in tears over the loss of these costumes.

União da Ilha had just moved to this warehouse this year. The escola had previously occupied the warehouse of São Clemente, but chose to move to the warehouse vacated by Viradouro, which was sent down [demoted from Grupo Especial] last year. The new warehouse had a superior infrastructure. In 1999, one month before Carnaval, União da Ilha was also hit by a fire. The escola succeeded in rebuilding its parade, with the theme "Barbosa Lima, 102 anos do sobrinho do Brasil", and paraded. In that year, the group finished in tenth place.

Over the weekend, the warehouse of the escola Alegria da Zona Sula, in Grupo de Acesso, also had to be evacuated due to a fire. [this warehouse is in a totally different location, not part of the Cidade do Samba complex.]

***
photos:

Decoding a samba-enredo

2010-03-03T08:11:00.001-08:00

Let´s back up now... to Carnaval weekend.

The Grupo A parade night was overwhelming. Because of the scandal last year, in which the lowest two escolas did not get demoted as they should have, Grupo A was overloaded this year. It´s got 12 different escolas that all had to parade on the same night! (Grupo Especial only does 6 escolas per night.) Yes, each parade is shorter than in Grupo Especial, just 55 minutes in Grupo A compared to 1:22 in Especial. But that´s still 12 hours of parades for Grupo A, and the problem is that the last escola or two ends up parading past dawn.

The last escola on this Saturday parade night was Cubango. (which means Cubango would really be parading early Sunday morning.) I´d already paraded with Imperio Serrano earlier that evening, in an ala. I´d met up with Imperio at about 6pm, spend several hours finding my ala (a 45 min process), socializing and singing the song and getting ready and getting lined up and getting through security and getting excited, then the parade, then the post-parade festivities and singing and chatting and... so, it was nearly midnight and I was already completed exhausted and footsore and hoarse. I limped all the way back home (on foot from the Sambodromo) to change my costume. Cubango wouldn´t go on till maybe 6am and in theory I had time to take a little nap. But I was way too wound up. How could anybody sleep when there were ESCOLA PARADES going on at the Sambodromo?

(I had a friend who had twisted my arm into letting him crash on my apartment floor, and he actually WAS trying to sleep. Yes, he had the impossible and bizarre plan of actually SLEEPING during the nights on Carnaval weekend. It was then that I discovered that escola people and non-escola people really are two different species. OK, so, here´s a warning to ANYBODY who EVER tries to crash with me during Carnaval weekend, especially if you spring it on me unexpectedly: I will be up ALL night, EVERY night, till PAST DAWN, and I will be running in and out of the apartment CONSTANTLY, right past you, and I will need to TURN ON THE LIGHT, and I will be moving enormous costumes and hats around, and I will have the TV constantly on to see which escola is currently parading. DON´T SAY YOU HAVEN´T BEEN WARNED.)

OK, so, I was trying to change into my Cubango bateria fantasia. There are 270 drummers in the bateria and we were all dressed up as 270 identical Philippe Pinels. Philippe Pinel, as I´m sure you know, was the founder of the first insane asylum in Rio de Janeiro.

So before I go any further, I need to explain about Cubango´s enredo (the parade theme) and the samba (the song).

Like a good puppy I´d been spending the last couple weeks carefully memorizing the Cubango samba. (Because I think it is critically important, if you are a gringo parading with an escola, to make sure you know the entire song. Especially because otherwise you can make other gringos look bad. Like it or not, you are representing All Gringos Worldwide when you are in an escola, and your actions will affect the fate of other gringos there in the future.) Anyway. I´d been carrying around a tiny little wadded-up scrap of paper with the lyrics to the Cubango samba, which I would pull out and study whenever I was on a bus. The Cubango samba was, as usual for samba-enredos, very long and completely mystifying. I had dutifully looked up all the words that I didn´t know. But it still wasn´t making any sense! The title didn´t even make any sense! ("The crazies of the beach called nostalgia") And then there were all these mystifying phrases about "shirts of force taking memories" and "haunted, the artist painted" and "bossa nova, a hymn against oppression and a scandalous nudity" and "I raised my flag of rights now... with painted face, I went to protest". I could just barely discern a thread of narrative about protesting the government and about crazy kings, but what on earth was it all about?

The thing about these samba-enredos is, every one of those strange phrases is usually a fascinating little morsel of Brazilian history, all rolled up into a dense, impenetrable little packet. If you can decode it, unpack it, you actually will learn a lot about Brazil.

I turned to my friends Renata and Brian one night for help, in the Sambodromo as we were waiting for an escola rehearsal. Renata, a Brazilian who grew up in Sao Paulo, took one look at the second verse ("rights now... painted faces...")and immediately said "Rights now! Painted faces! I did that! When I was a student! I was there!" Turns out this was a reference to the great student protests a decade back, when busloads of thousands of idealistic young college students painted their faces (to hide their identities) and went to Brasilia to try to impeach the president. And they were all carrying banners and placards that bore the slogan of the protest movement, "Rights now!" (Diretas ja.)

AHA. That explained maybe 1/4 of the song.

However, the rest of the song was still eluding us. We puzzled over the "shirts of force" and the "bossa nova...forbidden nudity" and the "crazies on the beach called nostalgia" and we developed some very poetic and creative explanations that I was rather pleased with.

Till Daniel (my Cubango friend) said one day "You know the song is about Rio´s first insane asylum, right?" What?!

Sooo, Daniel had the inside scoop because he´d actually been at Cubango on the night when the carnavalesco was explaining all about the parade theme. So. Here´s the deal. Rio de Janeiro´s first insane asylum was built, years ago, on a beach in Urca. It´s now called the Red Beach. But that beach used to be called...back in the old days... wait for it... NOSTALGIA BEACH. (Praia de Saudade.) "The crazies of the beach called nostalgia." AHA. Nostalgia is the NAME OF THE BEACH, duh! (So much for my super-creative poetic explanation for that line of the song...) The "shirts of force" is not a circuitously metaphorical reference to governmental powers; "shirts of force" are STRAITJACKETS. (There goes creative explanation #2...) The "haunted artist" was an actual famous artist who did some famous paintings while he was in the insane asylum. (There goes creative explanation #3...)

The insane asylum was eventually shuttered and the building sat empty for some years. Much later, it was re-opened to be used as a university, and became famous as the site of many of student protests... including some students who painted their faces and took those protest buses to Brasilia! aha!

As for the bossa nova and the nudity: In the late 1950s a music show was scheduled at one of Rio´s Catholic universities. It was to featuring several young players and songwriters who were developing a "new way" of playing samba, with sophisticated harmonic structures and a distinctive phrasing to their songs. But the Catholic university discovered that the hostess of the show would be an actress who had once done an infamous nude scene in a movie. This did not sit well with the Catholic priests of the 1950s. So they booted the whole show off their campus. So at the last second the concert organizers had to find a new venue for the show, and they found one: at a different university, in Urca, right by Nostalgia Beach, in a building that had once been an insane asylum. That show became one of the most famous Rio shows ever, because it was the birth of "bossa nova"...the "new way" of playing samba.

See what I mean? I learned so much Brazilian history, and Rio history, and cultural history and music history, from this one Cubango song!

So anyway. That´s why the entire bateria was all dressed up as Philippe Pinel, one of the first psychiatrists in the world and an advocate of the benefits of actually treating mentally people instead of just exiling them to the streets. He was born in 1745 in France. So our outfit was:

an enormous french lieutenant´s hat with a fake white wig
A golden vest, covered by
an enormous knee-length white surcoat decorated in gold braid, tied shut by
A huge golden tie, tied around the neck, and
two big lacy golden-decorated cuffs around the long sleeves of the coat
a pair of green velvet trousers
White knee-high socks
and a pair of white leather shoes with big brass buckles.

The sun was going to rise during our parade. It was going to be about 95F.

All in the service to our beloved escola CUBANGO!

Os Niveis

2010-03-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

I've been away from email again - just switched apartments and now I am crashing with a friend in Botafogo who does not have internet in her apartment. So, apologies for the lack of blog posts. I might not be able to catch up till I am out at Chapada Diamantina in Bahia later this week... (Because that's exactly why you take a plane ride and then a 6 hr bus ride to a remote beautiful national park full of gorgeous hiking trails: to spend all your time on your laptop holed up in your pousada writing blog posts. Right??)

Anyway - last Saturday I went scuba diving at a little town east of Rio with two friends, my dear rock-climbing friend Andrezza, and a friend of hers, a professional circus performer called Vera. Vera had just recently finished a full year's tour of the United States in a high-end travelling circus, where she performs aerial acrobatics - she's one of those people who twirl around, high above the ground, on long lengths of fabric.

We'd only just begun the scuba day when Vera said something under her breath that got Andrezza doubled over in stitches. Turned out Vera had referred to our handsome scuba instructor as "Altamente Pegável" - "Highly Pick-up-able". Later on, in the car ride back home, Andrezza repeated this to me and as we were both buckled over laughing about it, Vera calmly undertook to instruct us both in the concept of Altamente Pegável, saying, "Vou explicar as niveis." (I will explain the levels.) Which turned out to be:

1. De jeito nenhum. (No way / Under no circumstances.)
2. Feio. (Ugly)
3. Quase Feio. (Almost ugly.)
4. Normal. (Normal, or rather, "nor-MOW")
5. Bonito. (Pretty.)
6. Muito Bonito. (Very pretty.)
7. Lindo. (Lovely/beautiful. hm, interesting that Lindo is better than Bonito)
8. Altamente Pegável. (Highly Pick-Up-Able. Someone you'd definitely sleep with.)
9. Altamente Ficável. (Highly Stay-With-Able. Someone you'd actually live with.)
10. Nirvana.

See, you something new every day here! My favorite Portuguese lessons always come from my friends....

Later, after the scuba (which was fantastic!), we were all at a little corner shop having an açaí. A crazy man was wandering in and out of the shop - seriously, he seemed truly deranged, full of hallucinations and delusions. (He reminded me of the time I met the Devil in a coffeeshop in Seattle, or at least a fellow who believed he was the Devil.) He was chattering so fast and slurring his words so much that I couldn't quite make out what he was saying, but he seemed to be saying he was an international pilot who flew frequently to New York and who used to fly the Concorde. Okay...not that this is impossible, but, coming from a rather odd man in a tiny fishing town on the coast of Brazil, it seemed a bit unlikely. We must have looked skeptical, so the man asked Vera:

"So what are you then, a psychologist?"

And she said,

"No, I'm a circus acrobat."

Oh, the LOOK ON HIS FACE! He yelled "MENTIRA!!!" (Lie!), got extremely excited, went off on a huge rant and stormed out of the açaí shop.

The best thing was, she really is a circus acrobat! She was only telling the truth!

He wasn't too mad for long, though - he came running back in a few minutes later with a tiny portable radio held up to his ear, yelling "I AM DETECTING SIGNS OF LIFE!"

It was that kind of day. To sum it up... I was surrounded by strange and beautiful Brazilian wildlife all day.

Hibernation and planning

2010-02-25T17:20:00.000-08:00

The Monobloco parade is over... my very last parade... and Carnaval is truly over, and I've gone into nearly completely hibernation. I'm overdue by at least three major blog posts (one each on Cubango, Monobloco and Banga), but I think I've spent at least three days asleep in recovery. Getting over my stubborn cold, catching up on sleep. It's the Ressaca do Carnaval, the Carnaval hangover.

The worst part of the ressaca for us foreigners is saying goodbye to all our friends, as one after another they leave town and flown back north - first Renata and Brian (well, actually, they flew west), then the Germans, then Philip and his American crew, Ben, then JP, and now even dear Xuxa has left me. And Wendy goes tomorrow.

And next will be ME. I have ten days in Bahia coming up - the end of my trip - which means I leave Rio next Thursday - which means today is the first day of my last week in Rio! argh!!!! That means that every time I see one of my Rio friends it might be for the last time. Dudu at Banga on Saturday, Freddy at Monobloco last Sunday, talking to me about killer whales (in what sort of crazy universe do I live in that my brilliant Monobloco caixa leader also turns out to have a degree in marine biology???) - Daniel and his extremely lovely wife at Xuxa's party decoding all sorts of Brazilian cultural mysteries for me - Chris, laughing and taking pictures and belting out "You Light Up My Life" at the top of her lungs (Chris is a Brazilian cultural mystery all by herself) - Denise, last night, dancing forro with me at Democratikos... will it be a year or more before I see any of them again??

I avoid the goodbyes by not saying goodbye, by just saying "See you soon". Which is true enough. Whether in this world or the next.

My main consolation is the wonderful dawning realization that since I won't be teaching next year in Portland, maybe I'll be able to come back to Rio next year! Except, of course, I won't have any money to pay for the plane ticket! Or the rent! Since I don't have a job! I'll be holed up in Jerry's place in Seattle, or Pat's house in Hood River, or living with benevolent family members ("Who's that in the back room making those strange noises?" "Oh, that's my crazy old aunt... she was never the same after she came back from Brazil...just sits in there banging on that weird little snare drum all day") Maybe playing pandeiro on the street for pennies, standing on street corners with one of those hand-scrawled cardboard signs: "WILL TEACH BIOLOGY OR SAMBA FOR FOOD". (All the neighbors will be saying, "man, we thought the crack addicts were bad enough... but then the homeless drummers showed up! hell!")

Got to earn some money. So I've actually spent a lot of time this week revising my CV and sending out job apps left and right. To textbook publishers, to odd teaching jobs here and there, to my fieldwork friends. A few short-term contract jobs have materialized pretty quickly (two textbook jobs that I'm working on right now, a summer bird job)... pretty good for a week's effort, I just need to get more! Got to get enough jobs to not only break even, and pay my health insurance (which IS MORE MY THAN MY RENT - why oh why do I live in such a messed up country!), but also put some savings into that special savings pot: The Carnaval savings account.

Next up: Cubango. Monobloco. Bangalafumenga.

Monobloco takes over the world

2010-02-20T09:54:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a stunning Monobloco show last night, and am trying to prepare mentally for what is bound to be a boiling hot, can-I-survive-till-the-end, ultra-marathon type of life experience at the Monobloco parade tomorrow on the Rio Branco. The Rio Branco parades are getting completely out of control - the bloco Bola Preta's last three parades there drew half a million people, a million people, and (last week) a million and a half people. So how many will Monobloco draw?

Well, this happens to be is Monobloco's 10th anniversary, and they've put together a marvelous display of photos and memorabilia at the Fundicao, including some handy data on all their 9 parades so far since 2001:

2001 - 10,000 people attend the first Monobloco parade in Gávea.
2002 - 20,000 people attend. Parade moves to the Jardim Botanico.
2003 - 50,000 people. (Back to Gávea)
2004 - 50,000 (moves to Ipanema beach)
2005 - 80,000
2006 - 80,000
2007 - 100,000 (outgrows Ipanema, moves to Copacabana beach. This was my first parade with them)
2008 - 100,000
2009 - 400,000 (outgrows Copacabana, moves to the Rio Branco)

Here's the newspaper pic of the 2009 parade. Can you find the band?

Extending this trend into the future, we can confidently predict that Monobloco's parade in the year 2039 will be attended by the entire population of Earth. Well, we'll see what happens tomorrow!

Triumph of the Zona Sul escolas

2010-02-20T09:05:00.001-08:00

The results for the lower Carnaval escola levels were just announced, and it has become clear that this is a big year for the Zona Sul escolas! The most famous samba escolas are all based in the north zone of Rio, Zona Norte, far from the famous beaches of Zona Sul. But there are plenty of samba escolas in Zona Sul too. This year, not one but THREE escolas of Zona Sul are champions or vice-champions of their respective leagues: Sao Clemente (representing Botafogo) won Grupo A, Alegria da Zona Sul (representing Copacabana/Ipanema) won Grupo 1 (the old "Grupo B"), and Unidos da Villa Rica (also based in Copacabana) came in 2nd place in Grupo 3 (= "Grupo D"). (In the lower divisions, the top 2 or 3 escolas all go up, so coming in 2nd is as good as winning - it earns you a promotion to the next group up.)

Interestingly, all these escolas are based in favelas that have recently been "pacified" by the UPP, which I gather is a division of police aimed at bringing some measure of peace to the favelas (Rio's famously crime-ridden hillside shantytowns). The UPP seems to go into favelas one at a time and occupies them permanently, trying to drive out the drug traffickers. I don't know much about it, so anyone who knows more about the UPP, please comment and tell us what it is all about!

I'm translating an O Globo article below. I especially wanted to put the word out about Alegria da Zona Sul, since I know several international sambistas who have run into Alegria while they were rehearsing along Copacabana beach, and were wondering who they were. Now you know! I played with them couple times and they were very friendly and welcoming. Their quadra is perched on top of the favela that is between Copacabana and Ipanema.

****
Carnaval of the UPPs is Champion in Zona Sul
from O Globo, Saturday 20 Feb 2010
by Rafael Galdo
(translated by KH. Link to original article here)

In the favelas of Zona Sul that have UPPs (Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora, or Pacification Police Units), this year's Carnaval was a champion Carnaval, literally. Practially all of the escolas-de-samba in these communities ended up winning and will go up one level in the lower groups of the Rio Carnaval. São Clemente, which is partly composed of members from Botafogo and its favelas, like the Dona Marta favela and the stretch of Tabajaras in the neighborhood, won Grupo de Acesso and will parade in Grupo Especial next year. Likewise, Alegria da Zona Sul, representing the neighborhoods of Pavão-Pavãozinho and Cantagalo [in Copacabana], won the title of the "Rio de Janeiro 1" group (old group B). Unidos da Villa Rica, from the Tabajaras hill in Copacabana, won 2nd place in "Rio de Janeiro III" (old group D).

These escolas now intend to take advantage of the moment, along with the peace and the visibility that have come to these communities with the arrival of the UPPs, to grow and gain more members. Roberto Gomes, director of São Clemente, remembers that in 2003, when the escola moved its rehearsals to its quadra in Centro [downtown Rio, far from Botafago], some members of Botafogo stopped coming. Today, most of its members come Centro and from Zona Norte. But their goal is to continue their recent project to reconnect with the communities of Zona Sul.

"This year, we had alas [parade sections] from Tabajaras and the Dona Marta favela (both "pacified"). The result was much stronger singing in the Avenida on parade day. Pretty soon, we're planning to bring several of our projects, like percussion classes and dance classes, to favelas like Tabajaras," he said.

In the case of Alegria da Zona Sul, the president, Marcus Vinícius de Almeida, pointed out that the benefits of UPP and the works of the "Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento" (PAC) [program for accelerating growth] in Pavão-Pavãozinho and Cantagalo need to also include escolas-de-samba, which are one of the principal leisure opportunities in those communities.

According to him, the escola has social projects which could be started or increased in partnership with these groups. In addition, the members of Alegria da Zona Sul hope for a renovation of their quadra [rehearsal hall], on the top of the Estrada do Cantagalo. A renovation has been promised by PAC.

"The ideal, however, would be to move it lower down the hill. This would facilitate access for "people of the asphalt" [richer people who live in the paved streets in the lower areas] as well as the residents of the hill," said Almeida. "However, the view of the community we have today is quite something. And we are here with open doors for all residents of Copacabana, Ipanema or of any other place."

Antonio Justino da Silva, 82 years old and a member of the "Old Guard" of Alegria, remembers that this union between "the hill and the asphalt" had already existed in the escola before UPP, with the rehearsals that the escola does down on the Avenida Atlantica [on the beach of Copacabana]. But he has noticed that, recently, more residents of the Zona Sul neighborhoods are coming to the escola, including the party to celebrate the title, the day before yesterday. And Armando Fernandes, composer for the escola says as well:

"I believe that these visits from "people of the asphalt" will increase even more soon, because they'll have less fear of coming to our quadra. In Grupo de Acesso, I think that Alegria will have greater visibility and will come into fashion."

The only escola of the "pacified communities" that was not a champion or vice-champion was Mocidade Unida de Santa Marta, which came in 6th place in Grupo Rio de Janeiro 3 (old group D).

Grupo A escolas "threaten rebellion"

2010-02-20T08:45:00.000-08:00

Here's interestingly little news item in the paper today about Grupo A. The background: Last year (2009), organization of Grupo was turned over to a group called LESGA. The president of LESGA is also the president of the escola Inocentes de Belford Roxo. In the 2009 Carnaval, Inocentes finished near the bottom and should, according to the rules, have been sent down to Grupo B. Amazingly, no escola was sent down at all - quite contrary to the rules, and leaving Grupo A overflowing with 12 escolas instead of the usual 10.
The 2010 Carnaval results were so surprising they resulted in a near-riot at the Grupo A score announcement earlier this week. Many people have commented that Inocentes placed freakishly high for what was rather an unimpressive parade (Inocentes finished 2nd) and that Rocinha, Cubango and Unidos de Padre Miguel were all scored unfairly low. In another departure from normal protocol, the names of the judges this year were not announced till just before Carnaval.
It is typical for escolas to complain after low scores, but the situation in Grupo A right now seems especially heated.

From today's O Globo newspaper (Saturday 20 Feb 2010):

Escolas Threaten Rebellion in Grupo de Acesso
by Paulo Marqueiro, with Alice Fernandes
(translated by KH. Link to original version here)

Grupo de Acesso (Grupo A) is in an uproar. Just days after the announcement of the results of the parade, in which São Clemente was the winner, several escolas are threatening to "turn the baiana" [cause a loud public commotion] against the League of Escolas de Samba of Grupo de Acesso (LESGA). Directors of the escolas intend to meet in the coming days with the president of the Independent League of Escolas de Samba (LIESA), Jorge Castanheira, who coordenates the Carnaval of Grupo Especial, to ask that either LIESA take over the administration of the Grupo A parades, or that the city of Rio re-take control of the event.

The escola heads had already been dissatisfied with LESGA before Saturday's parade, and the dissatisfaction only grew after the tumultuous reading of the scores last Tuesday. The president of Acadêmicos da Rocinha, Maurício Mattos, one of the most rebellious, questioned the result, which left his escola in 10th place at the edge of being sent down (to Grupo B). He said that the sambistas in Grupo A were only told who the judges would be on the Wednesday before Carnaval.

"In the list of judges, Fernando Bicudo was the only person we recognized. The rest were unknown," criticized Maurício Mattos. "I believe the objective was to make Rocinha descend to Grupo de Acesso B."

In an article published in GLOBO on Feb. 11, mayor Eduardo Paes said that the city government has no interest in re-assuming the administration of the Grupo de Acesso parade, but that they will not permit abuses. Paes was referring to the scores of the 2009 Carnaval, the first one coordinated by LESGA. Contrary to the rules, no escola descended to Grupo B that year, which left Grupo A with 12 escolas parading in just one night.

In the parade this year, Inocentes de Belford Roxo, the escola of the president of LESGA, Reginaldo Gomes, ended in 2nd place. Estácio was in third; Acadêmicos de Santa Cruz, fourth; Império da Tijuca, fifth; Império Serrano, sixth. In 11th place was Unidos de Padre Miguel, and in 12th Paraíso do Tuiuti, both sent down to Grupo de Acesso B.

The president of LESGA could not be reached to comment on the confusion in Grupo A.

Just 379 days to go!

2010-02-19T16:08:00.000-08:00

Immediately after the great Unidos da Tijuca victory on Ash Wednesday, the great heat wave broke. The scalding sunny sky disappeared, the clouds closed in, the rain thundered down. I woke in the night with an extremely strange sensation... I was COLD. Actually, I was being rained on! A frigid wind was blowing icy raindrops all over me. I had to go close the window and even had to get one of those, what are they called, those covery-up things, a "blanket"! It was the most delicious sensation.. shivering, curling up under the blanket. Nothing makes you enjoy cold like three consecutive weeks of 100+ temperatures.

However, I woke up the next day sick, with a sore throat, splitting headache, nausea and absolute thundering exhaustion...the inevitable outcome of five days in a row of staying up all night (followed only by feverish quick naps from 8am to about 11am, when it got too hot to sleep anymore). My first thought was: wait a minute, this isn't fair - if I'm going to have hangover symptoms like this, I ought at least to have gotten to drink something the night before! But no, I was genuinely sick. Stayed in bed sleeping all day, woke up at 5pm and tottered out for some groceries. Slept most of today too... it seems like the whole city, not just me, the whole sky too, is in a kind of depression after Carnaval. Everything seems eerily sad and gray and quiet. A lot of the Lapa clubs are closed. (Actually we've still got a fun weekend coming up, the post-Carnaval weekend with the huge Monobloco parade. But the escola rehearsals are all done... sad...)

Then today I was poking around one of the samba websites and noticed a tiny counter in the upper right hand corner that read:
"379 dias para Carnaval 2011"

And simultaneously the page refreshed to reveal a new news item that Salgueiro has just announced its theme for the 2011 Carnaval (their theme will be Italy). And so it begins again...The great cycle of life, or the cycle of Carnaval, anyway. Nothing ever really ends. It's never really over. There's always another Carnaval to look forward to.

The full results

2010-02-17T13:37:00.000-08:00

Complete list of Grupo Especial results. The most shocking thing is: Viradouro has fallen to grupo A! Equally shocking, Viradouro's fall also means that Uniao da Ilha has accomplished the near impossible - it has STAYED in Grupo Especial instead of falling right back to Grupo A, as the Grupo A winner normally does. Ilha is truly back in Especial! And now they won't have to parade first on Sunday night any more, so they're likely back in Especial to stay. They must be thrilled.

1. Unidos da Tijuca
2. Grande Rio
3. Beija-Flor
4. Vila Isabel
5. Salgueiro
6. Mangueira
The above escolas will be in the Parade of Champions on Saturday night.

7. Mocidade
8. Imperatriz
9. Portela
10. Porto da Pedra
11. Uniao da Ilha (last year's Grupo A winner)
12. Viradouro (falls to Grupo A)

UNIDOS DA TIJUCA!

2010-02-17T12:54:00.001-08:00

I went to the Sambodromo for the apuracao, the formal reading of the Sambodromo results. The scores are read out one at a time by a deep-voiced announcer standing at the base of the arches of the Sambodromo. He definitely takes particular pleasure from dramatic pauses: "Unidos da Tijuca....." [pause] ".... DEZ!!!" (ten! the maximum score) The bigwigs, presidents of the escolas and such, were in 12 nicely shaded tables down on the ground level. The rest of us, the riffraff, the diehard fans, were gathered in the nearest bleachers of Setor 6 and 13. I went up into Setor 13 and found the fans had quite precisely sorted themselves into tidy contingents for each escola. Not all escolas had fans present - Portela seemed to be represented by 1 lone fellow with a Portela banner; only about 5 escolas had major contingents present. Setor 13 turned out to be inhabited primarily by a healthy contingent of Mocidade fans on my right, a rabid pack of Beija-Flor fans in the middle, Grande Rio fans on my left (relatively few of them but with an absolutely enormous flag that was bigger than anybody else's. Classic Grande Rio!). And up high above us, in the highest seats, were the Vila Isabel people. Whenever Vila Isabel got a 10, the Vila Isabel people would race back and forth along the empty seats of the upper bleachers waving their blue-and-white flags.

I'm pretty fond of Mocidade and Beija-Flor, but I have also always had a soft spot for Unidos da Tijuca and their parade really impressed me this year. So I was looking around for a Tijuca contingent and soon realized they were over in Setor 6, small but very vocal, and flanked by two huge Mangueira contingents on either side. They looked like they were about to be swallowed by Mangueira. I suddenly knew I had to be over there, so I ran all the way around the bottom of the Sambodromo and over to Setor 13 to the Tijuca pack.

That was a defining moment, for I'd cast my lot with Unidos da Tijuca. In fact I ended up standing in the battle zone right between Tijuca and Mangueira, which was definitely an interesting place to stand. The moment that you start screaming for Unidos da Tijuca when there are dozens of Mangueira fans on one side of you is an interesting moment. The moment that you start screaming because Mangueira got a bad score (thus helping Tijuca pull ahead) is an even more interesting moment.

It takes quite a while to read the results, since there are 10 categories, each with 5 judges, and 12 escolas. The sun was beating down and it was excruciatingly hot. Luckily the Rio city government had thought of this and had kindly stationed two fire engines, one at Setor 6 and one at Setor 13, and every now and then they'd spray us with FULL FORCE fire hoses. It was EXHILARATING. It was ICY COLD and COMPLETELY DRENCHING and we were ABSOLUTELY DRIPPING WET. It all added to the intensity of the moment as we were all being completely blasted by this fire hose, yelling TI-JU-CA! TI-JU-CA!

We'd gotten through several categories - Bateria, Conjunto and a few others - and it was clear Tijuca was doing very well. Lots of 10's (the maximum score). Tijuca had been tied for 2nd or 3rd for most of this, when suddenly, partway through the "Conjunto" category (this is a special category for overall effect of the entire parade), I noticed Tijuca had just pulled into the #1 spot on the big screen. I was actually the first Tijuca fan to notice this, because the others were all busy chanting something derogatory at the Mangueira fans, but a few seconds later a guy yelled "Olha a Tijuca! Olha a Tijuca!" pointing at the scoreboard and suddenly everybody realized we were ranked #1. Hot on our heels were Mangueira and Beija-Flor. You could feel an electic shock go through the Tijuca fans. The next category was Fantasias (costumes) and the one after that was Alegorias (floats). This was a critical moment, I thought; this is where we're going to find out if the judges really were won over by Paulo Barros' outrageous, funny, creative designs, or whether he was once again too unconventional for them, just too weird, too out there.

The first Fantasia judge's scores were read. At this point all that mattered to us were Unidos da Tijuca and Mangueira.
Unidos da Tijuca: 10.
Manguiera: 9.6.
The Mangueira fans actually gasped and the Mangueira girl on my right said in shock "Caramba!" (an expression of surprise).
I thought "Tijuca's going to win". I had no right to think this - there were still several categories to go, and we only had a lead maybe a tenth of a point, Mangueira was by no means out of the game (especially since the lowest score is automatically discarded, a new rule this year). And Beija-Flor was hot on our heels too. But suddenly I was sure. I ran straight out of the Sambodromo, ran 3 blocks to the first major street, flagged down a taxi and said "Take me to the quadra of Unidos de Tijuca!"

The taxi driver didn't say a word, just sped me out on the street toward the quadra, which fortunately is only about a 5 minute drive from the Sambodromo. His radio was already tuned to the Sambodromo announcements and we listened in silence as the scores for Floats were read out. Unidos da Tijuca... DEZ.

I got to the quadra. It was fairly quiet, just 2 beer vendors outside and a small trickle of fans heading inside. Inside were a rabid pack of maybe 100 Tijuca fans - not a ton of people, just the most dedicated. They were all clustered near the stage, sitting in rows of chairs that had been carefully set out in neat lines in front of a big-screen TV that was showing the live feed from the Sambodromo. By now we were in a tie with Beija-Flor. Result after result came in - DEZ, DEZ, DEZ, for Tijuca, but unfortunately it was also DEZ, DEZ, DEZ for Beija-Flor.

Then came the first 9.9 for Beija-Flor. Tijuca had gotten a DEZ.

Then another 9.9 for Beija-Flor. Tijuca had gotten a DEZ from that judge too.

Inch by inch, tenth by tenth, Beija-Flor fell a tenth behind, another tenth behind.... News photographers started showing up. First two, then four, then five of them. Nobody was in the chairs anymore; everybody was leaping and screaming. We alternated between singing bits of the Tijuca song, and chanting "O Paulo Barros voltou! O Paulo Barros voltou!" (Paulo Barros, Rio's most innovative carnaval designer, returned to Tijuca this year after a few years away. The entire Unidos da Tijuca parade had been designed by him.)

Another 9.9 for Beija-Flor. DEZ for Unidos da Tijuca. The big screen TV started having problems, flickering and going blurry, and we were all screaming so much we couldn't hear what the announcer was saying; so we were just peering at the flickery, blurry screen trying to make out whether it showed a "10" or not for Unidos da Tijuca. Sometimes an excited person on stage would veer in front of the big-screen projector, and the scores would end up shining somewhere on their body, wigglly and small, and we'd be peering at somebody's leg or chest trying to figure out if a certain wiggle was a "10" or a "9".

A small bateria had assembled out of random players in the audience, at first just 2 surdos and a few tamborins, but more and more players were arriving and it was getting stronger and stronger. A very strange-looking Unidos da Tijuca flag showed up - at first I thought it had caught on fire, but later I realized it was the flag that was used in the "undersea secrets" section of the parade, that had been made to look as if it had been undersea - deliberately stained and covered with barnacles and seaweed. (apparently the "good" flag was over at the Sambodromo). There were now 12 news photographers on stage. The strange seaweed-covered flag was whirling around. Now we were on the last category - the TV was so blurry I couldn't read it what category it was - and our second-to-last score came up. DEZ. The lowest score is discarded, so it didn't matter any more what the last score was. No one could touch us. We'd won. CHAOS in the quadra.

- cue endless dancing and singing of the Tijuca song. Somehow I acquire a Tijuca t-shirt that flies into my hand unexpectedly when I'm waving my hand around in the air.

Outside at this point were 6 TV vans, a 7th arriving, lighting guys setting up banks of light, journalists clutching pads of notes and interview questions, a special electrical generator truck squeezing painfully through a too-small alleyway, a helicopter circling overhead, 3 mysterious limos with smoked windows jammed in the entryway to the tiny parking lot. And 12 more beer vendors, 2 hot dog stands and 3 popcorn carts all rolling up (those guys are quick!) And floods and floods and floods of people arriving. Members of choregraphed alas and the commisao de frente showed up and started doing their dances. Everybody was singing the song, the "secrets" song that had won them so many 10's.

It took a while to sink in. They've really won. The brilliant underdog escola that's always unjustly the runner-up and never the winner. UNIDOS DA TIJUCA HAS FINALLY WON!

And the crowd sings...

2010-02-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

Check out this video from O Globo that shows the long bateria pause when the public sang alone. In case it's not clear from the video, that's really just the crowd singing, unamplified - the singers, band and bateria are all silent.

Sao Clemente wins Grupo A!

2010-02-16T16:21:00.000-08:00

The results are in from the Grupo de Acesso parades, and São Clemente has won! I'm a little bummed Cubango didn't win, but São Clemente's also one of my favorites (I used to play with them, on my last trip) and it's great to see them win. They've been performing very strongly in recent years and are one of the "yo-yo" escolas that bounces up to Especial periodically.

I'm also bummed that both Imperio Serrano and Rocinha finished fairly low, since I thought they both did great parades.

This year, two escolas are being sent down from Grupo de Acesso back to Grupo B. And they are: Tuiuti and Unidos de Padre Miguel. Tuiuti lost a couple extra points because their rainha was entirely nude (her little jeweled gun holster belt slipped to the side during the parade, revealing a certain area that it wasn't supposed to) and full nudity is forbidden in the Carnaval parades. Tuiuti also had less than the minimum number of baianas, which also cost them some points. Unidos de Padre Miguel apparently had some technical difficulties, including, for example, their whole commisao de frente arriving late at the parade.

The results announcement ceremony ended bizarrely when both Cubango and Padre Miguel complained about the results, since scores for both escolas seemed sort of bizarre. The Cubango directors threw "pieces of wood" at the powers-that-be from Lesga (the union of the Grupo de Acesso escolas) and the Padre Miguel fans started jeering and cursing. The Lesga president had to be escorted away under heavy security.

Imperio's president didn't jeer or throw pieces of wood, but did say that the results seemed "predetermined." That is, bribed and rigged. So what else is new in the Rio Carnaval?

The complete results:
1. Sao Clemente (goes up to Grupo Especial)
2. Inocentes
3. Estacio
4. Santa Cruz
5. Imperio da Tijuca
6. Imperio Serrano
7. Caprichosos
8. Renascer
9. Cubango
10. Rocinha
11. Unidos de Padre Miguel (goes down to Grupo B)
12. Tuiuti (goes down to Grupo B)

Right now the Grupo B parades are starting - I can hear the fireworks right now, announcing the first escola, from my apartment. I'm heading over to Rio Scenarium for a bit first to hear Mulheres de Chico, then might check out Grupo B a bit later tonight. If I can possibly stay awake. I am really reeling with fatigue by this point, and fell asleep today while standing up in the subway!

Estandarte de Ouro results

2010-02-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

Results are in from O Globo's prestigious "Estandarte de Ouro" awards. (These aren't the official LIESA results - it's just an unofficial set of prizes given independently of LIESA, but it's quite prestigious and is very much a big deal for the winner. It also includes some categories that LIESA does not judge, like best ala and best passista.)

Best Grupo Especial escola: Unidos da Tijuca! (yay!)
Best Grupo de Acesso escola: Estácio de Sá (interesting!)
Best enredo (theme): Vila Isabel (this was the Noel Rosa theme)
Best bateria: Portela! Whaddya know.
Best samba (song) of Grupo Especial: Imperatriz
Best samba of Grupo de Acesso: Império da Tijuca
Best baianas: Salgueiro
Best ala: "Bloco Faz Vergonha", of Vila Isabel. I don't know which bloco this was.
Best porta-bandeira: Ruth of Vila Isabel
Best mestre-sala: Julinho of Vila Isabel
Best singer: Ito Melodia, of União da Ilha
Best male passista (samba dancer): Fábio of Mangueira
Best female passista: Tina of Mocidade
Best commisão de frente (dance group): Unidos da Tijuca (this was the magician dancers who
kept magically changing clothes). O Globo's got a video of this dance online - select "O segredo da commisao de frente da Unidos da Tijuca" (I can't past the direct link in for some reason, sorry)
"Revelation" (most impressive debut): Daniel, second mestre-sala of Salgueiro
"Personality" (most charismatic/fascinating/beloved performer): Tia Nadir of Beija-Flor - she is 93 years old, the oldest baiana in the escola, and is one of the original founders of Beija-Flor.

Monday: Mangueira

2010-02-16T09:12:00.002-08:00

6. The great escola Mangueira, oldest and most famous of the Rio samba escolas, was stunning. I think this is the best parade they have done in years. (They have a new president this year. I note he has also mended the rift with Beth Carvalho, who paraded with her beloved Mangueira for the first time in three years.) Their theme was the music of Brazil -a great theme lending itself to all kinds of costumes illustrating different genres of Brazilian music (manguebeat, samba-reggae, etc.) and famous songs and composers.
Their song was easily the catchiest of the whole Carnaval, and the public was singing it so strongly that Mangueira bateria, band and singers did something I have never heard of before - they fell dead silent for the ENTIRE refrain (eight long 4-count bars) and let the crowd sing the refrain. Then they came back in. I've never heard of a bateria falling so silent for so long and trusting the crowd to carry the song - a huge gamble since they had to rely on the crowd to keep the beat going for all the paraders. And boy did the crowd sing! It was like we all knew that the whole parade was depending on us. It was truly "de arrepiar", as they say - so stirring it gave me goosebumps.
Another goosebumps moment happened when the bateria came marching by IN PRISON - they were all dressed as prisoners (one several strong statements in the parade made about censorship of the arts. Brazil has had a history of censorship of musicians, in the years of the military dictatorship). The bateria guys were all enclosed in a gigantic moving jail. This was accomplished via a line of non-bateria prisoners just inside, holding the cage of the jail and walking it along, and also another line of people outside dressed as guards.

The overall effect was that it looked like the bateria prisoners were struggling to get out while the guards held them in:

...but if you look closely, notice the "guards" and "prisoners" are actually holding the fence up and carrying it along.

The bateria diretores were costumed as very authentically scary-looking guards. It was a stunning sight and somehow very chilling. Like I said, this sight literally gave me goosebumps.

At the end of the parade route, Mangueira did something that really impressed me: when every section of the parade crossed the finish line, they didn't stop parading, like the alas in every other escola. Instead they marched directly over to the furthest, cheapest seats and did a whole performance there, sometimes ten minutes or more of dancing, just for the people in the cheap seats. When they didn't have to (they're not judged after the finish line). Mangueira won my heart right there.
Mangueira got the strongest "E campiao!" shout of the night and the bateria kept playing and playing, after the parades were officially over. And playing and playing and playing... The Mangueira directors and singers and paraders were all leaping up and down, an especially big ball of maybe 50 directors right near us all jumping up and down with their arms around each other - relishing that thrilling moment when the long gate at the end of the runway is wheeled shut behind the last parader, the clock stops in perfect time (1:21 - the time limit is 1:22) and they finally know that their parade had gone PERFECTLY. The bateria kept playing and playing while the sky slowly lightened. They finally stopped...
And, at last, the thousands of disheveled, exhausted paraders, in huge crazy elaborate falling-apart costumes, drifted in all directions. All the costumes were dropping ribbons and feathers and gold filigree all over. Thousands and thousands of people drifting in all directions. "It's all over," said Bruno, a bit sadly. We jumped the fence onto the Sambodromo runway and walked slowly up the runway with all the other thousands of people, kicking aside great clumps of confetti, and litters of fallen rhinestones and miscellaneous costume pieces. Everybody going home. Till next year.

Monday: Vila Isabel

2010-02-16T09:12:00.001-08:00

5. Vila Isabel had a marvelous musical theme based on the life of the famous Brazilian composer Noel Rosa. But they suffered from a terrific problem that was NOT their fault - the sound system failed on the Avenida! I've never heard this happen before! The weird thing was, it wasn't a total failure (I think the parade would have delayed if there were a total sound failure, which would have been better for Vila]. It sounded like most of the microphones around the bateria, and on the sound truck, lost power or were unplugged or something. At any rate, all we could hear was a strangely throbbing, muted first surdo, and the singer. That was IT. No cavaquinho! No second surdo! No caixas! No bateria! It was very bizarre. The surdo also kept changing in volume, swelling suddenly and then nearly disappearing (I wonder if the apparently lone functional bateria microphone was being hurriedly moved around - eventually it started picking up one 2nd surdo too, and, very distantly, a lone weak caixa.) It sounded really horrible. Bear in mind that this is what most of the Vila paraders were hearing, and it was awful for them - they could barely tell if they were singing in time with the singer.
Anyway, the sound problem lasted 24 minutes before it was finally fixed. It was so frustrating, and was affecting the parade so badly, and was so clearly NOT Vila's fault, that it reportedly brought the president of the escola to tears. Vila actually managed to pull off a very nice parade anyway, and the second half of the parade regained energy once the problem was fixed. But the Vila directors are furious and are lodging a complaint with LIESA so that they won't be penalized for problems that were related to the poor sound. (I can't see how this couldn't have affected quite a lot of the judged parade components, including the porta-bandeira's dance, the commissao de frente's dance, the bateria, and the singing of the paraders.)

Monday: Grande Rio

2010-02-16T09:11:00.002-08:00

4. Grande Rio: The theme was Carnaval itself, and many of the floats and costumes were recreations or references to famous floats and famous moments in previous Carnavals. Sort of a meta-Carnaval. Overall Grande Rio did a fabulous parade with huge, dramatic, gorgeous floats.
One scary moment: Grande Rio had planned to recreate the famous moment from a few years ago when a NASA astronaut flew in the Sambodromo with a jetpack. So, this year they'd arranged for another astronaut (Eric Scott) to do the same thing. But his nitrogen tank exploded during preparation. He was knocked out and an assistant was burned (not sure if it was bad) and the flight was cancelled.
In more minor accidents, an actress parading with the commisao de frente bumped into one of the malabaristas and caused him to drop his pandeiro, which might cost the parade a precious tenth of a point. And actress Susana Vieira managed to parade despite having broken a rib last night by falling out of the window of the Brahma camarote the night before (luckily it is on the first floor of the Sambodromo) while exuberantly waving to some cute famous guy who was in one of the parades. Grande Rio's also being penalized 2 points by LIESA for having their song featured in a TV commercial (a Brahma ad, coincidentally - is Brahma bad luck for Grande Rio?) - apparently that's against the rules. They've also got to pay a fine.
Part of the parade paid homage to all the people who are involved in producing the Carnaval parades, with alas dressed as carpenters, electricians and costume-makers. The entire bateria was dressed as the sweeper guys who sweep the Sambodromo after each parade! Funny. The bateria must have loved this outfit because it was so light and cool. And the rainha of the bateria was dressed as an extremely sexy security guard:

Grande Rio's bateria did a 45-second-long break that is now being called "the longest paradinha ever performed in the Avenida." Shouldn't that be called a paradão?

Monday: Portela

2010-02-16T09:11:00.001-08:00

3. Portela's enredo this year was the internet. After watching the parade I decided this was a terrible theme for a parade. It just didn't lend itself to costumes that made any sense. Costume after costume went by, always something silvery with mysterious little silver balls or silver zigzags or silver somethings. Sure, they were pretty, in a baffling sort of way; I'd check my program and find that one costume was supposed to be illustrating "Downloads" and another was supposed to be illustrating "Control-Alt-Delete" and another was "The connectedness of the internet brings people together" -- but they just all looked like a lot of silver costumes with little silver balls and silver zigzaggy things.
The rumors were clearly true about Portela's floats - a couple of them were barely finished, barely decorated, almost as bad as Viradouro's last night. Luckily, given the computer theme, they seemed to have thought of tossing a lot of silver fabric onto the floats and gone for a sparse, sleek, modern look - and they almost pulled it off.
Portela's eagle was pretty cool, though. At first it just seemed to be a silver spaceship, and then it slowly started unfolding wings, lowering feet, and then its eagle head spun out of its belly and we all suddenly recognized what it was! To complete the transformation it screamed the unmistakeable scream of a... North American red-tailed hawk. (Always the bird of choice when artists want a dramatic sounding "eaglish" scream for a stage production. Because, unfortunately, actual eagles sound like kittens.) Oh well.
Strangest float of the night: A gigantic menacing-looking robot hovering over a pregnant woman, while dancers wearing translucent pregnant bellies, complete with fetuses, rolled around on medical exam tables. ???
Portela had the hottest bateria costume I have EVER seen - and I mean, unfortunately, hot as in "high temperature" and not hot as in "exciting". It was a completely sealed silver spacesuit and with the head partially enclosed in a plastic bubble. Yikes! A caixa player passed out right in front of me - just gently tipped right over like a felled tree, and hit the ground, WHOMP. A cluster of directors rushed over to him and a couple minutes later he was back up and blearily reeling toward the finish line. Later, after the bateria had passed by, a stray cuica player came staggering along about ten minutes later, having apparently passed out earlier in the parade. When will carnavalescos learn they should not put the bateria in hot outfits like that? The one ala that is essential for all the other alas to be able to march and sing, and the only ala that parades for the entire 122 minutes, and the only ala that is working out the entire time too, is the bateria. (Coolest bateria costumes of 2010 were Unidos Da Tijuca's "Mafia" bateria, Grande Rio's street-cleaner bateria, and Mangueira's prisoner bateria. Those are 3 smart carnavalescos.)

Monday: Porto da Pedra

2010-02-16T09:10:00.000-08:00

2. Porto da Pedra had a wonderful enredo about fashion, an absolutely ideal theme for parade costumes! They progressed through the entire history of fashion, starting with Flintstones-type prehistoric men dressed in animal skins, through togas, the Renaissance, an entire ala of baianas dressed very convincingly as Queen Elizabeth, and so on into modern times - including a float at the end of a fashion show complete with actual professional models wearing actual current fashion pieces on actual catwalks.

The abre-alas made me laugh - Porto da Pedra's giant tiger had a giant baseball cap on backwards, and a pierced tongue! (and, I now notice in the papers, a pierced eyebrow on the other side from me:)

The paper this morning said the bateria had a problem entering into the 2nd recuo and caused a big hole in the parade flow...oops. I couldn't see this from my Setor 6 spot.

Grupo Especial, Monday: Mocidade

2010-02-16T00:40:00.001-08:00

The sun is up, it's 7:30am, and I've been up past dawn for three nights in a row now! Here are my notes from the six parades of Carnaval Monday, compiled from O Globo and O Dia plus my own observations. Summary: Mangueira was the standout of the night - so I think it's a horse race between Unidos da Tijuca and Mangueira. (my vote goes to Tijuca just because of their unique creativity and playfulness.) The six Monday schools in order of parading were:

(I am splitting this post into 6 posts so that I can add some pix - those of you who are getting this emailed, sorry you're getting it twice!)

1. Mocidade. Their enredo (theme) this year was Paradises. They did a GREAT parade this year! I was so happy to see Mocidade do a beautiful parade! They really pulled it together this year, after an alarming slide over the last several years that culminated in a nail-biting 11th place last year, barely keeping them in Especial. One of their composers said afterwards "It's been years since I've seen Mocidade like this." The bateria sounded great, too. I'm so relieved! I was sitting with a crowd of Mocidade fans (plus we were rooting for our friend Bruno in the bateria, and his wife in one of the alas) and we were all thrilled.
Elza Soares, in a wheelchair, was godmother of the bateria. Soooo cool to see her.
On a personal note I was especially thrilled with the (slightly odd) section on "fiscal paradises" - this seems to be a Portuguese phrase for what we would call a tax haven. Just after a hilarious float illustrating money-laundering with washing machines that tossed fake money into the crowd, there were several alas representing the endangered species that are represented on Brazil's currency notes - including several species that I've had the good fortune to study, the golden lion tamarin, green sea turtle and jaguar! Plus the scarlet macaw and grouper. So cool to see Brazil's endangered species being featured. (I was equally thrilled last night by Beija-Flor's alas of the animals of the Cerrado, including giant anteaters and maned wolves. I was TORMENTED by two complete giant-anteater costumes that I found discarded on the ground later, because I could not figure out a way to get them home....)
Mocidade narrowly avoided disaster at the end of the parade route. Their abre-alas (opening float), which had functioned perfectly for the whole parade, abruptly lost power about 2 feet after it had cleared the finish line. (This was very close to my vantage point in Setor 6) At least it happened after the finish line, where it wouldn't affect the judging of that float, but the problem was, it was blocking the whole rest of the parade. Even the people in the alas just behind couldn't squeeze past. Mocidade directors came running from all over and managed to push it a few feet, enough so that the people in the alas could start squeezing past. But the 2nd float was approaching fast and there was no way it could get by. We all watched with bated breath as the 2nd float came bearing down and over dozens of men (the newspaper later said over 50 men) wrestled with the 1st float. (The risk was that Mocidade would suffer a dreaded time penalty if the 2nd float couldn't get off the runway in time) Finally they dragged the whole float backwards, and somehow that managed to uncouple its two pieces from each other and then the 50 guys zoomed the two pieces out of the way. As the paper said this morning, "The public in Sectors 6 and 13 watched the struggle with affliction, and vibrated when the problem was solved." I was indeed afflicted, and I did indeed vibrate, as did everybody around me.

Grupo Especial: Salgueiro & Beija-Flor

2010-02-15T11:48:00.001-08:00

- Salgueiro came next. A fantastic parade all about books and literature. This was a great theme for a parade because it immediately produced so many great costumes ideas - classic characters from all sorts of literature past and present - Don Quixote (complete with windmill), Romeo and Juliet, the gorillas from 2001 (I did not know gorillas could do backflips like that) , Alice in Wonderland, Captain Nemo (complete with submarine) and so on.

- Beija-Flor had some trouble with their opening float, which failed to rotate like it was supposed to, stalled repeatedly and had to be pushed the whole way. As a result the whole rest of the parade crawled along at a snail's pace until the abre-alas was FINALLY off the runway. By then they were way behind time and the rest of the parade went roaring past at practically a sprint. It practically broke my heart, actually, to see the luxurious last three floats go zooming past so fast that we didn't have a chance to look at them. All that effort to build those beautiful floats and then we didn't get to enjoy them.

I'll post pix later. Got to run, Mocidade starts in half an hour!!!

Grupo Especial parade update: Viradouro

2010-02-15T11:47:00.000-08:00

Next up for Sunday night: Viradouro. Poor Viradouro. The rumors I heard about Viradouro being broke must have been true, because their floats and costumes showed severe budget limitations. It's the kind of thing that makes you sorry for the designers - you could tell they were doing the best they could with no resources. The floats actually had very lovely statues and good ideas, but were almost completely lacking in any kind of detail or decoration. Some of them literally had just a sheet of fabric stretched over the sides, and here and there you could see that someone had thought "we HAVE to put some decoration on this" and had pasted on, say, a little drapery of fabric and pinned a flower to it. The kind of thing you do when you're a broke college student trying to brighten up a bleak dorm room.

See what I mean? It's not that it's ugly... it's just that swathing something in gold fabric is not going to keep you in Grupo Especial.

The newspaper today said it is the worst parade Viradouro has done in 20 years. It made me really feel sorry for them.

As for Viradouro's 7-year-old queen of the bateria, Julia Lira, she did a great job but I felt sorry for her. She was crying just before the parade started, frightened by the paparazzi swarming around her. She gathered her nerve together somehow, though, and managed to to do the parade, assisted ably by the bateria mestre's 9-year-old son, who danced by her side the whole way (what a sweetie). The two of them were quite adorable together, but the 7-year-old looked a bit nervous - though to be fair we were in Setor 3, right at the beginning when she probably was most nervous, and maybe she settled down later. Anyway, I was left feeling disturbed that this little 7-year-old had been forced to do something overwhelming that quite scared her. I'd heard originally that she'd "wanted" to do it, but I've since heard that she only "agreed" to do it when her parents asked her to, which is quite a different thing.

Grupo Especial update: Unidos da Tijuca

2010-02-15T11:11:00.001-08:00

OK, I have still haven't written about the Cubango parade, which was fantastic and exciting and exhausting. (I said a big thanks to Jonas afterwards and he said "Ano que vem!" i.e. come back next year! Which suddenly made me very glad I will not be locked into that teaching job after all.) Got to also give a huge thanks to Daniel for helping me navigate the mysteries of the Cubango bateria.

More about Cubango and the Grupo A parades later. Right now, the Grupo Especial update. I've been up allllll last night (and all the night before....) at the Grupo Especial Sunday parades, which were: Uniao da Ilha (last year's Grupo A winner), Imperatriz, Unidos da Tijuca, Viradouro, Salgueiro and Beija-Flor. I missed most of Uniao da Ilha and Imperatriz, so I won't comment on them myself - the papers today say Ilha did a great parade, while Imperatriz was a little lackluster. (though you have to bear in mind that in Grupo Especial, "a little lackluster" often just means "ever so slightly less jaw-droppingly amazing than the other parades") Here's my impressions of the other four:

- Unidos da Tijuca is clearly the front-runner. It was the only escola to receive the "E campião!" (you're the champion) chant from the crowd. It was one of those parades that absolutely captivates your attention from beginning to end. Where, instead of thinking 'Oh, look, 8 more alas with sort of similar feathery costumes" you're thinking "OH MY GOD! Those ala people are all clustering together and they're making a GIGANTIC CATERPLLAR! THAT'S SO COOL!" and a minute later "OH MY GOD! THERE'S HIDDEN DOLPHINS LEAPING AROUND IN THAT ALA!" and "OH MY GOD! The entire bateria is dressed as Mafia and there's a FULL-SIZE PACKARD DRIVING THROUGH THE BATERIA WITH A CHOREOGRAPHED MAFIA GUNFIGHT!" In the paper today, Tijuca's carnavalesco admitted it was extremely risky to put a choreograped skit literally in the middle of the bateria - the bateria split into two parts and the Packard drove right down the middle. (why oh why do event organizers always think it is a good idea to split a band into two parts????? That potentially cannot hear each other? And can easily get out of sync?) But they pulled it off flawlessly.

Here's the rainha dressed as a 1920s flapper-era Mafia girl:

Throughout the parade, Tijuca's theme, "It's a secret," gave them full license to do as many surprises as possible. Their commissao de frente (dance group at the front of the parade) was dressed a group of magicians who kept magically changing the costumes of their lovely assistants. This was really cleverly done - they had 6 costume changes, all done in a flash and all eliciting a huge scream from the crowd:

Two floats in particular wowed the crowd: A superhero float (because of their secret identities, don'tcha know) with a slanting wall made of some kind of rubbery material. First, several Spidermen climbed up it (big cheer from the crowd), and then, four guys dressed as Batman SKIED DOWN the slope, one at a time - yes, on skis - holding their arms out so their bat capes billowed out behind them. H-U-G-E cheer from the crowd. Batman on skis. Four Batmen on skis. One of those extremely odd Rio Carnaval sights that sticks in your memory for ever.

The other Tijuca float that really got the crowd's attention was an "Area 51" float that was a giant spaceship covered with aliens. A door at the front slowly opened and out slid... a huge alien egg! And suddenly it popped open and out hopped... MICHAEL JACKSON! (A dead-on impersonator, that Tijuca had flown in from Sao Paulo.) He did a whole Thriller-type dance, then climbed back in the egg and slid back into the alien spaceship.

Michael Jackson hatching out of an alien egg. It's so obvious - that's clearly where he came from. Why didn't I ever think of that before? (Madonna reportedly loved this float. She's down here in Rio with her Brazilian boyfriend, and she was watching from the mayor's camarote box. She even tried to join the Imperatriz parade, but was assaulted by so many hundreds of paparazzi when she tried to leave the camarote that she gave up.) (Paris Hilton is here too, and she reportedly drank so much at her Sambodromo camarote that she "fell over", why am I not surprised... )

All in all, Tijuca gave such a strong performance that I'll think I'll head over to their quadra on Wednesday to hear the announcement of the results. They're really a contender this year!! They've often been a runner-up - usually narrowly missing championships because their carnavalesco (the outrageously creatively Paulo Barras) often pushes the limits with floats that are too weird for some of the judges. This time I think he's hit the sweet spot, with several classically beautiful floats to keep all the judges happy, mixed with some of his funny and clever floats and his creative "live" floats. The "live" floats consist primarily of people who cluster together in acrobatic ways to form some kind of immense, amazing visual effect. The last float was like this - dozens of people that clustered together to form a peacock, Tijuca's symbol.)

Funniest costume in Tijuca: People wearing large silver triangles from which are suspended many colorful shorts. Bermuda shorts - yes, it was the Bermuda Triangle!

Escola updates

2010-02-13T18:55:00.001-08:00

It's Saturday night and we're halfway through the Grupo A escola parades. Wow, they are BEAUTIFUL! I didn't realize how impressive these parades are. Fantastic, jaw-dropping costumes, beautiful floats... this must be the hidden secret of Rio: if you can't afford a Grupo Especial ticket, just go see Grupo A!

I've finished my Imperio Serrano parade, which was exhausting and tremendously fun and tremendously exciting. It's so intense to be on the runway, under all the bright lights, all the people in the stands dancing and waving Imperio flags... and it's so intense to see all the judges staring down at you impassively from the judges' booths. The sound cut out at one point and we couldn't hear the singer or bateria any more, and we were RIGHT under one of judges' booths, but luckily we are the ALA DOS DEVOTOS! The ala of the Devoted! and WE ALL KNOW THE SONG! And we sang our little hearts out. After about thirty seconds, the sound suddenly came back on and we were right in time! (this is harder to do than it sounds. Usually a group of singers will drift pretty far off time in thirty seconds if they can't hear the band.) There was a huge cheer from the crowd when the sound came back, and we were all so elated that we had kept the song going that everybody kind of simultaneously jumped a foot in the air and we all lifted up our little flags. It was pretty exciting, actually. I was proud of us.

I couldn't actually see much of the parade, of course, just my own little section of it, but I hear it was went great, and certainly those of us in my ala sang and danced around like complete maniacs. And waved our flags around with great vigor and accidentally hit each other on the head. (one guy was spinning around in an excess of enthusiasm, and the end of his flag pole came whipping around like a croquet mallet and knocked my big golden crown clean off! It went flying! But it was undamaged, and he helped me scoop it up from the ground and get it back on.) I was exhausted afterwards. It might not sound like a lot of work to walk about 4 blocks, but if you're jumping the whole time, and singing, it's actually pretty tiring.

I'm now at home regrouping for Cubango, and I've been watching Paraiso, Inocentes and Renascer on TV. Caprichosos is just about to go on. Honestly, they all look so beautiful I can't figure out who might win. Everything seems equivalently amazing.

A few other escola tidbits:
- The big rumor has been that the two Niteroi escolas, the great Viradouro (Grupo Especial) and the less famous Cubango (my escola, in Grupo de Aceso), might change places this year - i.e. Viradouro losing Grupo Especial and descending to Grupo de Aceso, and Cubango winning Grupo de Aceso and going up to Grupo Especial. I first heard about this when I was wearing my Cubango t-shirt and went into a little cafe in Largo do Machado, and the cafe owner immediately said "Cubango! You guys are going to switch with Viradouro!" I've since heard the rumor from several more people. Here's the scoop: Viradouro has for many years benefited from extra funding from the bicheiros - the extremely rich guys who run gambling in Rio and who have a rather endearing habit of patronizing certain escolas-de-samba. And a less endearing habit of using bribes and even assassinations to ensure that their escola wins. I'd thought the bicheiros were kind of on the way out, but apparently they are raking in the bucks again due to the new computerized gambling machines that are in lots of little bars. Anyway - the rumor is that the Viradouro president got into some kind of argument with the bicheiros who have been long-time supporters of Viradouro. Must have been a pretty bad argument, because the bicheiros tried to assassinate him twice (but failed), and have left Viradouro and switched their allegiance to Cubango. So suddenly Viradouro's broke and Cubango's relatively rich (for a Grupo A escola). As to whether the bicheiros have pulled their fabled behind-the-scenes strings to affect the outcome of the voting - who knows???

- oh my god - I have to interrupt myself to say that the tv's showing the Caprichosas bateria and they have a whole section of SQUARE PANDEIROS. That's the very old-fashioned kind of pandeiro. I've never seen them in a bateria before! Cool! (Here I have to mention that I've also seen escolas this year with section of timbals, and tan-tans, and shekeres. They're experimenting with all kinds of things. Seems like almost every escola now has a section of some unusual instrument.)

- The other big piece of Viradouro news is that the Viradouro president has selected his 7-year-old daughter to be queen of the bateria. This is usually a very sexy job - the idea is that the Queen wears an extremely sexy outfit and dances around doing very sexy moves in order to "inspire" the guys in the bateria. However, Rio has a lot of laws about child exploitation and Viradouro immediately was put under investigation for this. They had to make a case before a judge that the girl is not being exploited, that she wants to be there, that she won't be put into a sexy outfit or made to do sexy things, etc. etc. They got approval a few days ago. (The judge cited several cases of young teenagers and elderly ladies being queens of baterias, as evidence that the position of queen of the bateria does not always have a sexual element.)

- The big rumor at the Cidade de Samba has been that Portela is running frighteningly far behind on finishing their floats. Apparently, just a week ago their floats were still only half-built, in such an unfinished state that people were starting to say "there's no way they'll finish the floats in time". (I don't know why they have had such delays.) Then I heard that a few days ago, if you went to the Cidade de Samba, you could see guys from practically all 12 escolas swarming over Portela's floats. Mangueira guys, Beija-Flor guys - they were all over at the Portela warehouse, helping out on the Portela floats. (I suppose that also means that the Mangueira floats and Beija-Flor floats are all finished.) Portela parades on Monday night; they have about forty-eight hours left and the rumor is that they are working round the clock. We'll see how the floats look come Monday night.

The Carnaval bus

2010-02-13T18:05:00.000-08:00

I tried to go get my Sambodromo Monday ticket today from Bruno's apartment in Botafogo. I had this stupid idea that I could get from Lapa to Botafogo and back in three hours, in time to go to the Sambodromo for my Imperio Serrano parade. BAD IDEA. I forgot that it's Carnaval and that, in terms of traffic, the city is a snake pit of bloco parades.

The bus I hopped on in Lapa was immediately accosted by a huge, rowdy crowd that had just finished the massive Bola Preta parade. Dozens of laughing, singing people in ridiculous outfits crammed onto the bus till it was completely, completely jammed. The bus wasn't even able to move at first, there were so many people still milling around in the street, but finally the bus driver tentatively inched the bus out into the crowd and nosed through it. A guy with a bullhorn in the middle of the bus announced dramatically "O ONIBUS ESTA PARTINDO!!!!! PELO AMOR DE DEUS, SEGURE A MAO!!!!!" (The bus is leaving! For the love of God, hang on!) and everybody screamed with excitement and made dramatic motions to grab for something to hold onto.

The bus wheeled out into the road heading south and the bullhorn guy started singing a drinking song about cachaça, Brazil's sugar cane rum. The entire bus starts singing along. Literally everybody is belting out the song at the top of their lungs. It turns out to be a very helpful instructional song: (you've got to imagine a guy with a bullhorn singing this kind of drunkenly at very high volume)

VOCE PENSA QUE CACHAÇA E AGUA...
MAS CACHAÇA NAO E AGUA NAO...
CACHAÇA VEM DE ALAMBIQUE...
... AQUA VEM DE RIBEIRAO."
(You think cachaça is water... but cachaça is not water, no...cachaça comes from a still... water comes from a river.)

They sing it several times through and by the third time I've got it and I'm singing along too, though I have no idea what an "alambique" is and have to look it up later. Thanks for the little lesson about cachaça! That was very informative! That song ends and we segue naturally into the top 2 crowd favorite escola songs, Salgueiro's "Explode coração" and União de Ilha's "E Hoje", which we sing ALL THE WAY THROUGH, EVERY SINGLE WORD - yes, the entire crowd knows both these two immensely long escola songs absolutely rock solid. Even though they're drunk.

Our singing bus is proceeding happily southward through Rio's avenues when the crowd spots another bloco and shrieks with joy. The bullhorn guy yells through his bullhorn: "BUS DRIVER! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE STOP THE BUS AND LET US OFF! WE HAVE TO GO TO THAT BLOCO! IT IS A VERY GOOD BLOCO!" and the bus stops, and all the partiers pile out.

Five minutes later the bus gets stuck in another bloco, this time trapped in an actively parading bloco. We're trapped for an hour. No hope of getting to Bruno's house now. I hop on the metro and try to head back to Lapa.

OK. Forget about the Sambodromo ticket, I'll get it later. I'm just trying to get home now and pick up my Imperio Serrano outfit. The subway arrives at the Cinelandia station, my stop. My first clue that something is going on at Cinelandia comes when the subway car doors open. Picture the scene: You're in a subway car, by the doors, waiting for the doors to open; the subway car glides into your station, the doors open, and ten feet in front of you you see a solid wall of THIRTY HUGE FAT GUYS dressed in MATCHING WHITE TUTUS, SHINY HOT-PINK WIGS AND HOLDING PINK HULA-HOOPS, and they all look at you and say (this is a direct quote):

"RAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And they all literally RUN at the open door of the subway car at TOP SPEED. (They're each trying to be the first person on the subway car.) They do not notice the 1 person (you) who is trying to exit.

It kind of reminded me of those battle scenes from Lord of the Rings, or possibly the Battle of Agincourt from Henry V. It was truly an epic charge. (Perhaps if the French had had those thirty guys in tutus, they would have won the Battle of Agincourt.)

I did the only thing I could do - crouched down, put my fists in front of me, bent forward and ran full tilt at a small 3" gap between two of the guys. I hit them hard, kind of punching them both in the stomach and forcing them a bit farther apart from each other, and just barely managed to burst through.

I made my way through a crazed crowd in the subway station up to opens into what is normally a serene plaza facing the opera house. It was INSANITY out there. The entire subway station was walled off with chainlink fences and security guards, with another chainlink fence funneling several hundred singing, chattering people to the ticket booth. As I exited the station and made my way outside the fence, I saw the need for the fences. There are HUNDREDS of thousands of people in the plaza. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. Jammed elbow to elbow, dancing and singing. They're not violent at all - it's just that there's so many of them. I can't believe the chaos. I'd forgotten that the Cinelandia station, and its plaza, are the end of the Rio Branco bloco parade route - apparently this idea of closing off the Rio Branco for bloco parades has been, oh, a wee bit popular! There are hundreds and hundreds of beer vendors too, whole bars have appeared that did not exist before - entire buildings seem to have been constructed. People are miling around in all kind of crazy outfits. Most shockingly, part of the beautiful old sculpture in front of the subway station has tumbled to the ground, most likely knocked down when a few hundred thousand people climbed up on top of it to dance.

The great thing about this crowd is that they're not aggressive, they're not angry, and they're not even really that drunk. Despite having accidentally broken the statue, it's not a mean crowd. After all, they weren't trying to knock the statue down - they were just trying to dance. Everybody's in a great mood. Because it's Carnaval!!!

However, it takes me 45 minutes to squirm and push through the crowd to get back home. I'm almost late for the Sambodromo! I put on my bizarrely lovely Imperio Serrano newspaper costume, which (oddly, for a newspaper costume) includes a two-foot-high golden crown covered with colored streamers, and set out on the fifteen-minute walk to the Sambodromo.

Everybody I pass, and I mean everybody, from truck drivers to homeless men to little girls, says to me as I pass:
"A Rainha!! E a Rainha!"
(The Queen! It's the Queen!)
I love this city so much.

Carmelitas

2010-02-13T17:27:00.000-08:00

Friday of Carnaval: Carmelitas in the afternoon, then the kids' parades in the Sambodromo (so cool!), then Monobloco at midnight (also so cool!).

Carmelitas is my first bloco parade of Real Carnaval. I've come with a couple of friends, Ben and Dandarra, and we've walked all the way up the long, hot, sunny hill (past several enterprising guys offering mototaxi rides up the hill, calling out "Carmelitas moto! Carmelitas moto!") up to the tiny winding cobblestone streets up in the hills of old Santa Teresa, one of Rio's oldest neighborhoods. There are dozens and dozens of players milling around getting drums. The whole bateria is dressed as nuns (because the parade starts from the old Carmelite convent, the reason for the bloco's name), and floods of people arriving from all directions.

There have been bloco parades running already for weeks, but today is the first day of the real, true Carnaval and there is a definitely different mood now. What happens during Carnaval, stays in Carnaval. Carnaval is when the natural order of the world is turned upside down and people become things that they are not. Beggars become kings; kings become beggars; men become women; anybody can turn into anything. What this translates to, in the Rio Carnaval, is an insanely free spirit and a joyful, wild exuberance that has got to be seen and experienced to be believed. A touch of wildness and insanity and craziness. The crowds are huger, the dancing is wilder, more people are in costume, and there's just an air of crazy abandon that was not there last week.

And there's always that tinge of escaping from some kind of sadness, escaping from reality - and knowing that it's just a temporary escape. Brazilians all seem to agree that the true crazy joy of Carnaval only happens when people need to escape from sorrow. There's a lot of songs on this theme, like the famous song from Black Orpheus that goes "Tristeza nao tem fim, felicidade sim" - Sadness has no end, but happiness does. Songs that emphasize how brief happiness is, how short Carnaval is, and how, sooner or later, you have to return to real life. (I used to be puzzled by how many Brazilian songs mention "Wednesday" in a puzzling context of sadness and gray reality, till I realized it was a reference to Ash Wednesday, the end of Carnaval and the return to everyday life.)

Carnaval fulfills a Halloween role for Brazilians - an opportunity to put on a silly costume. The very minimum is a goofy hat or some other silly element on your head (huge weird sunglasses, a clown nose). Street vendors are selling silly little wigs and hats for just 5 reais: glittery rainbow wigs, neon-pink Afros, jester hats, hats that look like parrots or traffic cones, and lots of little headbands with goofy things on top: bunches of curled pipecleaners, an elegant spray of green feathers, a Carmen Miranda cluster of plastic fruit, and, my favorite, a pair of little bouncing plastic penises on springs. And then a few people really go all out and have put together a fantastic outfit. A surprising number of men are in drag - during Carnaval, straight men often go in drag (it's normal to do this during Carnaval, because Carnaval is when you become something you're not, right?)

The bateria starts. It's THUNDEROUS. It's immediately clear that a lot of the caixa and surdo guys are from the escolas. The tamborims are another story - there's some horrible players in there who can't even hit their triplots - but on the whole, it's a beautiful sound. The bateria does a wonderful warmup, runs through a bunch of classic bossas (including, I notice, what the Lions cal the "Sergio Mendes" bossas, since most Americans know them from the Sergio Mendes "Brasileiro" cd, though of course Carmelitas plays the bossas in a totally different order. The "Sergio" bossas is really just a subset of about 20 standard bossas that are very widespread in Rio, and that any given bateria, on any given day, might play in any order.)

I ran up and down a high wall for an hour, tracking the Carmelitas bateria's slow progression down the street. I saw...
... a very manic-looking man wearing nothing but a green Speedo, completely covered in green glitter and confetti, bouncing sideways through the entire bateria screaming and laughing...
... a fellow in an upstairs window with a fishing pole, dangling a beer can over people's heads and seeing if he can get them to jump for it...
... an immensely obese woman in a glittery bikini...
... a gray-haired guy, probably in his 60's, dressed in a tiny pink tutu ...
... a burly fellow dressed as a big baby, with a pacifier the size of a basketball...
... three girls dressed as cute bumblebees, several as black cats, and one as a devil, all marching firmly behind the bateria, the devil girl waving her red trident in time.
... the entire street packed end-to-end, wall-to-wall, JAMMED with people. They're jammed so tight that they can't really dance; all they can do is bounce up and down, pretty much in unison. Beer vendors snaking through the crowd. Men with trays of caipirinhas on the heads. The sun bright and hot. The parade goes on and on and on.

Eventually I get hungry and retreat back down to Lapa, where I find another bloco snaking through the streets there. I plow through that bloco and am almost home when I run into a mini-bloco of some kind, a crowd of 300 people bouncing through the streets. I can't seem to detect a band, though. Looking closer I spot 1 tamborim in the center of the crowd, and eventually I discern 1 caixa player and 1 guy with a tom from a drum kit that he is playing as a surdo. That's it. One caixa, one surdo and one tamborim. Also, they're REALLY BAD. But they've attracted this crowd of 300 people who are all bouncing around in the middle of the street, and more people are arriving at every second, scurrying eagerly in from nearby streets, completely blocking traffic - this is an unofficial guerilla parade and traffic was not rerouted for it, and a good 75 cabs and buses are completely blocked. Wow. People will really take any excuse for a parade and just run with it. I bet that the 3 drummers could quietly sneak out of the crowd and the crowd would just keep going on its own.

I get to my apartment and make lunch when I realize - I can still hear Carmelitas! They're over a mile away, in the hills of Santa Teresa, but I can hear them clearly. They're still going, and going, and going, a bloco of Energizer bunnies.... they keep playing for hours, slowly progressing across the distant hills of Santa Teresa, until I have to finally leave and run to the Sambodromo for the next stop on my Carnaval Friday.

The true spirit of Carnaval

2010-02-12T21:53:00.000-08:00

A little background first. I'm a biologist. I got my Ph.D. studying birds on the far northern Alaskan tundra for six years, and later got a job studying endangered species of all kinds - the glamour animals like elephants, whales, and grizzly bears, and also the less famous ones like Malayan sun bears and tree kangaroos. However, the whole time I was in grad school, I was playing music on the side, and I needed it - for sanity, for balance. I played 3-string Hungarian bowed bass, Turkish zurna, American cowboy tunes, Macedonian tambura. I attempted to learn Turkish, Hungarian and Bulgarian (failed at all three, though I can still say "A mouse ran up your ass!" in Hungarian.)

Slowly the biology job got dull. I was stuck in the lab all by myself with no one to talk to. I was stuck in the lab all by myself with no one to talk to. I was stuck in the lab all by myself for seven years with no one to talk to. Am I repeating myself? Suddenly one day I found samba - literally, one day, I heard drums.... That was that. Not too soon after I decided to quit my biology job and go to Brazil to study music for a while. I'd just seen my sister almost die, and recover, and then almost die again, and the entire time she was going through all that, I'd been stuck in the lab by myself with no one to talk to. Enough with the lab work. You only live once.

There's a term for what I did: Leaving Science. I was Leaving Science, and once you step off the science train, you can never get back on.

You have to understand here that I was good. I was really good at what I did. (Think of it like, it wasn't just any old Ph.D., it was a really shiny, glittery, sparkly Ph.D. It was a Grupo Especial Ph.D.) So to walk away was pretty dumb.

Two years later I'd had the most extraordinary adventure of my life and I found my way back to the United States. I found a stunning band that I wanted to play with: the Lions of Batucada, based in Portland, Oregon. I came to Portland for a summer, and then a spring, and then another summer, and stayed, and stayed. So, Portland turns out to be a hopping town! Next thing I knew I was in 5 fantastic bands and surrounded by excellent musicians and living in a series of lovely, happy houses full of musicians and painters and velvety-furred dogs.

To my surprise I landed a job teaching biology at a local university. I hadn't thought I'd be competitive again for a biology job, but apparently they didn't mind the rather odd-looking two-year gap on my CV. Apparently they didn't mind that I was also a musician! Cool! Maybe there is a chance for me yet! I got the job, and it went STUNNINGLY well. Turned out I LOVE science, it was just the nonstop lab work that had been killing me. Turned out I LOVE teaching. Turned out I am really good at it. Turned out teaching is a HORRIFIC amount of work, too, so horrific it kind of killed me. But I love it and love my students.

This fall I had to make a tricky decision. My school was about to advertise for a permanent position, a tenure-track job. Should I apply? Do I want to turn this into a permanent thing? I could stay in Portland then. Maybe I could even buy a house. Settle down. Really be there for my students, and my bands, and my fellow faculty; really stay in Portland year-round and dig in and be part of it, instead of constantly zipping around. (which has been getting rather tiring just btw). My colleagues at the department were strongly urging me to apply, telling me they wanted me to stay... students coming into my office constantly asking if I would please apply for the job and please stay. Everyone saying, stay, stay, stay, please apply! Pleeeeeeez!

The only negative was... If I applied, and if I got the job, I'd likely have to stop doing these musical trips. The school's academic schedule clashes with all four of the major annual musical events that are part of my life: Carnaval, Bloco X (Germany), California Brazil Camp and Notting Hill (London).

The economic collapse, or the "world crisis" as the Brazilians call it, changed the playing field. Colleges and universities across the country saw their endowments lose half their value... and with it, half their operating budget. Across the nation most colleges instituted strict hiring freezes and pay cuts. Desperation penny-pinching measures right down to counting the pencils and removing half the light bulbs from every office. It was clearly now or never; either apply for this job while it was available, get on the science train and STAY on it this time, or risk not getting a job at all. Flitting around the world is fun and all while the money lasts; but eventually you need to put food on the table.

I decided to apply, but I knew I needed one last visit to Brazil. To wrap things up; to say goodbye to my friends; maybe to parade with an escola, at last. So I decided to end my temporary job by the act of taking spring semester off, so that I could come to Brazil one last time.

I left the temporary job and applied for the permanent one. I was selected as one of the top 3 candidates (out of over 50, I forget the exact number) to interview. I slaved over the research and teaching statements, slammed through the sun bear and elephant manuscripts to beef up my CV, did days upon days of interviews (WITH SWINE FLU! DURING FINALS! It was an epic week), talked with the dean and provost, did a great job talk (if I do say so myself!). It all went beautifully. Want to see my job talk? It is so lovely! It is all about sea turtles and whales! It is great! I knew I had done well. But I also knew it wasn't a sure thing. In this job market, nothing is a sure thing, because, no matter how awesome you might be, the other candidates might be even awesomer, right? And in academia, when they're hiring people for a permanent tenure-track position, it's not just your general level of awesomeness that matters but also little tiny specifics, how well you "fit" with the other faculty and the culture and the extremely specific needs of the department. Maybe the school needs someone who can teach botany, but you only know animals. Maybe they want someone who doesn't need a very expensive lab, but your research requires an expensive genetic sequencer. Maybe it's a Catholic school... and you're not Catholic... which is not supposed to matter, technically, but, you know how things are. Maybe they want a nice young post-doc fresh out of grad school who will just stay put on campus, doin' that campus thing, just staying put and doing their job, trusty and steady, for 40 years... not a middle-aged crazy lady with only a few good years left in her, and a proven habit of flitting off to Brazil one out of every six semesters (one out of six semesters is practically like zero semesters, right? If you round down) And, uh, missing all the pre-semester faculty meetings to go to California Brazil Camp, and, um, la la la, missing graduation to go to Bloco X. These are just purely hypothetical examples, of course.

Anyway, I applied for the job, ended my temporary position, cleared out my office in December, put my stuff in storage, and headed off to my last trip to Brazil, waiting to hear whether I had the job in the fall or not.

So anyway, it was the eve of Carnaval, Thursday night, and I'm reading the email, which is actually a totally sweet, very kind and nice email, and I'm realizing: Oops, I didn't get the job after all... nope, it went to somebody else (as you have gathered by now) a much younger person who was that elusive "better fit" with 40 years of service ahead of her. and only then did I realize how much I'd been assuming that I'd get it. And then it hit me: Whoa! I am homeless and jobless! In the worst economy in a century! In the worst job market for biology teachers in at least fifty years.

And then a second thing hit me: I am probably going to have to leave Portland. And the Lions, and Rio Con Brio, and Samba Gata, and Axe Dide. All my Portland friends. Pauline and Jay and Brian and Tanya and Christina and Hans, and, and, I couldn't even think of the correct names, I was getting so upset to think of leaving them all. My whole Portland life. The big blue room in the big house that I was going to move into. The little garden I was going to plant. Dammit, I am sick of being a nomad... Apparently I was really, secretly, deep in my heart, really looking forward to putting down roots because I was suddenly BUMMED about having to move again. Other tragic losses kept flitting into my mind - oh my god, the elephants!! I'll have to leave my elephants at the Oregon Zoo! And oh my god my STUDENTS that I had such plans for working with next year. My uber-cool students; I'll never get to see what they do next. They won't coming running into my office with elaborately color-coded spreadsheets of data and post-its flying all over. And the beautiful classes that I'd taken such trouble designing and that were just..about... perfect, now to be shelved and likely never used again.

And then a more urgent concern hit me: I have NO JOB. I am SCREWED.

I was supposed to go out to Lapa with a friend - with Brian actually - but (ironically) was so upset at the thought of leaving him all my other Portland buddies that I did not actually get around to going out to see him. See? It's already started!!!

I finally fell asleep.

The next morning, Friday morning, the key to the city of Rio de Janeiro was ceremonially handed over to the Rei Momo, aka King Momo - really the old greek god Momus, the masked god of satire. He takes over the world for the weekend of Carnaval and turns everything upsidedown. Chaos reigns, till Ash Wednesday when he has to give the key back.

I woke up a few hours later thinking: I have NO JOB. I am FREE. I am not screwed, I am FREE.

Something will work out. I'll cobble something together. I'll study birds in Alaska again, I'll teach bird anatomy at the Audubon Society, I'll do international consulting, I'll go straight to Thailand and study elephants there, I'll FINALLY WRITE MY SAMBA BOOK... I'll be broke, I'll be nomadic, but I've got a couple of great safety nets (in Seattle and Boston, respectively), and I'll be free. Eventually I will cobble something together, and I will be able to return to Brazil again... maybe I will work with sea turtles, or teach English (hey, I have always wanted to do that!), apply for a Fulbright...hey, maybe the Max Planck Institute! and Bloco X, and California Brazil Camp, and Notting Hill. And Brazil.

I got out of bed. Ben showed up asking "Carmelitas?" Yeah, Carmelitas! The grand old bloco of Santa Teresa! Parading today at 2pm, one of hundreds of Carnaval blocos parading this weekend, the weekend of Carnaval. I put on my tiara and Ben put on his silly cape made out of a Brazilian flag (we decided he was "Super-Cara") Dandara showed up. Andre was coming too. Andrezza sent me a text inviting me to a different bloco ("Concentra mas Nao Sai" - "it gathers but it doesn't go" - this is the bloco that never quite gets around to actually parading anywhere). I will play with Monobloco tonight. Tomorrow the escolas start and I will parade with Imperio Serrano and Cubango. All of the entire last year has rolled to this one point, this weekend, this day: the day of the escola parades. Think of all of that work and effort and hoping and dreaming, an entire year's work, for one little day, one moment. Then you just toss it all away, you toss it and you just walk away. That's Carnaval. I adjusted my tiara and we headed out the door.

Fantasia!!!!

2010-02-10T20:40:00.000-08:00

I got a Cubango bateria fantasia!!!! (the Carnaval costume). I got a fantasia, I got a fantasia, I got a fantasia!!!! That means I will get to play in the Cubango bateria in the big parade in the Sambodromo!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. It's for real now, it's really going to happen! It's right here in my apartment. I tried it on and the shoes even fit.

I am also definitely going to die of heat stroke. But it will be a happy death.

I called one Rio friend immediately after and she immediately said: "This is a historic moment. Whenever a person gets a bateria fantasia for the first time - no matter who - no matter what escola - it is a truly historic moment. Congratulations."

What a fantastic day. Half a day spent hanging out with the Cubango guys waiting for the costume (which turned out to mean, half a day spent laughing nonstop... wow, what a cool, fun bunch of guys!) and then THE FANTASIA at last, and I finally learned what the mysterious Cubango song is all about, and then I've spent all night bar-hopping in Lapa, saw countless pagode bands and a really cool maracatu troupe complete with most excellent dancers. Details soon.... what a day. DID I MENTION I HAVE A CUBANGO BATERIA FANTASIA?

Cubango and the Juggernaut

2010-02-09T23:20:00.000-08:00

It's 6:30 am but I just can't get to sleep. It took an unusually long time to get home from Niteroi tonight. I volunteered to be taxi-translator to get some new, non-Portuguese-speaking friends safely home, to Ipanema, i.e. pretty much entirely in the wrong direction for me; and afterwards it took over an hour to reverse my steps and get back up to Lapa where my apartment is. The bus to Lapa took for-EVER to show up!! at least a half hour wait, and then a 45 min bus ride, and then bus driver was kind of crazy and I ended up with a big ol' bruise to show for it, but that's a whole nother story. ANYway, I didn't get home till well past 2am and after all that I was so wired I haven't been able to fall asleep at all...in fact, hm, the sun appears to be rising as I write this. Guess this is the first official all-nighter. So, a brief blog update.

Things are rolling crazily toward Carnaval, which is (unbelievably) this weekend. The Juggernaut approaches. Which makes this the Last Week Before Carnaval. Which means it's when suddenly everybody has their frantic, intense last rehearsals and complicated last-minute changes in the complicated plans. And when all the costumes need to be picked up (each costume necessitating a bewilderingly long multi-hour journey, consuming a large part of a day, and an expensive cab ride somewhere along the way.) Simultaneously all the Sambodromo tickets have to be hunted down and paid for (since this is the week when the physical tickets are actually picked up.) All of which requires a lot of handing over of large amounts of cash. I started to feel today like I was involved in several elaborate and secretive drug deals, but it was really just Sambodromo tickets that I was after. Really.

I've also been spending all the last two weeks running around between Banga, Monobloco and Cubango. I've been trying to find the time to write updates about all three of them (if I can ever find the time!) - suffice to say, Banga and Monobloco have been regularly blowing my mind. Everyone knows about Monobloco's famous Friday shows, and rightfully so, but if you're in Rio and you haven't yet been to a Banga show, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? But that will have to wait for another post. Right now I want to talk about Cubango.

Cubango is my Grupo A escola over in Niteroi, remember. Cubango has been SUPER INTENSE. I've been going to 3 rehearsals a week for the last couple weeks - street rehearsals every Sunday, tech rehearsal on Tuesday and of course the "general" (= party) rehearsal on Friday. These are long, long events. Complicated journeys involving ferries and multiple buses; and hours of waiting and chatting and uncertainty; followed by long, intense, slightly scary, very exhilarating rehearsals; followed by long, difficult, confusing, complicated and expensive rides home.
It's not remotely like Banga or Monobloco. It's a whole different energy, very wild and half-tamed and thunderous. For some reason it even seems wilder than my escolas from last time, Mocidade and Sao Clemente.
The Sunday street rehearsals have been blazingly exciting. There's just something about the moment when the whole bateria wheels out onto the wide-open avenue. Right in downtown Niteroi....the whole long line of sight of the grand avenue opening before you, the canyon of the high buildings wheeling into view... the bateria so huge that there are little subtribes that you drift in and out of: a crazy pack of Viradouro players in one corner, a nest of shockingly strong third surdos in another... directors racing up and down wildly gesticulating... The tamborins and chocalhos are only distantly glimpsed, like foreign tribes from distant countries that have been summoned for a huge battle against a common enemy. A flicker of silver on the horizon when the chocalhos all toss their instruments in the air. Or a far distant "kak!" barely audible in a tamborim break.
And even farther ahead, glimpses of flags whirling, of the tops of feather headdresses, hundreds of arms waving. And farther still, the wide open sky above the ferry terminal, slowly darkening as the sun sets.
Maybe a quick glimpse back at the hulking sound truck packing along behind you like a dinosaur....
Through it all the wild ride of the bateria.
An hour into it. Starting to get badly tired. Then Jonas comes leaping through the bateria with a wild crazy open-mouthed smile on his face. Bounding around like a giant puppy. Arms waving. LEAPING around, leaping a foot in the air with every bound. With that HUGE smile. Dancing and jumping. Weaving through all the players. He gets everybody charged up again.

The Tuesday tech rehearsals have been more about taking care of business, ironing out problems. Tuesday is when Jonas really has a chance to drill the bateria.
Last week's Tuesday rehearsal was pretty deadly serious, Jonas really taking everybody to task over the breaks. He made an fascinating speech that was along the lines of: "Enough with the excuses. Enough with 'I'm a member of the community, so I don't have to come to rehearsals.' Enough with 'I'm a musician, so I don't have to come to rehearsals.' Enough with the excuses. It is ONE WEEK TILL CARNAVAL. ENOUGH. IT IS ONE WEEK TILL CARNAVAL."
He then made us play the breaks over and over - with no signals at all and no song and no cavaquinho. That is, with none of the usual helpful cues. He'd count off the break, then stand there DEAD STILL, and with a completely blank expression on his face (which was so un-Jonas-like that we were all kind of thrown off balance). He was trying not to give us any cues at all, not even unintentional body-language or facial-expression cues. And so we'd play the break entirely on our own. I thought the breaks were suddenly sounding pretty good, but the first several times through each break, some poor chocalho or tamborim (or whatever) would do one "shk" or "kak" (or whatever) too many ... into what was supposed to be a silent spot... and Jonas would spring to life suddenly and leap up, yelling "MORREEEUUUU!" ("it died", i.e., you just singlehandedly killed the entire break. Or possibly "you died"... yep, it could definitely also mean "you just died, sucka!")
Over and over, "MORRREEEEEUUUU!"
Until suddenly it was perfect - no more morreu's - the breaks were flawless.
Another favorite Jonas technique: later on, he was dancing away as the bateria was grooving along, through the samba, through various breaks, if somebody screwed up, suddenly he'd FREEZE in place. Completely stop dancing. And STARE at whoever had messed up. Not move a muscle - and not frown - and, interestingly, not yell. Just STARE and STARE and STARE and STARE. The more serious the mistake, the more still and silent he would get, and the longer the stare would last. This stare seemed to be reserved for certain players and seemed to mean something like "You really should know better by now. But you've been skipping rehearsals, haven't you? Haven't you? You KNOW how badly you've screwed up, DON"T YOU?"
Luckily I was never the subject of the Deadly Stare (I was air-playing all the breaks anyway, just to be on the safe side while I learned them).

It did the trick: the breaks tightened up amazingly. Nearly to perfection. ("Nearly" because there is STILL this one measure in this one bossa where 90% of the caixas are silent when I am sure they are supposed to be playing.... hmm.....However, it actually sounds kind of cool the way it's coming out, so maybe he's decided to not to mess with it at the last minute. )

Then tonight was the final Tuesday rehearsal. This was our last rehearsal of all, and it was a crazy long intense street rehearsal... us all marching down a long, long, long sloping hill in the dark, while scattered rain showers blew by, lightning flashed and storm gusts swirled past and dark clouds rolled overhead. Very dramatic.
I happened to end up in a position that I absolutely hated: dead center front row of the caixas. Where (I now know) you cannot hear the repique calls clearly, cannot hear any third surdos at all, and can only very distantly hear the firsts and seconds. (and plus you have one of the more scary directors in your face the whole time.... oh dear.) My closest surdo was 4 drums away and it was tremendously difficult to hear even him - I had to keep looking over at him to be sure of my place. And so.... I messed up one break RIGHT in front of that scary director. Dammit!! Because I couldn't hear the repique call, and I went with the singer, when of course the singer was leaning way ahead of the beat (the way these singers often do) and I realy should have stayed with the Imaginary Repique In My Mind. Result: Big ol' flam. I wasn't the only one who did the flam - several players behind me also did the same thing - so at least I was not alone in not being able to hear the repique, but the scary director thought it was all just me and concluded that I didn't know that break.
Dang! Now I'm all worried about whether I'll get to parade or not!
There are also a LOT of gringoes playing, too many really, so I'm not sure they'll let us all play. In most cases, with most baterias, I think actually they shouldn't let lots of gringoes play. Not if it's going to mean that some kid from the community is not going to get to parade. But in Cubango's case, since it is a newish and smallish bateria, I think the gringoes are mostly an asset (i.e. we are playing pretty well, and we are not locking out local players who would otherwise get to play).
But it still just feels weird to have that many gringoes there. I know that if I were a resident layer, I'd feel like the bateria had been suddenly invaded by barbarian hordes.
Who knows. For my part I am more and more impressed with Cubango, and have been thrilled to be a part of it so far. I've memorized the song, written out all the breaks, and am very grateful to be there .... and even get a glimpse of the wild untamed animal that is an escola-de-samba.

So anyway, in an attempt to shield myself in advance against the crushing disappointment if I don't get to parade in Cubango, I have also just realized that not-parading might save me from death. Because:
(1) I could die of heat stroke. I just looked at the Grupo A schedule for the parades on Saturday night, and realized that there are so many Grupo A escolas, all going on the same night, that Cubango's dead-last position means we'll probably be parading at 7 or 8 in the morning. In full sun. When it is well over 90 degrees. In a full-coverage costume with full sleeves, legs, boots and a heavy hat. Of polyester. (I'm not making this up - heat stroke is a real danger in these costumes. People pass out all the time, literally keeling over in dead faints, and are simply dragged off the parade route.)
(2) I could die of exhaustion. OK, so Banga just announced its parade schedule and I suddenly realized that this is my schedule for Saturday night:
Imperio Serrano parade at approximately 8pm in the Sambodromo. The last time I paraded with Imperio, it was the most exhausting thing I'd ever done and I went home and slept for 12 hours. But this time it'll be just the beginning:
10pm ish. Finish Imperio parade. Run back home and change out of Imperio costume. Into Banga t-shirt. Run to Lapa.
Midnight-3am. Play Banga show.
4am ish - Run back home, change out of Banga clothes, into Cubango costume. Run back to Sambodromo.
5am ish. Meet up with Cubango.
7am ish. Parade with Cubango.
8:30am ish. Run back home, change out of Cubango costume, back into Banga.
9:30am ish - race to Jardim Botanico to play the Banga parade from 10am-noon.
- retreat to apartment for feverish hot nap -
At 7pm the Grupo Especial parades start. And go till maybe 4am. Same the next night too...

That's all assuming the escolas go on time, which they won't. Hoo-ee, this is going to be NASTY! So that's what I mean about Carnaval approaching like a relentless juggernaut.... never mind "will I get to parade", the question is really, will I survive??? (If I don't, you'll know I died happy.)

Busology

2010-02-05T15:46:00.001-08:00

I saw another newspaper article today about yet another attempt to bring some "order" to the city of Rio: the mayor (the same mayor who wanted to ban the coconuts) wants to paint all of Rio's buses the same color. As it stands now, Rio is served by a bewildering array of what must be hundreds of different bus lines, run by dozens of different companies, all with different colors on their buses. Sometimes it looks like a Wild West rodeo out there on the major avenues - and it feels like it, too, when you're jumping around in the street trying to flag down a particular bus out of the dozens that are roaring past.

The mayor thinks that painting all the buses the same color will help make Rio look more orderly and more attractive for the World Cup and the Olympics. However, the colors he's tentatively picked are: baby-blue and salmon-pink on top, with the Copacabana swirly sidewalk pattern of white-and-black on the bottom half of the bus (right where it will get really badly dinged up by street rubble). The sidewalk pattern actually sounds kind of cool, but... baby-blue and salmon-pink?

So far everyone seems to be 100% against this idea. A lot of Rio residents recognize the particular bus they're looking for by the color - and since the buses often go zooming by at the speed of light, if you wait till the bus is close enough so you can read the destination sign on the front, by that point it's too late to flag down the bus.

But here's what I love about the news story. It had quotes from a couple of "busologos" (bus-ologists) complaining that painting the buses the same color would "take all the fun out of busology." Busology? What?

Well, you know we humans are. Particularly the males. Give us a complicated set of hundreds of slightly different versions of some kind of fast-moving thing, different models and makes and colors, zooming by unpredictably, and you can pretty much guarantee that somebody will turn it into a hobby to "catch" and identify all of them. (It's almost always men, of course - I can only speculate that the sight of varicolored things zipping rapidly past seems to trigger some latent hunting instinct in the males of the species.) Bird-watching. Collecting model planes and model cars. Butterfly-collecting. Train-spotting. Fishing. And here, in Rio, bus-watching, I guess you could call it, or bus-spotting, or, busology.

Check out this website by one bus-ologist, a website full of pictures of various models of buses of Rio, all sporting their variously colored plumage. He knows the companies running each bus, the bus route and schedule, and the exact make and model of the bus, right down to the type of engine.

I was originally thinking this was a crazy hobby, but I began to think, really, is it any more crazier than bird-watching? (And I'm speaking as a birdwatcher.) And as I looked at picture of bus after bus, it suddenly occurred to me: the buses are rather handsome, aren't they? Huge, gleaming, beautiful....helping people get around, making the city more liveable, and keeping everybody's carbon footprint nice and low. (We certainly could use more buses and fewer cars in the US.) And I've got to admit I personally would certainly benefit if I had a better understanding of the bus routes here. There are a lot of sillier hobbies someone could engage in.... like, oh, samba, for example?

Choque de Ordem

2010-02-05T12:02:00.001-08:00

Rio's trying to get a little more organized. No, really. As mentioned before, the city of Rio has several rather intractable problems that pose certain issues for the upcoming 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, not to mention for the daily life of the citizens here. The nastiest two problems are probably the drug-gang violence, and the pervasive filth/pollution throughout the city and its waterways. However, rest assured Rio is doing its best to tackle two much more serious problems: excessive coconut husks on the beaches, and too much pee in the streets during Carnaval.

No, seriously! The Rio city government really is trying to clean up the coconut husks and the pee. More generally, the chaos and trash that have been associated both with the public beaches and with the street blocos.

Beaches first. Basically, there's been too much trash on the beaches. This is partly due to what the newspapers keep calling a "falta de educação", which translates literally to "a lack of education," figuratively to "poor manners" and even more figuratively to "a ridiculously high cultural acceptance of tossing trash all over the place." People litter like there's no tomorrow. Got a piece of trash in your hand? Why not just DROP IT, right there, right where you're standing? Who cares if your beach, or your neighborhood street, ends up completely covered in refuse? Why bother looking for a trash can?

Bit by bit, this attitude's changing. I see a slight change already - there are more trash cans on the beaches, for one thing, and, it might be my imagination, but it seems like the streets are a little cleaner.

And, the mayor of Rio has started a formal campaign to clean up the beaches. It's called the "Choque de Ordem" campaign (literally, "Shock of Order"). Originally the idea was to eliminate the selling of any food that resulted in large amounts of trash, meaning: coconuts, shrimp-on-skewers, and cheese-on-skewers. (My BELOVED SQUEAKY CHEESE is about to disappear off the beaches! OH NO!!!!!) There was a massive public outcry about the coconuts, people basically saying that it's not Rio without coconuts. The mayor was forced to give ground on that one; the coconuts can stay, though they are trying to restrict them to the little bars along the sidewalk and keep them off the sandy part of the beaches. But sure enough, the squeaky cheese and the shrimp have disappeared off the Ipanema beach. I was briefly inconsolable about the loss of the squeaky cheese, until I flagged down one of the new watermelon-wedge sellers that had cropped up instead....mmmmmm, fresh watermelon! I'm not all that convinced that watermelon rinds are better trash than squeaky-cheese-skewers, but I guess it at least you can't puncture your foot on a watermelon rind.

Second, the blocos. The Rio bloco parades have just been growing and growing and growing over the last ten years, and it's changed from an informal street celebration to a powerful force that can shut down traffic literally throughout the whole city for almost three solid weeks. As much as we gringoes love the idea of three solid weeks of partying, believe it or not there are actually people living here in this city who have to go to work every day, and it's been a real problem for them to have to navigate through a sudden crowd of (say) 100,000 partiers, producing mountains of trash, and literally rivers of pee (literally! rivers! flowing down the street! I've seen it! I've had to cross it! 100,000 people x minimum of 4 beers apiece x no Port-a-Potties = rivers of pee). And some rather scary moments when street vendors with blazing hot barbecues try to push through the crowd.

Last year, the mayor tried to force the Rio blocos to switch to the Salvador bloco method, which involves many of the paraders parading inside a protective cord held by a bunch of security guards. The idea is that the bloco sells t-shirts to partiers who want to be able to parade inside the cord. You can only get inside if you buy a t-shirt. This has long been the accepted routine in Salvador, but it was massively unpopular here in Rio. It smacked too much of separating the rich from the poor. And the whole idea of the blocos here in Rio is that they have brought Carnaval back to the poor people on the street - the people who can't afford the tickets to go see the fancy escola parades in Rio's Sambodromo.

So, this year they've mostly given up on the cord/t-shirt idea. Instead the city government has focused on the traffic and the filth issues. They've taken much more aggressive control of the bloco schedule, putting a limit on how many blocos can parade in certain neighborhoods, and rearranging the places and times of many parades. In maybe their brightest move, the city has decided to take several bloco parades out of congested areas like Santa Teresa and Ipanema, and instead move them to the massive Rio Branco avenue, which will be shut down to street traffic on weekends and made available just just for bloco parades. (There are big "Carnaval da Rua!" signs hanging all over the Rio Branco already.) This is pretty cool idea because, once upon a time, long ago in the past, the Rio Branco was the original site of most of Rio's Carnaval. So there's a lot of Carnaval history associated with that street and it's neat that there will once again be street parades on the Rio Branco. Monobloco's parade will be on the Rio Branco this year instead of the beaches, for example. Banga had to also move their parade (though I forget where to). Carmelitas moved some of their parades out of traffic-congested Santa Teresa. And some of the newer, smaller blocos were prevented from parading at all.

Blocos must now also pony up the money to treat their security guards decently. Each security guard, particularly the ones holding the rope around the band, must be provided with gloves, shoes, several liters of water, and a lunch.

Another very important development, in my view, is that city's quadrupled the number of Port-a-Potties at each bloco parade. They're also trying to discourage the time-honored tradition of peeing in the streets by lining the most tempting walls and trees with hundreds of signs that say things like "Please don't pee here" and "This isn't the right spot to pee".

(Last weekend at the parades in the Sambodromo, I spotted one parader who had taped a "Please don't pee here" sign to his back. Cute.)

There are also more police, more traffic guards at each bloco, and vendors with large carts and hot barbecues are (in theory) prevented from moving through the bloco crowds.

So, last weekend was the first real test of all these changes. And so far, so good! Newspapers this week have reported that the bloco parades went astonishingly smoothly and were blessedly free of pee, trash, accidental burns and traffic congestion. But this weekend will be a bigger challenge. There are 116 blocos scheduled to parade this coming weekend. Yes, I said ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN BLOCOS. Including four of the biggest parades of all:
(1) Cordão da Bola Preta (Rope of the Black Ball) starts about one hour from now, as I write this on Friday evening;
(2) Simpatia E Quase Amor (Kindness Is Almost Love) goes tomorrow afternoon on Ipanema beach;
(3) Suvaco de Cristo (Armpit Of Christ), Sunday morning at the Botanical Garden;
(4) and Escravos de Maua (Slaves Of Maua) Sunday afternoon downtown in the Centro.

(yeah, the bloco names are hilarious. But that's a subject for another day.)

Each of those blocos routinely draws over 100,000 people. So everyone is curious to see what will happen. Will it all go smoothly? Will the Rio Branco become a cesspool? Will there be enough Port-a-Potties?

So, it looks like it's about time for me to head out and check out Cordão da Bola Preta and see how those Port-a-Potties are holding up. From there I'll head to Afro-Reggae and then to the Monobloco show. Off we go - the second weekend of Extended Carnaval is about to start!!

The daily routine

2010-02-04T07:53:00.000-08:00

Here is the daily routine.
4:30am - go to sleep.
7am - get wakened briefly by dogs barking. Dimly notice, oh, the sun is up. Zzzz.
8am - rouse briefly to notice that the sun is definitely up, and hot, and bright, and I'm getting very hot.
9am - get wakened by guys hammering on pipes. I'm VERY hot. Peek outside at the scalding sky, a perfect blue bowl. Stagger to the shower and take an all-cold shower, get my hair completely drenched. Return to bed and lie in front of the fan, soaking wet, till I cool off enough to drift into a fuzzy doze.
10am - finally haul out of bed. Hm, I'm hot again. 2nd cold shower. Make coffee. Trot downstairs and across the street to buy two fresh little French-bread rolls (25 centavos apiece) and 100 grams of salty Minas cheese. Come back upstairs - the coffee's done! Breakfast of fresh Brazilian coffee and fresh bread and cheese. With a mango, plum or pineapple, depending what's ripest in the fruit basket.
11am - Pilates class in Tijuca with my friend Andrezza This finally wakes me up. Practice my Portuguese a bit.
12 noon - Pilates class over, browse through the dozens of very tempting used-book stands in the Saens Pena plaza. Get (say) a chicken-carrot-raisin pastry and a foamy coconut-kiwi-mango smoothie while I'm looking all those tempting Portuguese books.
1pm - back home. For some reason I'm all hot and sweaty now. Strip down, 3rd cold shower of the day. Check my açaí supplies in the freezer (and please note, Americans, açaí is pronounced ah-sah-EE! Thank you!), and, if necessary, venture outside to buy 3 large acais to go, bring them back, then decant them into 6 little bowls and freeze all 6 of them for later use. Putter around at home checking email, uploading pix, and trying to focus on my two afternoon goals: practicing music and practicing Portuguese. Music - I'm trying to memorize the entire Cubango samba so I can sing it while I play, including the Cubango breaks. Plus working on Suzano's pandeiro patterns, running through my Monobloco and Banga recordings trying to keep all the hand signs straight (let's see... crossed arms means "STOP" in the Lions, but means "CAIXAS KEEP GOING, EVERYBODY ELSE STOP" in Banga, and means "FANCY BREAK COMING UP NEXT!" in Cubango, and means "THE NEXT COMMAND APPLIES ONLY TO CAIXAS" in Monobloco. Great) For my Portuguese: Talk a bit with my online Portuguese language partners, watch a Portuguese movie and do some Portuguese crosswords.

Ants have found a tiny drop of mango juice on 1 spoon in the kitchen! Bazillions of ants! Pause the music practice for an ant battle. (this happens, oh, six times a day. There is nothing to train you to keep a spotlessly clean kitchen like these tiny Brazilian sugar ants. They'll find the most microscopic speck of food within 15 minutes, and 5 minutes later have recruited several thousand of their best friends to the site)

4pm - I'm hot again! 4th cold shower. Outside, the worst heat of the day is almost over, though, so it's time for me to venture outside. Depending on my mood and the weather, I might go to a street market, or the beach, or a movie. Say it's a beach day.... Put on the bikini and out I go - hop on the subway to Ipanema, get out at Posto 9, trot over to the beach and lie in bliss on the sand till hot (i.e. 2 minutes). Jump in water. (Thankfully, Ipanema's water has cleaned up considerably since I last described it.) Charge through the breaker zone to the wave-hopping area. Wave-hop with crowds of screaming Brazilian teenagers. Race back through the breaker zone - whew - made it - lie in bliss in the sun. Retreat to the shade of an umbrella after ten minutes. Read my favorite Portuguese comic book, "Astronauta". Hm, getting hot. Jump in water, wave hop, etc. Lie in bliss. Retreat to shade. Read some of Jorge Amado's "O Pais do Carnaval." The phone rings - it's JP, or Ben, or Brian, or Sami, or Chris, or Andrezza, or somebody, about a plan for what to do tonight before or after rehearsal. Long discussion about how to get to Beija-Flor or about how to buy tickets to a soccer game or about whether Mr. Big Name's show is really worth 90 reais. Hang up. Immediately forget all the plans. Forget what time it is. Jump in water. Lie in bliss. Repeat.

Getting hungry. Time for a waffle! Head over to Cafeina, get a waffle-with-honey, a fresh squeezed lime juice and a cafe-com-leite. Feeling very happy and blissful.

Whoops, it's almost 6pm. We're approaching REHEARSAL TIME! Let's see, where am I headed today:
Monday - Banga rehearsal in Lapa, 6-10pm. I'm playing repique.
Tuesday - Cubango technical rehearsal in Niteroi. Catch the 8pm ferry, then the 2am bus back.
Wednesday - Monobloco rehearsal at the Fundicao, 6-9pm. Then Salgueiro street rehearsal... then Canarios de Laranjeiras... it's 2am before I'm done.
Thursday is my free day. Unidos da Tijuca, Beija-Flor, or maybe some pagode or choro... or whatever....
Friday - Play caixa at either the Monobloco show (midnight-3am) or the Cubango quadra rehearsal (1am-3am). Catch some choro or pagode before.
Saturday - Escola rehearsals at the Sambodromo, and then over to Lapa to play with Banga at their midnight show.
Sunday - Catch the 5pm ferry to Niteroi for the back-to-back street rehearsals of Cubango and Viradouro, one of my very favorite events. Catch the 11pm ferry back. On the walk home through Lapa, get sidetracked by four marvelous pagode bands, one after the other, at the bars that I have to walk past on my way home. It takes a VERY long time to get home!

.... stagger back home at about 4am. I've been playing with bands and/or chasing escolas around and/or dancing for betwen 4 and 10 hours now, and I'm hot and sticky and sweaty and exhausted. Time for another shower! And tumble to bed.

Drift off to sleep thinking that I am the luckiest person in the world.

The bloco parades begin

2010-01-31T19:50:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday was the first real taste of Carnaval. It was the Saturday that is just two weeks before Carnaval, which in Rio means, it was the Saturday when all the bloco parades start. It's the unofficial start of the "extended" Carnaval that Rio celebrates - beginning 2 weekends before Carnaval and going 1 weekend after. (Because one weekend of Carnaval just isn't enough!)

I spent all Friday night playing with Cubango (more about Cubango soon. I have got to write a whole separate post about their street rehearsal.) Like most escola rehearals, the rehearsal started after midnight and ended about 3am - yes, I said the rehearsal STARTS after midnight, yes, that is life in Rio. I got separated somehow from my friends at the end of Cubango rehearsal, thought I remembered the way to the bus stop but apparently didn't. Long story short, I walked for over an hour through Niteroi searching for the bus station. Dodging pigs! Enormous pigs! Mama pigs with little piglets running at their feet! Daddy pigs! Running around loose on the streets! This isn't a rural type of area, either - it was a completely urban area, all concrete and asphalt and tall buildings. With pigs running around loose. And then packs of wild dogs came running along and started chasing the pigs. Much barking and squealing. This was all under a full moon... a memorable scene, to say the least, and it made me glad I'd done my Long Walk To Nowhere, just to see the dogs chasing the pigs under the full moon.

Eventually a taxi came along. I was pretty sure I was getting close to the bus station, actually, but my feet were getting pretty damn sore (my feet aren't that used to walking miles in flip-flops) so I flagged him down for a quite expensive cab ride back to Rio. Hey, it is for exactly these occasions that I keep a 50-real note tucked in my bra.

I got home at past 5am, and then woke up at 11am, very bleary and confused, to hear somebody pounding loudly on my apartment door. I staggered over to the door, half-asleep and limping, and looking very lovely, I'm sure, with extra-puffy eyes and my hair sticking out in all directions like a giant dandelion puff. I opened the door to find my friend Ben saying brightly "You ready to go see the choro in Laranjeiras??" (Ben from Seattle, the great trumpet and conga player, a friend from way back in my VamoLa days). Oh riiiiiight... the choro....in Laranjeiras.... riiiiight...... Ben started to say "You still want to go?" but I interrupted him with "Yes yes yes, of course I still want to go! Just give me two minutes!" Park Ben at the computer to check his email. Quick shower. Dress. Flip-flops. Cup of coffee. Grab my bag. "Let's go!"

On the way out the door I paused. We were only planning to spend maybe two hours at the choro, and then come back to our respective homes. I had nothing else planned for the entire day, except for a Jorge Ben Jor concert that wouldn't start till midnight. But I suddenly thought "This is the first day of Extended Carnaval. Things happen during Carnaval....you get caught up in unexpected parades... suppose I don't get home for 24 hours?" I grabbed a few extra supplies - extra cash, a few tiny maps of remote corners of Rio, my drum belt, my Banga and Monobloco id cards. Just in case. You never know.

We made our way to the free Saturday choro. For any choro fans who come to Rio - this is a little Saturday morning street market on Rua General Glicerio, in Laranjeiras. Almost every neighborhood here in Rio has 1 day a week when a bustling fruit-and-veggie market suddenly appears on the streets. It's a different day in different neighborhoods, and at this particular neighborhood, a tradition has arisen of having a free performance by a great choro band every week. Free! Did I mention it is free? It's free! 11am-1pm.

The choro was, indeed, superb. I was newly inspired to start memorizing choro tunes and building pandeiro accompaniment that will go nicely with each particular tune. We had a wonderful time there, ate shrimp pastries and had fresh-ground sugar cane juice (OH MY GOD. It is SO GOOD. This is the way sugar was meant to be eaten! Fresh squeezed with the chlorophyll and everything!)

Ben split after that to go check out another bloco up in Lapa, and I was planning to head home, but, on the walk to the subway station, Ben and I spotted a truck unloading drums. Of course we had to go over to investigate, and who should it be but Odilon Costa! Former mestre of Grande Rio and Salgueiro and Beija-Flor! Author of the revered book "O Batuque Carioca"! I'd been hoping to arrange some more lessons with him, so I trotted up to say hi and to ask about the lessons. He was looking particularly perky and happy, singing and dancing around in a rather un-Odilon-like way (I know him mostly in his persona as mestre of Grande Rio - stern, focused, professional, and a bit formidable. But this year he's taking a year off from mestre-dom and he sure seems to be enjoying it!) He was setting out a large pile of drums, and I realized this must be his famous bloco. Odilon runs a little bloco that only parades once, and for which he hand-picks all the players. Only the best play, the top-end guys from the escolas all around town, and so it is supposed to be one of the best blocos in Rio. But I'd never found them before!

So of course I had to stay and watch them.I watched Odilon's group for about an hour but then realized I was running out of time if I wanted to head back up to Lapa. So I tore myself away, dashed to Largo do Machado - OH LOOK! IT'S ANOTHER BLOCO! I stayed and watched them for a while.

HEY! BANDA DE IPANEMA IS ABOUT TO START! I suddenly remembered that one of the most famous blocos in Rio, Banda de Ipanema, was doing their first parade today. I hopped on the subway and zipped to Ipanema. Bloco de Ipanema's one of the more famous blocos, particularly well known for its drag queens and other fun costumes. Here's a little taste:

It seemed to be very popular to pose with these two fake "cops", pretending to be threatened by them for a bribe:

I really need to get a better outfit. I feel very underdressed.

A beautiful bride:

Two particularly lovely drag queens: (yes, these are men. Except for me, I mean)

Another drag queen - this was a GREAT outfit:

A Carmen-Miranda type drag queen:

Jungle dude:

WHAT A GREAT MAKEUP JOB. Why is it that drag queens do a better job than actual women with makeup?

I am actually not sure of the gender of this person, but it's sure a great outfit. Oops, I did not get all the feathers in the picture:

I backed up to try to get all the feathers in the picture:

I backed up some more and still could not get all the feathers in the picture:

My second favorite pic of the day:

And my very favorite picture of all. Portland folks, look who I ran into! In the middle of a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people!

It's Beto!!!! (dancer extraordinaire from Pernambuco, who, very fortunately for us Portlanders, now resides in Oregon.)

And then a phone from Brian Davis - he was up at the Sambodromo with Bruno! I charged up the Sambodromo at 7pm, saw Estacio de Sa, Porto da Pedra and Portela, ran into my friend JP but could not find Brian and Bruno to save my life. I kept getting tantalizing phone calls from them - "we're at the entrance gate!" "Now we're under the Bradesco sign!" "Now we're right in front of the Grande Rio camarote!" and I kept running around and running around the Sambodromo, and I mean running, up and down and front and back. I found at least six different gates that could all be considered "the entrance gate" (entrance to what exactly? There's 3 entrances to the runway and a different entrance gate for each of the 13 sectors), I found 3 or 4 Bradesco signs, but never found Brian and Bruno.

However, I did get to see an extraordinary moment when, as the Porto da Pedra bateria was warming up, all of Setor 1 started booing and making big thumbs-down signs and HURLING objects onto the runway, the part of the runway right in front of the bateria. Water bottles, beer bottles, and these were being thrown FAR, like, football passes. Water bottles flying fifty or sixty meters. They were actually trying to hit somebody! What on earth was going on? The bateria was in my way and I couldn't quite see. Next morning the papers had the story: A famous actress, who apparently is not actually from the Porto da Pedra community, had somehow convinced the directors to bump the current queen of the bateria (who IS from the community) out of her position and let the actress take her place. The poor girl who was being bumped had burst into tears at the change and the crowd had become enraged and started throwing bottles at the actress, who was actually forced to run for cover. The girl-from-the-community, looking stunned and grateful for the crowd's support, was restored to her spot, and rightfully so.

Hey! It's almost midnight! Time to head to Jorge Ben Jor! And that, it turned out, was the single best concert I have ever been to in my entire life. I was EIGHT FEET from Jorge Ben Jor! Looking very Mr. Cool in plain white shirt and shades. If you don't know Jorge Ben Jor... he is the author of a set of several dozen brilliant old-time funk classic Brazilian songs. His songs are intensely popular here in Rio, especially at Carnaval time, when it seems like every other song that every bloco plays is a Jorge Ben Jor tune. (Filho Maravilha, Do Leme ao Pontal, Taj Mahal, Santa Clara, and on and on and on.) His songs have this rootsy groovy funk riff to them that I adore. And he sang all his great hits, all those classic funky Brazilian songs that I've been playing all these years in Monobloco and Banga, all my very favorite songs, and the whole crowd was deliriously singing along. I danced for, oh, another five hours maybe?

I didn't get home till 5am. I'd been running around, chasing bands, following blocos and escolas and dancing in parades for sixteen hours straight. My feet were so sore I haven't been able to walk right for the two days since then - so sore I started worrying that I wouldn't be able to walk for the Cubango street rehearsal the next day.

And that was just the first day of Extended Carnaval.

Unidos da Tijuca

2010-01-31T18:30:00.001-08:00

Uh-oh, I am falling way, way, way behind on my blog entries! Let's see - just so I don't forget:
Thurs: the hike to Praca Maua and the Unidos da Tijua street rehearsal
Fri: Cubango street rehearsal. Stranded in Niteroi. Packs of wild hogs.
Sat: Choro! Drag queens! Odilon Costa! Running in circles round the Sambodromo! JORGE BEN JOR with Ben!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sun: CUBANGO STREET REHEARSAL blows my mind. (and my feet). Flamengo beats Fluminense 5-3 and I see the last 2 goals with a frenzied crowd at a street bar while the entire Viradouro bateria is thundering away fifty feet behind us.

OK. So. Thursday.
Thursday I spent a long time trying to figure out how to get to the brilliant escola Beija-Flor, which is a million miles away in a place called Nilópolis. I knew the buses to Nilópolis leave from a plaza called Praça Mauá, so I walked all the way from my apartment to the little bus station at Praça Mauá to try to figure out the bus schedule. I know it's only a mile walk or so, but in the burning summer heat of Rio it started to seem a lot farther. Once I got there, everybody I asked was completely certain where the bus to Nilópolis was, and they all pointed me accurately toward a bus that was, indeed, going to Nilópolis. But what I want to know is how late the buses run, and nobody, NOBODY knew the schedule. Not even the bus driver knew the bus schedule. (He knew the schedule of his own personal bus, but had no idea how late buses run on that route, or how late they return.) Dang. Nilópolis is a long haul away, and I've had 3 previous experiences of getting stranded at Beija-Flor late at night, and though I do really love Beija-Flor, I don't really want to spend a night at the Nilópolis bus station curled up on a concrete floor.

I hovered around Praça Mauá for a while, hoping the attendant would return, and had even gotten bold enough to step into the attendant's booth and start rifling through all the incomprehensible bus schedules that were all wedged in a clipboard together. When it suddenly occurred to me that I was not all that far from the Cidade do Samba. That's the huge ring of big, new warehouses where the 12 Grupo Especial escolas build their floats. Beija-Flor is a Grupo Especial escola, right? So - I suddenly had the bright idea "I bet the Beija-Flor guys who are building the floats could tell me how to get to Beija-Flor tonight!" I asked a street vendor which way to the Cidade do Samba, and off I started on another long walk up a long, long street.

Halfway there I passed a huge open doorway and got a glimpse of... what are those... are those parade floats??? It wasn't one of the classy new warehouses of Grupo Especial - I wasn't anywhere near the Cidade do Samba yet. So I thought it must be one of the tiny, cramped, run-down warehouses that the Grupo A escolas have to put up with. I spotted a banner outside, a big red and white banner with a regal lion's head, and I realized it must be Estacio de Sá!

I love Estácio de Sá! So I stopped to talk to a guy who was standing just outside the doors gazing at a half-built metal framework. He seemed pleased that I've heard of Estacio, and further pleased that I'm interested in their floats. He showed me around a little bit, and I got to go inside and peek at some of the finished floats. (There's an amazing one that's all covered with pieces of mirror, and that's all I'm gonna say about that. Ya gotta wait till Carnaval Saturday to see it!)

I asked him "So, is everything ready?" (For Carnaval two weeks away. They've been preparing for it all year - they've probably been building the floats since May or June.) He said "Yes! Almost! Welllll, there's just a few "coisinhas" (little things) left to do," One of the "coisinhas" seemed to be the enormous metal framework that was sticking out of the front door, obviously a completely un-built float that they are only just starting on today. I can't imagine how they'll get it done in just two weeks.

I said thanks, and start walking on when I got distracted again: There's Imperatriz's old warehouse! I also notice there seem to be a lot of beer vendors trundling up the street, including the vendor that I asked for directions.

Hm... something about this all seems familiar.... Estacio, Imperatriz, and beer vendors... and a big street lined with old brick warehouses....

The fuzzy memory clicks. A dark street years ago, crowded with people. Thousands and thousands of people, singing and parading in the dim street lights. Night time. Seeing the huge dim "IMPERATRIZ" sign on the warehouse in the distance, seeing the Estacio lion, of seeing lots of beer vendors.... memories of.... THE UNIDOS DA TIJUCA STREET REHEARSAL!

WAIT a minute! Am I on THAT street? Is today the day of the Unidos da Tijuca street rehearsal? Am I on the Avenida Venezuela? I've never spent much time in this part of Rio and my mental map of the area has never been too good. I ask a beer seller ( who is carefully stacking hundreds of beer cans in neat rows in a vast styrofoam cooler the size of a coffin) and he says, yup, I'm about to start chilling all these beers to sell tonight at the Tijuca street rehearsal that's just ten hours from now, yup, right here. yes it's the street, I'm on the Avenida Venezuela, and yes, today is Thursday. How could I possibly have forgotten that Thursday is not just Beija-Flor day, it's also Unidos da Tijuca Street Rehearsal Day?!

New plan! Forget Beija-Flor, I'll get there next week when I've had more time to figure out the buses. Tonight is Tijuca night!

I scoot on back home, and at 9pm I walk allllll the way back over from Lapa to the Praca Maua, meet up with my friend JP, promptly run into my Germans too, and we all have a fabulous time at Unidos da Tijuca. I don't have time right now to upload the videos, but here's some pix:

Drummer guys spotted my camera:

... no, I'd never met them before.

Hey, there's Tanit! I'll put this one in my increasingly large file of "Tanit playing chocalho in every escola in Rio":

I love this pic of the drums. Think I will make it my desktop pic.

... I love this one of the porta-bandeira (flag-bearer) and her escort whirling around in their fancy dance. Look at her smile!

.... and, one more little detail. Remember that half-built Estacio float? The big metal framework? Well, two days later, Saturday, I was at the Sambodromo for the last full weekend of technical rehearsals. The first escola to go was Estacio de Sa. Like many escolas these days, they'd made a special little float just for the technical rehearsal, not because they had to, but just for fun and make the whole evening more festive. So check out the float:

Recognize it? That's the float they were welding together on Thursday! (The reason I am certain is that by late Thursday night, in the Tijuca street rehearsal, they had the "ESTACIO" letters on it - JP got a pic of it at that stage.)

Yes, they put that float together in TWO DAYS. In Seattle that would have taken us nine months and I don't know how many weekend work parties and months of committee meetings! But for these Rio guys a "little" float like that is literally two days' work

Viradouro's carnavalesco

2010-01-27T12:22:00.000-08:00

Interesting story today in O Globo about Viradouro's carnavalesco. This is a fascinating life story.

***

Viradouro's Carnavalesco was a street boy
by Alice Fernandes
Translated by me from the O Globo website. Click here for the original Portuguese version.

***
Carnavalesco Edson Pereira has the job of carrying Viradouro to victory this year, after more than a decade of drought. But this is far from the biggest challenge he has faced in his life. The 32-year-old artist, who is new at Viradouro this year, had a difficult childhood that didn't include much in the way of Rio Carnival spirit. Born in Bangu, and raised in a shack in the favela of Rio da Prata, Edson was forced to begin working at the age 7 years, along with his 27 siblings. At the age of 15 years, he decided to try his luck on the streets, and ended up living on Copacabana beach.

Instead of luxurious Carnival floats, Edson's debut came with the construction of little rolling carts [? "carrinhos de rolimã", anybody know what rolimã means?]. Along with an older brother, he used these little toy constructions to help supermarket customers carry their packages, close to where he lived. The daily take, which at the time was in the old "cruzeiro" currency, rarely was more than the equivalent of ten reais today. [about US $6 for a day's work]

"I was never a child. I became an adult very early. Everything in my life was very difficult, and, because the financial conditions in my family were precarious, my dad sent me to work very early. There were a lot of kids in the house. My dad couldn't take the pressure all by himself, and he ended up beating me and my brothers because of the stress," he said.

He was a dedicated student at a public school, where he got good grades in geography and art history. Edson saw, in the cultural richness of Bangu, the possibility of becoming an artist. He began to study painting and art with a set designer at Globo TV. Soon he became a teacher's assistant, and he began to develop sets for soap operas and other TV productions, such as "The King of Cattle" and "Xuxa Planet" [a kids' show featuring an extremely famous TV star called Xuxa]. Meeting this "queen of the toddlers" was one of the most important moments in his life.

"When I saw Xuxa in front of me, I couldn't even believe that it was happening," remembers Edson. With the money from his TV job, he managed to buy his first pair of tennis shoes.

He held jobs as diverse as bricklayer, car mechanic's assistant, car painter, message boy and set designer's assistant. By the time he was 15 years old Edson had grown tired of this hard life, and he made a decision that radically changed the directory of his life: he left the humble house where he lived in Zone Oeste [West Zone] and moved to Zona Sul [South Zone] - more specifically to the beaches of Copacabana, where he lived for a year and a half as a homeless street boy.

"Because I was well-mannered and educated, I thought that on the beach I might be able to arrange a job as a houseboy in a rich lady's house. But my dream, actually, was to be a doorman and to be able to live in the same building where I worked."

However, he didn't fall into the good graces of a rich family, and instead Edson spent his days begging food from beachgoers and from the kiosks along the road. He managed to get some small change cutting open coconuts [at the coconut stands that sell coconut water]. On rainy days, he sought shelter under the balconies of the nearby buildings. To take baths, he relied on the generosity of the waiters of restaurants along the Avenida Atlantica. But even all these difficulties could not dampen the spirit of the man who would become, today, the carnavalesco of Viradouro. (He is sharing the post of carnavalesco with Junior Schall).

"I never felt sorry for myself. I knew that someday things would get better," he remembers.

His excess of confidence finally paid off when he was 17 years old. While passing the door of a nightclub, he decided to go in and ask for a job. He was hired the same day, and he ended up working as a janitor there for two years.

With renewed hope and now with a salary too, at 19 years old he decided to return to art. He went to Projac in search of new opportunities with Globo TV. After confronting a battery of exams, he was hired and began going to the College of Fine Arts. Soon came an opportunity to work as a designer and painter with several samba escolas, including União da Ilha, Império da Tijuca, Unidos da Ponte and Vila Isabel. It was in the float-construction warehouses of the escolas that he met Dona Ester, who was at that time an important "destaque" on the parade floats [a Carnival star, a famous person who rides on the very tops of the biggest floats]. She took on a role of being his guardian angel. With a show coming up in New York, she invited him to come work in the United States for fifteen days.

"I didn't have anything to lose. I was 21 years old, I'd already lived a little bit of everything, and I took advantage of every opportunity."

The experience with Dona Ester, on foreign soil, was only for a short time, but it was enough time to him to see the wider world and to convince him that he should return to New York, even though he didn't speak a word of English. In less than a month, Edson had managed to arrange this, and he returned to the United States to live.

In just three weeks, he got an interview and was hired to design the sets for an exposition of a cosmetics brand. He got the job due to his experience with the Rio Carnival. When he got his first payment after his first day of work, he had a nice surprise. His daily pay would be US $5000. [no, that's not a typo! - KH] In addition to the money, this experience resulted in an invitation to produce all of the events of the then first-lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton.

But the good life lasted less time than he hoped. Because of a medical error, Edson was forced to abandon all that he had won and return to Brazil.

"My plan had been to stay there a long time, not just the five years that I stayed. But I began to feel strange pains in my stomach and I went to a hospital to get some tests. When the results came, I was told that I had cancer and that I only had a little while left."

Thinking that he was about to die, he called up one of his sisters, asked her to find a house that he could buy to leave to his mother, and explained that he would be returning to Brazil in a few days. However, once he arrived, he discovered he didn't have cancer after all, and that the stomach pains had been due to a bacterial infection. With his health recovered and with plenty of money saved up, Edson Pereira bought the long-dreamed-of house for his family to live in, far from the favela, and he returned to his work in the escolas da samba. In 2006, he became a carnavalesco (chief artistic designer of the multi-million-dollar parade of a single escola) and won the championship with Unidos de Padre Miguel, where he stayed for two more years in Grupo A. In 2008, they ended up in third place, but he won several awards for the parade, which won him an invitation to go up a level to Grupo Especial and sign on with Viradouro. This triumph has erased, for him, all the sorrows of the past.

"I have won everything that I could. I've lived in luxury, I've met important people, my work has been recognized. Viradouro has given me one more opportunity, and it is a demonstration that we should never give up, never. It will be the biggest challenge of my career to assume so much responsibility, but I am ready. Everything that has happened to me has made me stronger and stronger, and it is with all this strength, together with Junior [his co-carnavalesco], that I will bring Viradouro's carnival parade to the Avenida."

Finding Cubango....(part 2)

2010-01-27T09:06:00.001-08:00

Cubango was primarily recognizable simply by the fact that there was a large crowd of chattering Brazilians milling around in the street. I finally spotted a tiny door that said "Academicos do Cubango", through which people were slowly drifting in ones and twos, and I followed them, climbed up a tall, broad flight of green-and-white stairs, and emerged high up in a long, tall vast room whose walls were completely painted in green and white. With green-and-white banners handing from all the rafters, green-and-white flags hanging from the walls, and green-and-white drums in neat rows all over the floor. The Cubango quadra (rehearsal hall).

I looked around for Jonas, didn't see him, and then noticed a little pack of gringos. Some of them looked familiar... three or four of the faces... a little bit familiar... but from where??? I finally just went up and asked, in English, "Do I know any of you from somewhere?" and one of the women peered at me and said, in perfect English with a slight German accent: "Yes.... but from where?"

We stared at each for a second and then she said:

"Bloco X!"

Of course! It was Martina from Bloco X! It turned out they were all German samba players, and I'd met some of them three years ago when I went to the Bloco X samba weekend in Germany. (Bloco X being the mega-bloco of the best European sambistas that forms briefly in the summer, as a sort giant party/reunion/rehearsal/samba weekend. Attended by players from almost every country in Europe. I'd been the sole American.) (Yes, I once flew 8000 miles from Oregon to Germany just to attend a samba weekend. Yes, I am an addict.)

So suddenly I had a whole new bunch of German friends. A lot of them (most? all? can't remember) were from Cologne, which apparently has forty! I said FORTY! FORTY! different samba groups. Just the one city of Cologne. Forty samba groups! Of varying quality, sure, but how is forty samba groups in a non-Brazilian city even possible? (And what the hell is wrong with the United States? No, wait, never mind, it'll take years just to begin to commence to start discussing what is wrong with the United States...) Anyway, they also tell me Cologne has a "very good" Carnaval, apparently quite the party. It's a real Carnaval, i.e. on the actual Carnaval weekend, in February. "Icy cold," they warned me, "but lots of fun." It's going on my list of Carnavals that I have to visit some day (and now I've got friends there, too!)

Finally Jonas arrived, bateria members started arriving, people were putting on straps and grabbing sticks, grabbing drums....

I was hovering by the bateria when something happened that has never happened before. One of the Brazilian caixa players looked at me closely, and then came up and said (in perfect English): "Are you Kathleen?" Huh? Yes, but how did he know my name was Kathleen? I said yes, and he said "I read your blog. One of my friends sent out a tweet, you know, on Twitter, saying he'd just found a blog that mentioned Cubango, and it was your blog. Last night. So, I thought that might be you. Welcome to Cubango!" Wow... It honestly had never occurred to me that a Brazilian bateria player might find a blog entry of mine, let alone find it less than 24 hours after I'd posted it. I felt very surprised, and very welcome... and suddenly at home, because suddenly I already had friends in Cubango. (HI DANIEL!)

I'd assumed I'd just be watching, at least at first, but then I saw that all the German players had put on straps, picked up sticks and caixas... so I thought "hey!" and I grabbed a caixa too, but Jonas started urgently motioning to me and I thought "aw..." but it turned out what he was trying to convey was that I needed to go get a bateria t-shirt from the t-shirt guy, and I thought "OH" and I went and got my bateria t-shirt and put it on and I grabbed a caixa, double-checked to make sure all the Brazilian caixa players who needed caixas had caixas, no prob, plenty of caixas to go around, cool, cool, and the repique started and we all started playing and it was ....

..... it was an earthquake, a volcano, an ocean, of samba. So, it turns out the Cubango bateria is really powerful. Yes, a lot of the players are new, as I'd heard from Jonas, but they're playing pretty dang well, and after about half a second of samba it became clear that there are a lot of very experienced players in the bateria too. The samba is SOLID. The third-surdos are killer. (I asked Daniel about the bateria later and he confirmed, yes, Cubango did hang on to some of its experienced people, and also lured some good people back who hadn't been playing recently. There's also some people who also play with Viradouro, and there's a van of tamborims and a set of directors that come all the way from Mocidade. So, piece by piece, the new bateria was assembled, out of a mix of good players who stayed, old players enticed to come back, new players freshly trained up, and a set of experienced directors who have a lot of Grupo Especial experience and who know each other very well.)

I noticed the bateria is still learning some of the bossas - Jonas stopped the bateria several times to re-explain certain bossas, to clarify where the caixas re-enter after a break, to drill the surdos on certain fancy hits. It rapidly polished up as the rehearsal progressed. And the samba itself was beautiful. The thing that always stuns me about the baterias here is the way the samba is so deeply solid and locked, from the very second it starts. A lot of foreign groups have sort of a wobbly start to the samba, and only lock in after about a minute or so; but these Rio groups, they're rock solid and swinging from the first millisecond. (I believe a lot of this is because of the very high quality of the surdo players. You cannot have that certainty, that clarity, if the first and second surdos don't start off with impeccable precision and thunderous volume, right from the repique call, right away with the first surdo's pickup and the second surdo's response.)

I played the whole rehearsal...over two hours... it was wonderful. I know I say a lot of things here are wonderful, and I tend to run out of superlatives, but this evening really WAS wonderful. It was just so amazingly thrilling and so, so RIGHT, to be right in the middle of all that fire, that energia, that thunder going right through your bones. Riding that wave again, playing in a real Rio escola-de-samba bateria again.

So, of course, I fell in love with Cubango.

As we were rolling along, I thought "Bless Gisele for mentioning to me once, years ago, that caixa is one of the most useful instruments to learn" - it was entirely because of Gisele's comment that I started learning caixa, and she was totally right, it's one of the few instruments where you can jump right in with an escola, not have to learn a lot of complicated desenhos (like tamborim), not have to fight for a spot on a rare drum (like surdo). (the other best-drum-to-learn is cuica, just btw.) I thought "Bless Jorge Alabe for teaching me this caixa pattern," and, a second later "And also for teaching me how to play em cima," and then "and also for that trick with the strap for tucking the caixa under your arm," and "And Monobloco for suffering my beginner-caixa-player fumblings" and "And the Lions for polishing me up to escola tempo, like, god, remember that couple of weeks last year when I was the ONLY caixa player and I could barely keep it together and Randy was so damn patient with me?" And a dozen other people and teachers and groups who have helped me along the way like that. All those little steps and all those different people and all those groups, all contributing, all helping me get to where I was tonight.

Two hours later it was finally time to stop... We ran through all the breaks a couple more times, and finally it was over. We had officially stopped and we were just supposed to be carrying our drums upstairs to the drum storage area, but as we were all carrying the drums over there, little bursts of samba kept breaking out. A caixa player would toy with 1 measure of samba, the next caixa player would pick it up, a nearby surdo would join in, and, like a contagious virus, it would spread through all the players till it was suddenly FULL VOLUME and the WHOLE BATERIA playing, and the directors had to blow their whistles and make us all stop. Then there would be maybe one second of silence. Then some other caixa player would start dinking around and another caixa player would pick it up, and a surdo would join in, and then, suddenly FULL VOLUME and the WHOLE BATERIA and the directors blowing their whistles STOP! (This all while we are carrying our drums up the stairs) Over and over... it's hard to stop a happy bateria, you know?

Finally all the drums were put away. Me and the Germans were all standing around sort of a mute happy daze, all grinning at each other. I got chatting with a girl - I am not actually sure whether she was one of the Germans or one of the Brazilians - I think she was in a separate set of tamborim Germans that was not part of "my" Cologne delegation, but, anyway, I noticed her because she was bouncing around (literally, bouncing up and down) in excitement because she'd just gotten her official bateria card. Meaning she was going to parade in Carnaval. I couldn't help thinking "Geeeee.... wowww.... to PARADE... wouldn't that be amazing.... to actually parade in Carnaval in the Sambodromo...." The one thing I've never done here. Knowing it was impossible, because Carnaval is, of course, only two and a half weeks away.

But then again, this is a new bateria, right? And they're still learning the bossas, right? Could it maybe be possible?

My bouncing, possibly-German friend asked in Portuguese: "Are you going to parade?" and I explained "Well, of course, you know, I'd LOVE to, but it's impossible, isn't it? It's too late, isn't it?" and she said "You should ask. Why not ask?"

She looked at me very seriously for a moment and said, "You'll never parade if you don't ask."

I gathered up all my courage and approached Jonas and said "Could I possibly maybe parade? I couldn't parade, could I? Would it be possible maybe what do you think?" I am pretty shy (really!) about this sort of thing - though certain Lions will laugh when they read this, I am not naturally the pushy type - and I didn't have my subjunctives all lined up the way they should have been, and I was very nervous and it all came out very garbled. But he got the idea, and he leaned over and said something complicated and fast that included the word "agogos" - bells. What is he saying, is he saying I should play bell? What? My trilingual German friend Nana was standing right next to me, so I asked her what he had said. She looked at me with that very wry, amused Nana look (Nana is always highly entertained by the Portuguese difficulties of other gringoes) and she said "He's offering you a spot in the bateria. To parade."

(Turns out what he'd said was, 3 bell players had gone missing and skipped rehearsals - meaning there were 3 extra costumes, and 3 spots, for, say, an extra caixa player.)

OH.

Sou Cubangoooooo!!

Finding Cubango... (part 1)

2010-01-27T07:32:00.001-08:00

Last night was one of those extremely complicated Rio evenings where I was trying to do 3 different things at once: attend Monobloco rehearsal, attend the Odilon Costa workshop, and also attend the Cubango rehearsal over in Niteroi. In classic Rio style, I'd known about none of these 3 events twenty-four hours ago. Didn't even know about the Odilon workshop had been moved to this week (from next week) till I got an emergency call from the organizers while I was at Casa Turuna with a friend (we were trying on sequinned dance bikinis, goofy Rastafarian-dreadlocks hats, pricing out headdress frameworks, feather backpieces, Carmen Miranda fruit hats... I'd just found a shelf of Roman breastplates... and a stack of the cutest little tiaras.... you know, the usual).

So I executed the following series of rapid and expensive taxi trips: Taxi down to Copacabana to Monobloco. Hand off my goofy hat and my headdress frameworks to my friend Wendy (thanks Wendy!!!) Run up to the Monobloco rehearsal, grab my precious Monobloco t-shirt (and matching flip-flops! This year the entire Monobloco bateria is being kitted out with matching purple Monobloco flip-flops), sneak out of rehearsal (I'd already cleared this with Freddy, don't worry). Taxi to Laranjeiras to attend exactly 1 hour of the Odilon Costa workshop, during which I learn a whole new caixa hold and some very useful tamborim tips. Taxi back downtown. About to hop on the ferry to Niteroi when suddenly realize I am completely out of cash. I am worried about this because I think the likelihood is high that I am going to get stranded in a distant corner of Niteroi tonight at three in the morning, and might have to take a very expensive cab back home. Run to the Citibank. Discover my Citibank card is suddenly not working... oh, that's right, it's now been precisely 30 days since I arrived in Brazil, I knew that was going to happen... (It doesn't matter if you tell Citibank in advance that you'll be travelling for more than 30 days. They freeze it after 30 days anyway.) Dash back home to grab some actual cash. Catch ANOTHER taxi to Praça XV where the ferry terminal is. Taxi gets stuck in traffic within sight of the ferry terminal It's now 8:58pm - the ferry leaves at nine - taxi's stuck behind a double-parked minivan - uh oh - I tell the taxista "I've got to run to the boat!" toss some money at him, tumble out of the taxi, RUN RUN RUN across the huge plaza. Not quite sure where I'm going but I notice two other people also running, from slightly different directions around the huge plaza, and I notice that the two vectors of their running paths converge on a certain building, so I run toward that building too. Yes! It's the ferry terminal! YAH! I found it! All 3 of us pelt up simultaneously to a long line of turnstiles, I fling a twenty-real note at the ticket taker, she shoves change and a ticket at me, I charge through the turnstiles, sprint up the ramp just as the ferry is blowing its horn, WHEW! MADE IT with a whole 30 seconds to spare!

An eerily peaceful 20-minute ferry ride through the calm Guanabara Bay... a still moment of peace in a very hectice day...I hang my head out the window, watch the planes landing at the international airport, watch an extraordinarily beautiful Mystery Building gliding past on a tiny island. Someday I will find out what the Mystery Building is. We arrive at the terminal. A flood of people pours out of the ferry and disperses in all directions around a massive avenue running along the waterfront. After another long confusing cab ride to the Cubango quadra, I finally arrive.

I'd made it! And I had also burned through an entire week's worth of cab fares! But, oh well, c'est la vie, it was worth to finally get to Cubango. Jonas wasn't there yet. The bateria hadn't started; I was in plenty of time. (I could have actually caught the next ferry, but that wouldn't have been nearly so dramatic, would it?) All the tension I'd been carrying all evening, that foreign-city tension of "I hope I get there... I'm not sure how to get there... I'm not sure where it is... I don't know where I am... I don't know how to get home..." - all of that drained away. I had made it to Cubango, and that is where I wanted to be.

How Cubango lost its bateria, and found it again

2010-01-26T06:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I could see that Jonas clearly misses Mocidade - the major clue being that, when we all piled into his little car, his cd player was blaring, for the entire long ride, a recording of the Mocidade bateria from a couple years ago. (Just the bateria. No song. Just the bateria. He played it over and over. And it was ... it was IMPRESSIONANTE! INACREDITAVEL! INCRIVEL!)

But he's also clearly very proud of his Cubango players too. Here's why.

Mestre Jonas has bee mestre of Mocidade for several years, but in all the time I've known Mocidade they've been in some kind of dark, mysterious politicking that even my closest Mocidade friends do not want to tell me about. There was a great deal of commotion when the previous mestre (pre-Jonas) left Mocidade, and many players left at that time - but those that stayed really loved Jonas. Jonas was there for about, oh, five or six years maybe? Then last year, after some further mysterious politicking, Jonas left/quit/was forced out, or something, I don't really understand the details. Anyway, Jonas was out.

Simultaneously, Mestre Odilon had a big fight with the great escola Grande Rio, so serious that they actually threatened to replace him between the Carnaval parade and the Parade of Champions one week later - so that another mestre would be leading his bateria in the Parade of Champions! - and he left/quit/was forced out, accounts differ. He got offers from several other escolas but decided to take a year off.

Simultaneously, Mestre Paulinho had a falling-out with Beija-Flor. And so on and so on.This kind of thing happens every year. Rright after Carnaval there is always some argument or politicking or complication that results in at least one mestre leaving an escola, usually two or three, and there's then a cascade of switches as everybody scrambles to lure the free mestres. Troca-troca, they call it, "change-change", or "swapping around". (See Gisele's blog , the Jan 1 entry, for the full list of Especial escola mestres right now. And for a lot of other fascinating entries too.)

It's not limited to Grupo Especial. Poor Imperio Serrano had fallen to Grupo A (I am compelled to add "muito injustamente!" - very unjustly! - that being the phrase every Imperiano always adds when describing Imperio's fall. Sometimes they say it twice or three times just to be sure you get the point. So here's a few more: MUITO INJUSTAMENTE! MUITO INJUSTAMENTE! There, I feel better now.) Where was I? Imperio has always had one of the most formidable baterias in all of Rio, with the very respected Mestre Atila at the helm. But when it became clear last spring that Imperio had been forced, probably for a while, down to Grupo A, Atila finally left. (He went to Vila Isabel.) So Imperio had to recruit a new mestre, right? And they lured away a good mestre from another Grupo A escola, a man who had previously worked as Atila's second-in-command at Imperio Serrano, a man who was currently mestre a solid but not particularly famous escola over in Niteroi, an escola called... Cubango.

What often happens in these cases is that mestre's best players all go with him. Particularly in a case like this, where Imperio still had literally the best bateria in Rio, and Cubango was a much less famous escola. For many of the Cubango players, this was a golden opportunity to get into a fiercely good bateria. Almost the entire bateria left - everybody who actually knew how to play. Cubango was demolished.

The Cubango directorship must have been terrified. And then they landed Jonas. As Jonas put it, "When I arrived last spring, Cubango had no bateria."

I love what Jonas did next. He did not recruit players from other escolas. He decided to try to build a bateria from the bottom up, in 9 months, just from the Cubango community. He started open classes last June, open to the entire community, drafted several hundred young kids and trained them all from scratch. From scratch! He trained hundreds and hundreds of people in caixa, surdo, tamborim, repique, all the essentials. Almost all of the players had never played before. He's now got a bateria of 270 people that are playing "really well". And he kept saying, with unmistakable pride, "And it's all from the community! Totally from the community!" - meaning, all home-grown players from the local Cubango area, not hotshots imported in from some other escola.

Jonas also mentioned he was very relieved that the Grupo A escolas are now allowed 1 practice parade in the Sambodromo (this is a new development this year). Cubango's was in December. He said: "That was SO important, SO useful. Most of my players have never, never, paraded in the Sambodromo. Some not even in an ala - many had literally never set foot there, didn't even know what the Sambodromo looked like!"

At the table with us while Jonas was telling this story was a young teenager from Cubango who'd first picked up a caixa last June and who, two weeks from now, is going to parade down the Avenida, in the Sambodromo, in an incredible glittering outfit dressed up as a French courtier of the 17th century, on national TV. (Grupo A is now televised nationally.) The kid had said almost nothing for the entire conversation and had shyly declined my offer of a bolinho-de-bacalhau. But then later when Jonas said "And Leonardo here is going to play caixa," I asked him "You play caixa?" Shy nod. "You just learned this year?" Shy nod. "Truly? You're serious? You learned to play caixa in just 9 months?" This time: Big smile! (I think he could see that I was truly impressed and that I knew how much work this must have taken. I don't know how well he's playing, but stick technique is a formidable hurdle, and it usually takes two years to get a new caixa player up to escola tempo.)

And then he finally got brave enough, or comfortable enough, to accept a bolinho-de-bacalhau. With another big smile.

So tonight I will take the ferry across the bay to Niteroi to check out the Cubango technical rehearsal. Now I just have to figure out where that ferry leaves from... and how to find Nana, who knows where the ferry is, but who apparently has her cell phone turned off... and how I can possibly also get hold of my required Mocidade t-shirt (which is my ticket to parade with them), which is being given out on the same night over in Copacabana.... hmm.....

Cubango and Monobloco

2010-01-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

I knew when I planned this trip that I wouldn't have quite enough time to join up with any escolas. I'd be arriving just five weeks before Carnaval, really. That's just not enough time to connect with an escola and earn your spot. And I chose to spend my first two weeks almost exclusively with Bangalafumenga and attending Suzano's pandeiro workshops. The consequence, and I knew it when I was making it, was that I would not be able to play with any escolas, and few other blocos - certainly not the highly organized ones like Monobloco.

I was fine with that decision. Really I was. The Suzano workshop has completely transformed my pandeiro life and is probably the single most useful thing I'll do in the entire trip here. Banga is fantastic, and Banga is my family too, and I had the most amazing time playing with them on Saturday.

So it's one thing to be all logical about it, and it turns out it is quite another thing to see several different friends parading down the Sambodromo, this last Saturday and Sunday, and playing with Monobloco too, and.... suddenly a little voice was saying... oh, dang, I REALLY want to play with an escola! And oh dang, I REALLY want to play at the huge annual Monobloco parade again too! (even though I've already done both. Yeah, I guess I'm an addict...)

But it's too late. It's less than three weeks till Carnaval. The escolas are locking down, closing the outsiders out. Even Grupo A is virtually impossible to get into now. Monobloco closed its bateria over a month ago. Plus all my best escola contacts have evaporated anyway: Odilon's not with any escola this year (he's taking a year off); the mestre I knew at Estacio is gone; a friend, or I thought she was a friend, in Unidos da Tijuca gave me a total, completely cold-shoulder brush-off when I tried to say hi! Total snub! Ouch! (oops, guess that was one Brazilian friendship that I misjudged. Sigh) Etc. etc. .... Even all my Grupo A contacts had fallen through. And my best lead, Mestre Jonas, has left Mocidade and gone to some distant hell-and-gone Grupo A escola that I'd never heard of, clear across the Bay, so far away you'd need to take a ferry to get there, some place called Cubango.

So I spent late Sunday evening in a total funk. Moping around... Second guessing all my plans and wishing I'd planned things differently... wishing I'd somehow, impossibly, been able to arrive here in November. Or October.

Monday morning I woke up freakishly early after just a few hours of sleep. Popped awake full of energy. I suddenly thought: why am I ruling out Monobloco? I'm a pretty good caixa player now, and actually I still remember the entire Monobloco repertoire. Might as well ask, right?

And then I thought: Why am I ruling out Mestre Jonas at Cubango? He knows me; he knows I can play. Why not at least go see what Cubango is like?

First problem, how to contact them. I shot off 2 emails: one to the a friend in England who I thought might be able to contact the Monobloco caixa leader. He came through almost instantly (THANKS MICK) and a few hours later I was writing an email to Fred, the Monobloco caixa leader, just saying: hey, I'm back in town, just wondering what the situation is with Monobloco, any chance I could play??? One to another friend from the US who I was thought might know how to reach Mestre Jonas.

God bless the internet (and god bless my two friends for checking their email that morning) - Freddy, bless his heart, replied almost immediately. He said, come to rehearsal tonight in Copacabana; most of the pieces are still the same; but there's a lot of new stuff, and the Monobloco bateria's more crowded than it has ever been, not sure if I can parade, but "I'll check with the guys." But definitely drop on by.

Cool.

A few minutes later my other friend replies: he says, guess what, I'm meeting Mestre Jonas at 4pm at such-and-such bar [a bar only a few blocks from my place!] for a chat; drop on by.

So I went charging down to the bar, hooked up w my buddy, and we're sitting there waiting for Jonas but instead his assistant shows up to fetch us and take us to Cubango's "barracao", i.e. a big warehouse where an escola makes its parade floats. Turns out Jonas didn't quite have time to come meet us after all (gee, why would an escola mestre be busy 2 weeks before Carnaval?) but he sent his assistant to fetch us instead. Next thing you know the three of us are all in a cab rocketing northward to Rio's warehouse district by the docks, which at this time of year is the float-construction district. Seems like every other warehouse in central Rio belongs to, or is being rented by, one of the 50-odd escolas, every warehouse packed with construction workers whipping together the last details on the floats as quickly as possible.

And next thing you know we're inside the Cubango barracao! And THERE'S JONAS! So good to see him again! A big welcoming hug (phew, that definitely takes the edge off the brush-off from the other friend last night!) and then he's leading us on a merry course through the barracao. Zigzagging around guys with welding torches, hopping over piles of festively colored, peculiarly shaped glittery whatzits, dodging sparks, hopping over half-built plaster horses, crawling under floats, weaving around sacks and sacks and sacks of bateria costumes, stacks of brand-new drums....

.... Walking in awe past huge, silent floats, looming dark in the shadows, wedged in every possible corner of the warehouse, filling up every inch of space clear to the ceilings. Some floats completely finished and lovelingly draped in protective plastic, others still a whirl of welding and glue-gun activity. We step over the edge of the Abre-Alas, the opening float, the one that has Cubango's name. It's a huge green arch that says CUBANGO in huuuuge letters, with crazy little blue spheres dangling from it. I love it. I love Cubango already and I don't even know anything about Cubango yet.

One wall is papered with a huge detailed sketch of the entire parade, to scale, with every float lovingly drawn, spaced out from each other just as they will be in the parade, all the paraders sketched in, the porta-bandeira and her flag sketched in, the bateria, everybody. (At this point I was so fascinated I could not refraining from bursting out with a bunch of questions: "How many floats are there? How many is typical for a Grupo A parade? How many paraders? How big is the bateria? What the heck is that costume supposed to be? Wow, that one's beautiful! " Jonas is nothing if not patient: "We have 5 floats; 4 is the required minimum for Grupo A. We've got 2000 paraders, and 270 people in the bateria. Hm, now that you mention it, I really have no idea what that costume is, but yes, that other one sure is pretty!")

I was absolutely beside myself to see a real Grupo A barracao and the floats all under construction. (tip to the tourists: you can actually see the Grupo Especial floats under construction too, if you go to the Cidade do Samba, ask nice, and don't try to take any pictures. I saw Mangueira's nearly-completed floats last week there - fascinating.)

Then we spent the whole rest of the afternoon hanging out with Jonas and his buds, drinking beer (it was socially required, truly) and eating the little bolinho-de-bacalhau, breaded codfish; talking about music, talking shop.... So fascinating to hear Jonas's take on what it means to be a mestre. And so fascinating to hear the saga of changing from Mocidade to Cubango. More on that next.

So you know where this is headed right? I'm heading out to Cubango tomorrow night, taking the ferry across the bay to Niteroi to check out the Cubango technical rehearsal. And yeah, I got an invitation to play.

But the getting-to-play was starting to seem beside the point. You know what really made my day: that feeling of belonging. Getting to see the barracao. Chatting with the guys who were putting all the stuff together. Getting that warm welcome from Jonas. Hanging out with him and all his friends from Cubango. Getting the warm good-bye from the whole bunch of them afterwards, even the ones I'd just met. That's what I'd been missing - that feeling of being part of it, part of the excitement, part of the community. Never mind about the playing. It's the community that matters. That's what escolas are all about, after all.

.... And then, I headed over to Monobloco. (feeling weirdly like I was cheating on Banga, cause this is Banga's rehearsal night too! ouch! But this is the only Monday I'm going to miss with Banga! I swear!) And LO AND BEHOLD every single damn one of the Monobloco directors came up and gave me a big huge welcome. "Good to have you back!" "Great to see you again!" Welcome back!" Easily the warmest welcome I've had yet - I was actually pretty startled. (the brush-off from that Tijuca friend is getting more and more distant... you know, I can barely even remember it....it's just about gone... poof) I'd sort of forgotten that the Monobloco guys saw me not that long ago in England. And - the Monobloco guys tour internationally. I think maybe they understand, more than a lot of Brazilians do, what it is like to be in a foreign country, what it is like to be lost and a little confused, stumbling in a foreign language. They know what it's like. And they really made an effort tonight to make me feel welcome. And you better believe it was appreciated.

Then Fred came up and said "I talked to the guys, and you can parade with us. You're in."

How to talk like Marcos Suzano

2010-01-21T03:37:00.001-08:00

All this week I've been attending a great advanced-pandeiro workshop by the world-renowned Marcos Suzano. 2 hours every night from 9 to 11pm. (Kind of puts a crimp in any other plans for the evening... had to skip most of Monobloco's rehearsal Tuesday, and Rocinha Wednesday... but it's been SO worth it). (Week after next is Odilon Costa, if anyone is interested. It's all part of Maracatu Brasil's regular summer series of week-long workshops with percussion masters.). Suzano totally remembered me, which was kind of cool ("Kathleen!!! You're back!") - I always sort of assume that everybody will have completely forgotten me, so it's awfully nice to be remembered and welcomed back! )

Half the fun of a Suzano workshop is listening to him recount stories of all the crazy people he's met and the wonderful playing he's seen. He's one of those voraciously curious musicians who loves all kinds of music, from all over the world, of all types of other genres. He appreciates good playing, or just a good deep groove, wherever he finds it - Turkish sufi music, New Orleans second-line grooves, Parisian jazz, whatever and wherever it is. Thus his workshops tend to provide good Portuguese lessons in all the different possible ways to say "Man, that guy was amazing!"

This is particularly helpful for those of us gringos, as beginning Portuguese students, who often get into a frustrating fix where we have only 1 or 2 ways to say "good". I once saw Jorge Alabe do a deadly accurate impression of a gringo saying earnestly, in a very thick accent, "Eu fui a Mangueira ontem. Foi muito bom! Foi MUITO, MUITO BOM!" (I went to Mangueira yesterday. It was very good! It was very, very good!"). You get tired of saying a show was "very good" when that doesn't really express the kind of truly impressed, enthusiastic compliment that you really want to be able to give.

So, Suzano to the rescue. I started jotting down his adjectives as well as his pandeiro patterns and came up with the following list. Want to talk like Suzano? Mix 'n' match:

-------------------------
"There was this one time I saw this group that had..." [select from following list]
1. a tuba, a trombone, an accordion and a pandeiro
2. just a beat-up old "kit favela" (favela drumkit) - made of half a surdo, and a caixa played with a tamborim beater
3. most of the London Sympathy Orchestra
4. 3 atabaques, 3 caxixas and this crazy 7-string bass player
5. An ancient cassette tape that must have been about 50 years old, and a bunch of old singers grouped around just 1 microphone
6. A Wii video game controls interfaced with a music sampler and a surround-sound 360-degree music system
7. A bunch of guys dunking different-sized buckets into water to make different pitches of "plop" noises
8. Twelve pandeiro players and 3 basses
9. One guy with a gigantic frame drum that had so many strange little metal things on the inside, it looked a project of Leonardo da Vinci
10. A whole parade of ancient guys marching down a hill, emerging out of this wall of black smoke, carrying some kind of enormous frame drums and a strange shaker, at a festival in the Northeast

"and they were playing..."
1. A samba, but it was in 3
2. A Turkish rhythm in 9
3. Stevie Wonder's "Superstition"
4. Old Bob Marley tunes
5. This crazy baile-funk tune by this new dj kid from the Northeast
6. Michael Jackson's "Thriller"
7. Those wonderful old pagode songs from Martinho da Vila
8. a candomble religious trance rhythm to summon the ancient African god of fire
9. The theme song from Mission Impossible
10. A Cuban guaguanco

"and it was..." (here's the Portuguese lesson):
1. Sensacional! (sensational)
2. Inacreditável! (unbelievable) For the full Suzano effect, enunciate every syllable: "EEN-AH-CRE-JEE-TA-VEU!!!!"
3. Espetacular! (spectacular). Or rather, "ESH-PE-TA-KOO-LAHH!!!!"
4. Uma loucura! (a craziness)
5. Incrível! (incredible)
6. Sinistro! (sinister - I hadn't heard this one before but it was used several times, both by Suzano and his students - I'm assuming it comes across as one of those inverse-meaning slang compliments, something like "wicked" or "sick")
7. Impressionante! (impressive)
8. Alucinante! (crazy)
9. Chocante! ("shocking" in the sense of amazing, stunning)
10. Maluco! (insane)
11. Legal pra caramba! (roughly: super-cool)

There you go. Now when you start your sentence, "I went to Mangueira last night..." you'll have a few more choices for how to finish it up. (Though personally I would finish that particular sentence with "... and it was OK", saving my superlatives for Salgueiro and Beija-Flor and Viradouro, but maybe that's just me. The Mangueira bateria rocks but you can't see OR hear them at their Saturday rehearsals.)

PS One of the Suzano stories came out like this: "Then there's that amazing pandeiro player Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro, you guys know him? He lives in the US now, I think, Los Angeles or something. You kids haven't seen him? You gotta see him! Man, that cat is INCREDIBLE! UN-BE-LIE-VABLE playing!" - Cool to hear our beloved LA pandeiro guru praised by the master of modern funk pandeiro.

Bloco Vigario

2010-01-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

Tremendously exhausting Monday evening, with 4 hours solid of Bangalafumenga rehearsals that left me completely staggering with fatigue by the end. I'm on repique this time in Banga and I was playing all out, forgetting that I don't usually wear drums with shoulder straps, and forgetting that I haven't played repique in over a year, and at the end my back was burning and my left wrist has been sore ever since. Worth it though... how I love playing with those guys.

After that, a brief chat with JP and another new friend I ran into in Banga, a great Italian drummer called Andre. The brief chat somehow went till 2am (JP and I were both completely startled when the restaurant closed - we'd been sure it was maybe midnight at the most?). It's especially nice having Andre in the mix because it keeps JP and me talking in Portuguese instead of lapsing into English. Andre recommended that we all go see Bloco Vigario, playing at the Teatro Odisseia on Monday nights. He said it was directed by the guy who plays repique at Viradouro. (A language tangent occurred here: What do you call someone who plays repique? A "repiqueiro?" A "repiquista"? We weren't sure) and that it was a very good bloco. (Off in the middle of some other sentence, Andre suddenly remembered and interrupted: You just call the repique player the "repique"! As in, "Have you seen the repique of Viradouro? He's very good.")

I wasn't too excited about going and seeing another bloco after 4 hours already in Banga. Honestly, there are a zillion blocos around these days, a lot of them good, some not so good, and I've seen quite a lot of superb repique players. So JP and I decided to pack it in, JP hopped a cab back to his place in Zona Sul. But JP happened to flag down his cab in a spot where I then had to pass the Teatro Odisseia on my walk home. So as I was walking past the Odisseia, I couldn't help but overhear a stunning repique solo going on inside...and next thing I knew I was inside. Hey, it was only 2:15am, right? Still one and a half hours left in the show, probably!

OK, so the Bloco Vigario left me floored. Damn, this place is still so full of amazing things that I still don't know about! Bloco Vigario is from Niteroi, a city across the Bay from central Rio, and Niteroi apparently has its whole own thing going on. Vigario uses the same Monobloco/Banga model, of a small professional group that does regular shows, and that also trains up a larger bateria by running classes all year. Like Monobloco and Banga they seem to have accumulated a fanatic fan club of mostly white, middle-class cariocas, and also like MB/Banga, they do quite a variety of rhythms that have a rock/funk/pop tinge. But Vigario stood out for several reasons. They've got a particularly strong Pernambuco influence including a lot of maracatu rhythms. They've got a really nice brass section. They've got CRAZY energy and enthusiasm. I don't think I've ever seen quite so crazy a bloco! and I've seen a lot of crazy blocos! Including the fanatic fans - around 3:30am I made the mistake of trying to sit down for a moment and immediately a girl raced over to me, grabbed my hands and physically DRAGGED me to FRONT ROW CENTER to make me dance. The whole crowd watching, of course! She was thrilled that I was actually willing to dance and then was completely startled when I actually could samba (I'm not great, but I can do a standard samba) (and the whole crowd cheered to see the gringa samba!). She then raced over to another person who was sitting down. I watched for a while as she patrolled the perimeter of the hall like a bulldog, always on the lookout for somebody who wasn't dancing. She was truly a force to reckon with.

And the bloco had us doing games with them, racing back and forth on the floor, crouching down and leaping up, making giant conga lines... people were just jumping around like maniacs at the end, truly Carnaval spirit all the way. I thought, in the US, people try to act too cool to want to join in. In Brazil, people never seem to lose that childish joy of just plain jumping around. Here, it's actually cooler to dance badly, even if you look like an idiot, than to not dance at all.

And last, their playing. OK, so, Vigario plays like bats out of hell. And their samba is the real thing. After all, their leader is the repique of Viradouro, remember? I looked him up later - Gabrial Policarpo, just 22 years old. He's been playing with Viradouro since he was 10. The guy is a monster. He rips on pandeiro too.

Here's a nice clip of Gabriel doing a repique-pandeiro duet with one of my favorite pandeiro players, Bernardo Aguiar:

Bloco Vigario, every Monday at the Odisseia, and a parade in Niteroi on the Saturday of Carnaval. Click here for Vigario's website. Highly recommended!!!!

O Globo Carnaval videos online

2010-01-20T08:00:00.001-08:00

Four years ago I remember wishing this would happen, and it's finally happened: O Globo is putting most of their Carnaval-related videos online in streaming video. I hope you don't need to be using a Brazilian server to access it (somebody let me know, ok?) though you might need to do a free registration. Here's how to find it:
- Go to oglobo.globo.com
- click on "Videos" at the top, Sometimes you then have click on "veja mais videos" (see more videos) to see the full list of videos. And sometimes not.
- From there you can choose any category you want - news, novelas (soaps), whatever.
- For just Carnaval-related stuff, click on "mais catalogos de jornalismo" in the left, and then Carnaval 2010 or Carnaval Historico, whichever you prefer. It's worth taking a look at the other categories too, especially if you're at a stage with your Portuguese where you can start to follow the news shows and the novelas.

PRESTO! All the Carnaval videos your little heart desires! Search on your favorite escola name (Salgueiro, Unidos da Tijuca, etc.) to pull up more clips. If you know some Portuguese, you might like the clips introducing each escola that O Globo's been doing over the past several months. These typically start with the carnavaleso of each escola explaining the theme of the parade, and then a visit to the community, with interviews with luminaries like the mestre or the porta-bandeira, and finally, a small band (with puxador, main singer) singing the entire song complete with lyrics. Here's Unidos da Tijuca: (and yes, the mestre of Tijuca's bateria of Unidos da Tijuca really is a taxi driver. Come over to Lapa sometime and pick up the tall gringa with the pandeiro case, buddy!!!):

Fans of samba dance and elaborate passista costumes should be sure to search for "Musa do Carnaval 2010", the TV competition for best dancer to be the Muse of Carnaval 2010. There are two competitions, one for Sao Paulo and one for Rio ("Musa do Carnaval 2010 RJ"). These take place on the TV show "Caldeirao de Huck". I ran across this while sitting in a restaurant last week - they were doing the semifinals for the Sao Paulo Musa, and I picked this girl as the one of the better samba dancers. Not because of fancy footwork, just because she's just got a nice classic samba. (At the time I couldn't hear the audio, but now I notice that the female judge said the exact same thing - You've got a nice classic samba.) What do you think, do you like her? (I also like her hat) Be patient, she will do a fast samba at the end of the clip:

I know what you are all thinking: NICE HAT! :) I won't tell you yet what happened in the voting. (It's now down to 2 contestants, who will meet next week in the big final). You can find clips of all the other contestants too (warning, O Globo's search engine apparently only searches on the title of the clip, and the title doesn't always include "Musa do Carnaval". But if you can find one of the clips, related clips will pop up on the right side with the other dancers.)

I especially have to point out this clip of a professional ballet dancer dancing samba en pointe !!! I never would have thought this was even possible! With the occasional full split thrown in, just in case it wasn't difficult enough already. (she also says during the interview part that yes, she is planning to do the full Carnaval parade en pointe, and also that she wears a corset 12 hours a day to keep her waist thin enough for the professional ballet world... yeesh)

I notice that American jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan somehow got on the judge's panel for the Sao Paolo show. He doesn't speak Portuguese but seems to be fully in the spirit of things - his only question for one of the more impressive contestants was (in English) "Do you need guitar lessons?" The host translated, and she said she'd study guitar with him if he'd dance for her, which of course he promptly did. Smart guy.

Brief report from the back end of the Sambodromo

2010-01-17T19:36:00.000-08:00

Ah, it's 1:30 in the morning, late Sunday morning, and I have to get up ridiculously early to meet a Brazilian friend for a Pilates class (how did I agree to that? It seemed like a good idea five days ago....). But I just have to report briefly that I had the most amazing encounter with the Grande Rio bateria at midnight tonight, with my friend JP from London, as the wrapup for a phenomenal Sambodromo evening. (Sao Clemente, Viradouro, Grande Rio). I'd had quite the Sao Clemente adventure on my own, then JP found me shortly before Viradouro (stunning - this bateria really bowled us over), and then, with Grande Rio, we saw the warmup, then ran around to the Setor 11 recuo and saw them there, then ran around to the end of the Sambodromo and met the entire bateria coming off the parade runway.

Thousands and thousands of people there, at the back end of the runway, and we were THE ONLY gringos there. The massive crowd of Grande Rio revelers had all gathered there to greet the bateria. Sometimes the last bateria of the evening puts on a whole nother show back there, at the end of the parade, at the back end of the runway, as sort of a wild last-call celebration at the very end of the night before everybody piles onto all their buses to head back home. And we were in luck, Grande Rio was pulling out all the stops for us. The bateria put on a whole huge show for us, all their breaks, everything. JP and I were pressed up RIGHT next to the bateria, right smack in their faces, scrambling to get out of their way actually. Unbelievable. (will post vids and mp3s later.)

We were so thrilled we stayed and stayed and stayed... to beyond the bitter end... we watched the bateria pack up... talked to the beer vendors... chatted... chatted some more... waved goodbye to the each and every bus of Grande Rio paraders heading back on their long, long journey back to Duque to Caxias... then just as I was thinking "Is it too drum-geeky to suggest that we go look at the drums close up?", JP suggested that we go look at the drums close up. We looked at the drums close up (an entire brand-new set of drums, all King brand! Interesting, King is definitely stealing some market share from Artcelsior.) (Plus timbals! I even took a photo to document it. Grande Rio not only has a timbal section but even has a break that features the timbals).

Eventually, even we had to concede that the night was over. JP and I were the very, very, very last people out the back gate of the Sambodromo. The security guys were actually swinging the giant gate shut as we sprinted up to it - swinging shut with quite a lot of momentum, so that the 6 security guys had to all fling themselves against it in a full-body throw to slow it down enough (with much yelling and cheering) for us to dash through. We squeaked through, and got out, and they slammed the gate shut (another huge cheer). And we headed back to our respective homes.

Such a fine night. And I haven't even written yet about Xuxa's party that afternoon, and the amazing experience of watching Sao Clemente prep for their Sambodromo rehearsal (I'm just glad I wasn't one of the guys who had to carry the giant ten-foot tall papier-mache sea lions on their shoulders all the way from the quadra!).... and oh, the Viradouro bateria, that's a whole nother story.

I'll wrap up with just this one vignette from Sao Clemente. I'd played there several times, three years ago, and didn't think anybody would remember me. But the mestre (Vivi) spotted me and zoomed over to give me a huuuuuuuge long bear hug! Like, a HUGE hug. Apparently he remembers me.

But all he said to me was: "Sumiu!"("You disappeared!"). Meaning, why hadn't I come and played during the last two and a half years?

I was stunned he would even remember me, let alone that he would have noticed that I'd vanished.

I said (in Portuguese) "I had to return to the United States to work for a while," but it sounded like a flimsy excuse even as I was saying it. I could see what he was thinking, and I was thinking the same thing: what on earth had made me think it was a good idea to return to the United States, when I could have been playing samba with Sao Clemente?

More Salgueiro vids

2010-01-15T15:40:00.001-08:00

Some more Salgueiro videos.... Sound quality sucks on all of these (due to the generall suckiness of the sound quality of every single amplified event here in Rio. How do they put up with this??! I wonder if the sound guys think the "clip" light is supposed to stay on constantly). And I had to turn the resolution down to get them to upload. But I think you get the idea. (if you're getting this blog via email you might need to go to the actual blog website if you want to see the vids. not sure. The blog is at riostories.blogspot.com)

The second row of passistas struts their stuff:

A male passista shows his best moves to O Globo TV:

A girl passista is next with O Globo:

Check out the teeny passista up front:

I happened to get a long sequence of the girl in the white bra-type top. She has a nice smooth style.

Another vid of a male passista. I love that double spin that the guys do! Sorry for the rough cut in the middle, I clipped out some of the more noninteresting stuff.

The bateria. I couldn't get any closer than this because I couldn't turn the gain down on my camera mic, but I think you can just make out the tamborim desenho.

Four Quests in Uruguaiana

2010-01-15T14:05:00.001-08:00

Those who live in foreign countries know the peculiar problem of not knowing where to buy a certain kind of item. You don't know the local stores, you don't know the brand names, and what seemed like a simple task at the beginning of a day (say, buying a sponge) ends up taking a week of detective work and a National-Geographic-scale expedition into the city's back-alley economy. A peculiarity of developing nations seems to be an extreme abundance of very tiny shops that each only sell 1 kind of item, or what I call a Sponge Economy - named after an eventful day in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, when my friend Rikki and I set out innocently one morning, looking for a sponge. It turned out supermarkets in Plovdiv did not sell sponges. Nor did any other kind of store we could think of. After many hours of exploration we at last found a district lined with tiny shops that each only sold one thing. Electrical connectors.. or biscuits...or, sponges! At last we'd found the sponge store!!!! It was infinitesimal shop that sold all sponges, and only sponges, apparently supplying the entire city of Plovdiv with all of its sponge needs. Many of my memories of Lima, Peru, are of similar exciting adventures like the The Day We Needed A Button, or the Day We At Last Found The Correct Electrical Adaptor. Recently in Salvador I experienced a Quest For A Small Kitchen Table (that quest lasted three full days!)

Sometimes you feel like King Arthur heading out after the Holy Grail... but you soon make so many funny mistakes that you realize you're in the Monty Python version of the story. ("Go away or I shall taunt you a second time!") These are often my favorite memories of travelling - wandering the little street markets, the back alleys, inspecting all the little shops, getting completely lost, getting found, getting lost, and then... finally... magically finding the item you've been searching for.

Anyway, today in Rio I set out with 4 quests: (1) Buy a computer headset, i.e. earphones & microphone, so that I can use Skype on my computer (this is part of a longer two-week Quest to attempt to re-gain access to my university email account, a process so complicated it is not worth explaining here) (2) Buy some more Brazilian movies to practice my Portuguese, (3) Look for a toaster, (4) - I knew this would be the hardest - look for a cheap roll-up foam mattress. So I spent the afternoon of Rio wandering through my favorite section of the city, the endless warren of shops in the back alleys of the Uruguaiana neighborhood. A lot of these streets are closed to traffic, and are lined overhead with festive colorful banners. The effect is of wandering endlessly through a colorful world full of strange little shops.

I was walking past the VERY FIRST STALL when I realized it was a stall specializing in ... headphones! Including computer headphones with microphones! Can you believe it! Bought one. Quest 1, completed.

I started wandering... past... an entire store selling only tiny, intricate, lovely baskets of wicker; a store completely full of chickens; another of live canaries; a store full of huge bins of all kinds of nuts and dried beans of all types (also including two food items representing the Brazilian's Portuguese heritage: a vast bin of European chestnuts and huge stacks of dried Atlantic cod. Both of which Brazilians love, and both of which are not remotely native to Brazil.) Another store completely full of silly hats. Another with millions of teeny-tiny cupcake wrappers in all possible colors. Shop after shop after shop with pretty little tops and dresses, sandals, watches, brooms, furniture...

Ooo! I'd been looking at the shops so intently that I had realized the middle of the street was a solid row of guys selling pirated dvd's! The pirated-dvd sellers have large racks lined with blurry xerox pictures of the films that they have available. The dvd guys are extremely attentive, leaping at you as soon as you pause infinitesimally in your strolling, especially if you glance for a millisecond at a dvd. "Can I help you? Anything in particular you're looking for? Children's movies? Action? Don't look at that rack, that's, that's all for guys. Perhaps you'd like a new movie? Avatar? 2012?" They had a pirated version of Avatar available literally the day after it came out in the theaters - unbelievable.

I asked the first fellow for "filmes nacionais" - national films, meaning, Brazilian films. This always sort of takes them by surprise, since most movies sold are American movies. But they're always pleased at the inverse concept of an American who's interested in Brazilian movies. He'd only got two, but he pulled them out to show me, then went sprinting off (literally sprinting) down the block, calling out "Wait! Wait right here!" Five minutes later he came running back with a freshly-burned pirated copy of "Tropa de Elite" (Elite Troop), the famous recent Brazilian movie about the military police in the favelas of Rio. (my friend Olivia was assistant director on this movie!). I've seen the American version but don't own my own copy, and I'd like to have it, so - I buy Tropa de Elite. I also picked up a documentary on favelas, and "Lula," the fictionalized account of the childhood of the man who is now president of Brazil. 3 movies for 20 reais! (about 13 bucks.) Fechado! (It's a deal!)

I wandered a long way, took one too many turns and got promptly lost. Eventually I came out into the costume-accessories street, where people buy all the raw materials to make those crazy passista outfits and other Carnaval costumes. Rio's Carnaval supports a huge year-long economy of rhinestone, bead and feather vendors, not to mention the costume designers and float builders who are actually putting all the stuff together. Do the math - there are 12 escolas just in Grupo Especial, each with about 4000 paraders, each wearing an elaborately gorgeous costume - that's 48,000 costumes just for Grupo Especial! And there are 5 other groups of escolas, each with 10-12 escolas, each with thousands of paraders. The other escolas have fewer than 4000 paraders apiece, sure, but I'll bet it all adds up to at least 200,000 costumes total. All used on 1 weekend and all immediately discarded afterwards. So... it's a serious economic force. There are whole factories that specialize in mass-producing the wire frames for the enormous headdresses and backpieces, making the shoes, stamping out the plastic molds of crowns, wings, breastplates, props, and the other structural elements. There's a huge shop that just sells colored feathers - acres and acres of feathers of all styles, lengths and colors. Several more stores sell glittery spools of rhinestones and beads of every possible color and size, vast racks of thousands of different kinds of rhinestones and baubles. A dozen stores in a row that all sell bolts of glittering metallic fabrics. And enough feather-boa stores to supply a feather boa to every man, woman and child in the city.

Astonishingly, most of these costumes are discarded right after the parades - literally, at a huge pile of abandoned costumes that materializes at the end of the Sambodromo runway after the first few parades. A tip to anybody looking for a beautiful costumes: There are a few standardized glittery-bikini outfits that you can buy at a few shops (Casa Turuna), but if you want a really amazing and truly unique outfit, do what the Finns do: Get a garbage bag, stand at the end of the Sambodromo runway and scavenge through that amazing pile of costume pieces for all the raw materials your little heart desires! (The Finn's annual Helsinki Carnaval is famous for its astonishing costumes, and I was just recently told by a new Finnish friend that that is how they do it: A small army of Finnish sambistas comes every year and scavenges the costume discard pile, ships the best finds home, and then builds new outfits from scratch with the pieces. I'm hoping to join them this year.)

I could have spent forever in the costume stores. It's sort of overwhelming, actually - I think you need to already have a costume idea in mind to shop at those stores effectively. Otherwise you end up, or at least I end up, just sitting in a huge pile of rainbow-colored pheasant feathers and ostrich plumes, waving the feathers around with a vacant expression on your face and thinking "I bet I could make some kind of cool outfit with two dozen of these feathers... no, with THOSE feathers... no, wait, THOSE FEATHERS OVER THERE are EVEN BETTER FEATHERS..."

Got to get my wits back together. Quit it with the feathers - my bands hardly ever wear costumes anyway. (wahh.) Focus. Got to focus. Toaster and roll-up mattress. Get out of the feather store. FOCUS ON THE QUEST.

I wondered what the word for "toaster" might be. I knew that a "mangueira" is a tree that grows mangos (mangas), and a "laranjeira" is a tree that grows laranjas (oranges), and I knew that a piece of toast was a "torrada". So on the theory that a toaster sort of grows toast, I thought that a toaster might be a "torradeira". Wouldn't you know it, next thing I found was a cluster of appliance stores. I went in and - there was a sign for Torradeiras! Toasters! I'd found them! 35 reais for a nice little toaster. Ding, third quest completed.

Onward with the quest. Roll-up mattress, the hardest element of my quest, the Holy Grail. Would I succeed? Not immediately because I next got sidetracked by a street of bakeries! Oh dear. Actually I'd been passing bakeries all along - Brazilians have a terrific sweet tooth, and about every third store is a bakery - but suddenly they started all calling my name, if you know what I mean. Then came the happy and dangerous discovery that I live walking distance from a place with the most delicious teas-and-pastries, the "Casa Cave". I was helplessly sucked in for a cafe-com-leite, a delicious little fruit salad and a gigantic, incredibly good French pastry. Later I wandered into an interesting street that alternated bakeries with tiny gyms - I guess the idea was, you could have a pastry, go next door to a gym and work out till you'd burned it off, go on to the next bakery and have another pastry, move to the next gym and burn that one off, etc. Luckily since I'd just been to the Casa Cave I managed get past four bakeries in a row (Paradise Of Honey, Cookie Point, Chocolate Show, and House of Goodness) without disaster. Whew, close call.

It was 6pm. All the stores were closing. I'd been walking for hours, had done a big convoluted loop and was almost back where I'd started. It was starting to rain, big fat raindrops, people whipping out their umbrellas. Several dozen umbrella salesmen magically appeared out of nowhere. (where had they been hiding? Did the dvd guys suddenly toss away the dvds and pull out a hidden stash of umbrellas?) There was one last store that hadn't quite closed yet - I glanced inside and it was: A foam store. Okay, whatever.

WAIT WAIT WAIT, a FOAM store, as in, foam mattresses! I went in and found a huge shelf at the back full of... ROLL-UP FOAM MATTRESSES AND YOGA MATS! They even had vast rolls of yoga mat material that you can buy by the yard. Wow.

I didn't buy one yet - just wanted to price them out - but it sure felt good to just find them! I tottered home with my various purchases through a cooling rain. Anything you want, you can find in Uruguaina. And it's so fun there - the bustling, the thousands of people streaming all around, the chattering, the attentive salespeople... you get such a sense of how hard people are working, how entrepreneurial everybody is. There's a reason Brazil's economy is one of the few in the world that is booming right now, and it's all on display here at the Uruguaiana market.

A couple Salgueiro vids

2010-01-14T19:54:00.000-08:00

A couple videos from Salgueiro... more to come if I can ever figure out how to post portrait-format videos to Youtube.

Passistas... check out their cute choreography halfway through the video.

Next video shows some alas dancing by. The second ala that comes by, the one doing the fancy choreography, is the guys who were all painted in black paint (and wearing nothing but teeny loincloths!) at the Sambodromo rehearsal on Sunday. The Sambodromo crowd went nuts.

A simple Rio night

2010-01-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

A simple Rio night:

Get a phone call from a London TV film crew asking me if I know of any "flaming Brazilian drag queens in Rio who are fluent in English" for some kind of episode they're doing about Rio. Can't think of any English-fluent Brazilian flaming drag queens off the top of my head, but I tell them I'll let them know. New friend Wendy from Honolulu, who I met yesterday, super cool chick, comes over and we go exploring for food- find amazing fish place - BEST EVER FRIED FISH in the universe - slug down two beers - but wait, we're late for Salgueiro! - haul ass to catch a taxi to Salgueiro's technical rehearsal - oh my god, it's a street rehearsal! I didn't know it was going to be a street rehearsal! this is going to be amazing! - Park ourselves by the bateria. Hot, hot, hot players (in all senses). OH MY GOD IT'S XUXA FROM SAN FRANCISCO! Talk to Xuxa. OH MY GOD THERE'S JACARE FROM TEXAS! Huge reunion. My buddies! My friends! I should have known I'd run into them here - three years ago, last time I was i Rio, I ran into these exact same 2 friends at this exact same Wednesday Salgueiro rehearsal. Worm our way up to the passistas (dancers). OH MY GOD. SALGUEIRO PASSISTAS. OH MY GOD. Have there ever been better dancers in the universe: no. Have there ever been hotter girls: no. Hey! There's a TV crew right next to me! It's an O GLOBO TV crew! (Brazil's top news agency) Hey, they're interviewing all the passistas and filming each one dancing, and I'm RIGHT NEXT TO THEM so I'm filming the passistas too, side by side with the O Globo TV camera. My camera is slightly smaller... thanks for the excellent lighting, O Globo lighting guy... passistas peel away, bateria tucks into the tiniest recuo ever, ala after ala flows by. Amazing choreographed alas. Oh, look, it's the guys who were painted in black on Sunday! kewl. passistas again. bateria again. Oh, now they're moving. Like a rat after the pied piper I cannot help but follow the bateria. Follow the bateria, follow the bateria, follow the follow the follow the follow the bateria. Dazzled and drunk on the bateria. Pretend I am in the ala right behind the bateria; wave my arms when they wave their arms; I've kind of learned the words to the samba at this point; Wendy's right behind me; nobody seems to notice, nobody kicks us out. Bateria ends... oh, it's over... wahhhhh. Desolate. Salgueiro has stopped playing. Sad. Now what. Millions of people milling around. Millions and millions of people, passista girls in shiny little halter top outfits, guys carrying drums all over, everybody criss-crossing in hundreds of different directions, weaving around the dozens of little food stands and tiny bars on the street. Wandering around. Hey, there's Xuxa again! Sudden thought: I bet Xuxa (who is a drag queen himself) would know of some flaming Brazilian drag queens. Ask him. In two minutes he has come up with a list of the "the top five most famous Rio drag queens". They even think of one of whom is totally fluent in English and funny and charismatic and would be perfect for the British TV guys. Score! Time for a beer. Hey, Jacare knows the guys from the Salgueiro bateria! Cool! A plan hatches to pile us all into 2 cars and go see the bateria that is forever shrined in my mind as the Worst Escola of Rio: Canarias de Laranjeiras, the Canaries of the Orange Trees, who actually came in dead last in Grupo E three years ago (Grupo E is the lowest group there is). Ever since then I've wanted to see them. They got booted out of Carnaval for a year as a penalty, but now they're back in action and are apparently rehearsing in Lapa tonight. We try to get one of Jacare's Salgueiro drumming buddies to come with us. We're busy explaining to him where Canaries of Laranjeiras rehearses, when he interrupts us to tell us he is the director of Canaries of Laranjeiras. Laughter. Oh, I guess he knows where it is then. All pile into 2 cars, all squished - we seem to be 8 people now - careen off to Lapa. Explain to Wendy that this is not nearly as squished as we could get. Am busy recounting to her how we could easily have fit 7 people into this cab by putting 3 people in the back seat, one in the front passenger seat, one on the gearshift and two more people lying on top of everybody else. Our taxi driver turns out to be a professional samba-gafiera instructor and he has a dream of emigrating from Brazil and travelling the world dancing. Seems unlikely but who knows? I know some people who've done exactly that. So I take down his name and number. We pile out in Lapa. Hm, Canarias of Laranjeiras is actually pretty fun. Watch a hot hot dancer guy. Get swept up in the samba and start dancing myself. Uh-oh, the hot hot hot dancer guy is zooming over to goad me to dance more. Dance MORE! Dance BETTER! Dance MORE! Dance BETTER! DANCE GRINGA DANCE! Dance with hot hot hot dancer guy. Wow, he's a really good dancer. LOVE how Brazilians just totally dance their hearts out for any reason at all. Love it how they love to encourage any woman, any age, to get up and dance. The hot hot hot dancer guy moves on to encourage a 65 year old guy to get up and dance - truly equal opportunity here, the whole world dances. Get brave and ask the director if I can play caixa (snare). Another caixa player gives me a skeptical look. Ha, I'll show him! TA-DA I'm playing caixa! I'm playing! Take that! Woo-hoo! Ripping along. The repique player gives me a thumbs-up! Oops, suddenly we're all marching somewhere! We march out of the club and do the world's tiniest parade, a tiny U-turn, and then march right back into the club. Now I have paraded with Grupo E. I play and play and play. Perversely thrilled to be playing in the lowest-ranked escola of Grupo E instead of in Grupo Especial. Y'know, E stands for Especial when you think about it.... Y'know what, it also turns out that Rio's worst samba escola still plays better than most American baterias. Tired. Hot. Sweaty. Get another beer. Take off caixa, stand in front of fan. Get many thumbs-ups from various people about my caixa playing. Pleased. Grateful. Happy. Still too hot. Stumble outside for some air. Quick tour of neighboring bars with Xuxa. Say goodbye to Canarias director - get invited to play at his (a) bloco on Saturday, (b) Grupo A escola Sao Clemente, (c) to come watch Salgueiro close up - all of which he plays in - jumpin' junipers , did I pick the right guy to play caixa in front of or what? Suddenly remember I am 2 hours late to meet Chris at another club. It's only two blocks away. Convince Xuxa to come to other club with me. Charm bouncer girl into letting us in for cheap. We also each get free coupons for a caipirinha. Find Chris! Huge reunion! CHRIS!!! IT'S BEEN SO LONG! Embrace like long-lost twins separated at birth. (we last saw each other a whole 5 days ago) It's 12:30am so of course the show hasn't started yet. Headliner comes on at 1am. Dance dance dance. Get the free caipirinha. It is an incredibly good caipirinha. Eat amazing sandwiches. Effin' awesome girl is playing timbal on stage. Cool band. OH MY GOD THE BEERS ARE ALMOST TEN REAIS EACH! WHATTA RIPOFF! But the sandwiches are GREAT! and the caipirinha was free. Meet lots more people. Conversation reels around everything in the universe: at the end I only remember "Luna sequoia tree, Joan Baez, itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini and a cruise ship full of 3000 gay guys" and I can't remember how those all fit into the conversation. Chris convinces me it's time for just one last beer. Have moved on to 4 new friends now. Friend-of-a-friend asks me to go to the samba club Democratikos - right now - because it's only 3am on a Tuesday, of course, time to get started dancing. Xuxa invites me to a party. Chris invites me to 2 more parties. I can't figure out what day they all are. I can't figure out if they all clash with each other. I realize I have forgotten what day it is right now? Is today still Wednesday? Was today the day I saw Salgueiro? I recklessly accept all the invitations all at once. Salgueiro, Salgueiro, how I love you; I start singing its beautiful anthem again, "La vem Salgueiro, la vem Salgueiro". (Here comes Salgueiro, here comes Salgueiro.) I want to stay here forever.

Que calor!

2010-01-13T08:45:00.001-08:00

An American coming to Rio has to get used to the Celsius temperature scale. There are giant digital clocks posted all over the city that alternate the time and tempeature, and quickly you realize that temps in the 30's (roughly 85-100F) are fairly normal, but 40 (104F) is when you really start to wilt. When the beachside temperature clocks start showing "40" for the temperature reading, everybody suddenly feels justified in complaining about it. "Que calor!" (What heat!) (And, oddly, the Brazilians seem to complain just as much, often even more, than the Americans.) (Perhaps because they have to actually live and work full-time in this heat, whereas we gringos are usually on vacation and can go swimming at the beach whenever we want.)

I am usually fine in the heat, but two days ago I noticed I was starting to wilt. I would take a cool shower, step out of the shower, and discover that I couldn't bear the sensation of wrapping a towel around my body. It seemed like the towel was made of 3" thick insulated wool. So I'd just rub the towel over my body to dry off. Then I'd look in the mirror and watched in amazement as huge beads of sweat appeared all over my body within seconds of having toweled dry. Then I, and everybody else in Rio, noticed this:

Okay, so 50C is ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. Jeepers. Even the Brazilians are shocked. I would write more about this but I think I need to drink a gallon of water now (which I have been doing about every 15 minutes)

Keeeeeeeeeee!

2010-01-13T06:19:00.000-08:00

It's Wednesday and I'm almost recovered from the weekend and almost ready for the next one. During weekends, in the two months before Carnaval, the major escolas (Carnaval parade groups) do technical rehearsals - trial parades, really - in the Sambodromo, the samba parade stadium. They don't have the floats and costumes yet, but all the paraders come, and the flag-bearers and the passista dancers usually have some kind of outrageous outfit just for the rehearsal, and there's often one or two tiny floats (made special just for the rehearsal). So all in all it's quite the show. This year even the Grupo A (second tier) escolas are in on the fun. Most Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from now till Carnaval, there will be 3 escolas in a row doing free practice parades at the Sambodromo every night: one Grupo A (second tier) escola followed by two of the big-time Grupo Especial (first tier) escolas. It is all free, free, free, and you better believe the people are showing up! Crowd estimates are running at about 70,000 per night.

So on Sunday night I trotted off to the Sambodromo to see two of the Grupo Especial escolas, my dear Mocidade (fallen on hard times but still close to my heart) followed by the reigning champion, Salgueiro.

I arrived too late to see the Grupo A escola (Santa Clara) but I got there just in time to film the warm-up of the Mocidade bateria (to be posted later). As they headed off down the parade route I discovered that most of the Sambodromo sections were UN-BE-LIE-VA-BLY packed, what the Brazilians call "super-lotado" (super-full). People were squished side-by-side on every single seat. I couldn't even find a place to squish myself into a standing-room-only spot. So I extricated myself from the crowd (this alone took 15 min) then ran all the way down the side of the Sambodromo to a fenced-off area by Sector 11, a precious spot where I knew the bateria would eventually pull off and park itself for about 15 minutes while some of the paraders moved by. (It's called the "recuo", sort of a parking spot for the entire 300+ person drum band.) It's the best place to get a really close view of the bateria.

The fence around the bateria recuo, unusually, been closed almost an hour earlier than necessary. I was perfectly happy to be there, knowing the bateria would be along eventually, but I was surrounded by a knot of upset Brazilians who'd been counting on being able to run right through the gate to the other side of the Sambodromo. They kept calling the security guys over to argue with them about why the fence had been closed so early. It turned into a great Portuguese lesson in expressions of extreme frustration: "For the love of God, man! I can't believe you've closed off the gate an hour early! Look at the parade route, it's COMPLETELY EMPTY! What on earth possessed you guys to close the gate this early? This is completely ridiculous!" Also a lesson in Portuguese expressions of pleading: "Please, please, please can't you let me through? I'm parading with Salgueiro next! I'm a musician with Santa Clara! I'm a composer with Imperio Serrano! Look, here's my Salgueiro t-shirt - my Imperio Serrano card - my cavaquinho - " It was hopeless. The security guys were completely implacable. (Though I have to give them credit, they were unflaggingly polite to everybody, even though they were barraged for almost a full hour with pleas ranging from tears to fury.)

A lot of the people had just been trying to cross the parade route to get to the only sector of the Sambodromo that still had any seats left. It was tantalizingly visible, tantalizingly close, just across the parade path from our closed gate. The crowd kept pointing woefully to the empty seats, and the security guys kept saying "No, you can't go through. You have to go around," (Tthis is like telling somebody they have to walk all the way around the outside perimeter of the outer parking lots of a gigantic football stadium, just to get to the next section of seats over from where they'd started.)

Finally the security guys started conferring with each other, and with their boss, and with their boss's boss, and a decision was reached: They were going to open a whole new section - right next to us - and RIGHT ON THE PARADE ROUTE! We'd be right down at eye level with the passistas! (This was the section where, during the actual Carnaval, the very rich people would have their little private tables.) "See that door right over there?" said the security guy to everybody. "We're opening it now! There's nobody in there yet at all! Go, go, go!" There was a huge cheer from the crowd, including me, and we all raced around the corner and to the excitingly open door, a huge excited stampede, and I went racing along with them, and -

WAIT A MINUTE. What the hell was I doing?? I had already been exactly where I wanted to be! At the bateria recuo! I didn't WANT to be in the new section! But somehow I'd gotten so swept up in the excitement of the moment that I'd raced with everybody else to the new section.

I reversed course and fought my way back against the flow, like swimming against a tide of very excited salmon. I finally reclaimed my original spot (to the puzzlement of the security guys, who'd gotten to know me rather well at this point - they'd noticed I was the only person not complaining). And I waited.

And finally they arrived! The whole Mocidade bateria, wheeling off the parade route and marching right at me!! TOP volume!! And man, they sounded good. I'd been worried about them - Mocidade's been on a sad downhill slide recently, and they also recently lost/kicked out their wonderful Mestre Jonas. I'd heard reports that the Mocidade bateria in December has been horribly ragged. A lot of people are betting that the once-great Mocidade will finally fall from Grupo Especial to Grupo A this year. But they sounded great! Swinging, solid and exciting. (Drum geek notes: They've added frigideiras, I noticed. And I re-re-re-confirmed that Mocidade has reversed surdo tuning - lowest surdo plays the 1, middle surdo plays the 2.)

It was just so good to hear them again. And such a relief to know they can still swing, despite all the recent problems.

After Mocidade finally wheeled back onto the parade route and marched away, I crept into the newly opened section of the Sambodromo and found a tiny spot close to the parade route. (Since I'll be visiting Salgueiro later this week, I wasn't quite as anxious to get a close-up bateria view at the Sambodromo.)

There ensued an IN-TERM-IN-A-BLE wait for Salgueiro. An hour and a half inchhhhhhhed by. (during which, I later heard, the Sambodromo fire chief was having an argument with the Salgueiro president about some illegal fireworks that the bateria set off during their warmup. This morning the newspapers said the firemen are now threatening to shut down all the Sambodromo rehearsals for persistent violations of the fireworks regulations!)

We waited and waited and waited. I finally folded up my legs and scrunched down to squat on a tiny little corner of ground. There was a family next to me, the mother sitting on the ground, a teenage daughter sitting down too, the dad still standing. I gradually became aware that there was another daughter, a very tiny girl hiding behind the dad's legs. I could see her peeking out at me between his legs. She have been about three years old. She was absolutely adorable (this was one of those completely gorgeous black Brazilian families - all of them with that smooth, gleaming, perfect skin, and the daughters tidily dressed in cute little flowered outfits with ribbons in their hair).

She started peeking at me between her father's legs, then disappearing, then reappearing on one side of his legs, then disappearing again, then appearing on the other side. It was hide-and-seek! Her eyes started crinkling up with smiles as she got less and less afraid, and more and more curious, about me. I started giving her big surprised smiles every time she reappeared, and she started giggling and getting bolder. She started making a tiny little sound each time she peeked at me: "eeeee!"

I could just barely hear it, but it was clearly an "eeeee."

She got louder: "Eeeeee!" What was she saying?

She got bolder, laughing now, and now it was clearly "Keeeeee!"

She disappeared. Reappeared. "Keeeee!" Giggles.

Disappeared. Reappeared. "Keeeeeeee!" More giggles.

Disappeared. Reappeared: "Ah-keeeeee!"

AHA! She was saying "Aqui!" ("Here!") This must be what Brazilian kids say instead of "peek-a-boo"!

"A-Quiiiiiiii!"

So we played the Aqui game for, I don't know, ten more minutes?? She was the sweetest little thing!

So now I know what to say when I'm playing peek-a-boo with a little kid in Brazil!

And then we started hearing a distant thumping. The bateria! Salgueiro was approaching! We all stood up, and the father picked up the little girl and swung her up on his shoulders so she could see. We couldn't see anything yet, but slowly they got closer and closer. Slowly the chords of the cavaquinho became audible. There came a moment when the chords got clear enough that all of us suddenly realized where in the song they were, and, simultaneously, as if we'd rehearsed it, the ENTIRE CROWD burst into song. There must have been 5000 people in my section, and BOOM, everybody started singing the 2010 Salgueiro song, at the top of their lungs, at the exact same moment. It was stunning.

Stunning flag-bearers in their full amazing costumes whirling around. An amazing dance troupe of men all painted black, who were leaping around enacting some sort of story about slavery (I think - they had some chains, anyway). A set of jet-black girls all dressed up in Disney outfits - a jet black Snow White! It was great! Two little floats with crazy-sexy passista dancers dancing like wildfire on top. The (mostly black) crowd loved it. (I, meanwhile, was transfixed and confused by the concept of black people in blackface, because the dancers were almost entirely light-brown people who'd been painted to look like they were dark black. A mesmerizing visual, and one you'd never, ever see people do in the U.S.)

Then came the bateria. Salgueiro BLEW ME AWAY. But more on that later - 'cause I'm going to visit them at their home quadra tonight.

One week in Rio

2010-01-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

A question just came around on the CBC email list: What would you do if you had just 1 more week in Rio?

The "one week in Rio" question comes up a lot, actually. My answer is really, I'd do exactly what I do during every week in Rio, because every week in Rio is such a gift! And here's my typical week in Rio:

See all my friends, first of all. And go play with my blocos. Enjoy the beaches (assuming the water cleans up soon!). Eat squeaky cheese. Spend a day at the Jardim Botanico. Splurge on a sunset ride up the Pao de Acucar. Hop the trolley to Santa Teresa and go all the way to the end, and all the way back again, hopping off for lunch at the Bar do Gomes and browsing the little art shops. Get a shot of straight-up cachaca and pasteis-de-camarao (shrimp pastries) at the Belmonte (in Flamengo or Ipanema). Have breakfast of waffles-with-honey at Cafeina cafe in Ipanema. Maybe spend a day at Rio Surf-n-Stay for a surfing lesson. Maybe a couple days at Ilha Grande (once the pousadas open again after the mudslide tragedy last week... so sad). Take some samba lessons, some percussion lessons, but don't stress about it. Visit Casa Oliveira, swear not to buy any instruments and end up buying some anyway. Sunday, go to the Hippie Fair in Ipanema. At least one sunset walking along Ipanema beach with an agua-de-coco.

At night, off to my favorite music spots...

MONDAY - Banga rehearsal in Lapa, then off to the Sambodromo to see Salgueiro practicing with the whole bateria. (this is new, they just started doing a bateria rehearsal at the Sambodromo every Monday. Unless they have just had a Sambodromo rehearsal the previous weekend). Later - Richah singing at Carioca da Gema, in Lapa.
TUESDAY - Choro at Trapiche Gamboa, a hidden gem in Gamboa (on Rua Sacadura Cabral, 55)
WEDNESDAY - Escola technical rehearsal night for Portela and Salgueiro, at their quadras, 8pm
THURSDAY - Unidos da Tijuca street rehearsal, right downtown on the Avenida Venezuela. Or a longer trip to distant Beija-Flor.
FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY - bounce around between Sambodromo rehearsals and my favorite escolas - Sao Clemente on Friday, and on Saturday Estacio, Imperio Serrano, Salgueiro, many others.

And finally, abandon the above plan entirely when I meet some new friends who invite me to do something unexpected. Which always happens!

Come to think of it, I think I will spend next week doing this.... :)

Imperio Serrano samba memorization slam!

2010-01-06T19:36:00.001-08:00

I am heading back to Rio this Friday. This is the weekend that everything kicks into full gear for Carnaval. The Sambodromo rehearsals start up again this weekend, and the escolas are bound to be burning hot - in every possible way.

A little background first. Remember Imperio Serrano? Well, if you don't, Imperio Serrano is one of the great escolas (samba parade group) of Rio, a beloved escola with a long history. They were very unjustly demoted from Grupo Especial to Grupo A recently, but never mind about that right now. Anyway, three years ago I paraded with Imperio, in the Ala dos Devotos. The Ala dos Devotos just means the Ala of the Devoted - and an "ala" is a parade section, typically 100 people. Each escola has maybe 30 or 40 alas. (Yes, that means 3000 or 4000 people. Plus the bateria - the enormous 300+ drummer band. Oh, and, plus the sound truck carrying the singers, and the cavaquinhos; and various flag-bearers and an opening dance group and the floats and ... never mind, more on all that later. And that's all just for 1 escola.) Where was I. Oh yes - the bulk of an escola's parade consists of its ala members. The whole parade has a "enredo", a theme - a new enredo every year - maybe "Photography" or "Science" or "The History of Rio" or who knows what, and each ala is dressed in some kind of bizarre outfight meant to illustrate that theme. (If the enredo that year is "Science", maybe everybody in your ala will be dressed as DNA molecules, or microscopes, or Charles Darwin. You don't get any choice in your costume - you've got to wear whatever bizarre thing your ala happens to be that year! You might be a basketball, a cockroach or Mahatma Gandhi. Whatever the costume is, it is sure to be uncomfortable, painful, beastly hot, and completely ridiculous-looking. Hey, you've got to suffer for your art, right?

And then there's the samba, the song. Each escola has a different song every year. It is custom-written to illustrate that year's enredo. Throughout the entire parade, all the paraders sing that same song over and over and over, ad nauseum, so it had better be a good song! (and believe me, by the time you've heard the parade sambas maybe 50 times in a row each, it'll be crystal clear in your mind which are the Good, the Bad or the Ugly.) Over the years, these parade sambas - or samba-enredos - have evolved into a peculiar form. They're very long, with 2 especially confusing and not very catchy long verses, and 2 different short catchy choruses. And they are very poetic and elaborate, with MANY MANY MANY confusing Portuguese words. The thing is, if you are going to parade with an escola you had better know the entire song. Every word! It's considered rude if you don't know the words. Especially since the entire escola is actually being judged on how well you're singing the song and on whether everybody in your ala really knows the words (or is at least faking it pretty well). If your ala is completely drunk and falling down and nobody is singing the song, the whole escola loses points.

Anyway, in most escolas, certain alas are open to tourists, and other alas are "closed" - no tourists allowed. The Ala dos Devotos is closed. It was unusual that I got to parade with them three years ago, and it was an amazing experience, and they turned out to be great people. I've kept in touch with Vitor, the ala director, off and on over the three years since then. The Ala dos Devotes are an extremely dedicated ala, Devoted indeed. They have a well-earned reputation in Imperio Serrano as being the ala that sings most passionately, and the ala in which EVERYBODY REALLY KNOWS ALL THE WORDS.

You can see where I'm going with this. Guess what came to my email inbox yesterday, an email from Vitor! He was inviting everybody in the Devotos to do a mass journey together to Imperio Serrano's Saturday rehearsal! I immediately wrote him back telling him I'll be back in Rio and would love to come along. He instantly shot back a reply - he's arranging for someone to pick me up and bring me along. AND, he's holding one of the last few spots in the ala for me for the big parade at Carnaval - good thing I asked because it turns out they only have 2 costumes left!

So you can see what's coming next: I have got to learn that entire song by Saturday night! As an outsider, and an American no less, and one who is hoping to parade in a closed ala famed for its singing, it is especially important that I show that I am up to the task!

To spur us all on, Vitor sent around another email today with a link to a video of a 2-year-old who already knows this year's Imperio song completely by heart. OK... if a 2-year-old can do it... surely I can do it? But then again, that was a Brazilian 2-year-old.

Excuse me, I have to go memorize a lot of Portuguese words:

click here if you're curious about the full lyrics.
(If you want to try to follow along, they actually start on the last chorus, the four lines at the end. And they repeat it. They'll also repeat the other short 4-line chorus once they get to that. LBTW, Imperio's theme this year is "The streets of Rio" - a great theme, close to everyone's heart and lots of potential fun costume ideas.)

Tartaruguinhas

2010-01-06T18:47:00.000-08:00

My second post about Praia do Forte. Here's what it's like to visit there now:

Praia do Forte today really is one of my very favorite places to visit (and it was even before I knew the sea turtle story). It's one of the places I go when I want peace and safety and calm, and, yes, when I want to buy bikinis! Yes, it's very touristy, but in a good way - you aren't pestered; there aren't bazillions of street vendors running at you; instead, you just stroll along the lovely shaded avenue, the Via, and there are just just lots of cute little shops everywhere. I get into sort of a trance walking along the Via: Bikini shop, ice cream shop, jewelry shop, art shop, restaurant. Bikini shop, ice cream shop, jewelry shop, art shop, restaurant. Really, anybody who can't find the right bikini in Praia do Forte just isn't trying! For the ice cream, though, you MUST wait till you get to the 50-flavors place. Where else can you get passionfruit ice cream, jaca ice cream, fruta-de-conde
ice cream, etc. etc. etc., AND an all-you-can-eat bar of every imaginable ice cream topping?

But what I really notice, coming from Rio especially, is how safe and peaceful it is. In Praia do Forte I can let my guard down. I can wander around swinging my bag loosely from a shoulder, and nobody is going to purse-snatch it away. I can have my camera out all day - I could probably wave a fistful of 50-cinquenta bills all day - and nobody is going to run up and steal it. I can sit for hours on the porch of the Tango Cafe eating one of their marvelous sandwiches, just people-watching or reading my trashy Brazilian mystery novel, and I can .... just .... relax.

Several times a day I go to the unbelievably peaceful, ridiculously quaint little beach - which still, even today, is lined with small fishing boats - and float on my back in the peaceful waves with all the little kids. (it's a sheltered cove with hardly any waves - good for lap swimming, good for little kids, and definitely good for floating on your back in a trance!). Or I can walk for miles on the beaches in either direction. Or.. perhaps head back to the pousada and lie down in a hammock for a while. After floating in the water for a while, you know, you get kind of tired out from all that exercise, and you might need a nap in a hammock. Eventually, after your nap, you rouse yourself to go look for a caipirinha, or maybe it's time for a coconut. It's that kind of place.

And, at this time of year, you can see the sea turtles hatch! Almost every day at 5pm, in December and January and February, the TAMAR people open up the nests of whichever of their "rescued" sea turtle nests are due to hatch that day. Typically the turtles have already hatched and are piled up in the nest waiting for sunset, and the TAMAR people come along and dig them out. It's called the Abertura dos Ninhos, the opening of the nests.

When I went to the Abertura dos Ninhos yesterday, I was amazed at the size of the crowd. There must have been two hundred people gathered around the turtle nests. We were all clustered obediently behind a little fence while a couple men with clipboards picked out which of the several hundred turtle nests were due that day, and they got down on their hands and knees and started digging and... turtles! Teeny tiny turtles! They piled all the turtles into a plastic bucket, and a couple of the TAMAR kids ("Tamarzinhos" the kids are called) had the important job of picking up the baby sea turtles and slowly carrying them around the crowd of people. Letting everybody touch the amazingly tiny, brand-new-to-the-world, little flapping sea turtles. (Olive ridleys and loggerheads, in case you're wondering.)

I couldn't help but notice the pride with which these young (black) local kids carried themselves. They were the stars of the show, carrying the baby sea turtles; and rich (white) Sao Paulo tourists were begging the kids to come closer ("Please! Please! Over here!")

And oh, as each little sea turtle came closer to a clutch of excited Brazilians, what an excellent opportunity to hear every possible Portuguese word for "cute"! The diminutive suffix "inho" was suddenly attached to every possible word: "Aiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!! Que PEQUININHO! Que BONITITINHO! Que FOFOZINHO! Que TARTARUGINHO!" (What a little-little! What a pretty-little! What a cute-little! What a turtle-little!) How soft! How tiny! How adorable! Look at his little eyes! Look, he's flapping his little flippers! Isn't he amazing!

Now I see what the TAMAR folks mean about the power of baby sea turtles!

Finally the Tamarzinho kids carried the bucket of baby turtles to the sea - dozens of Sao Paulo tourists running close behind. They instructed us sternly not to "mix" the turtles - "Nao mexe nao!" (Don't touch them, don't interfere with them.) They tipped the turtles out onto the damp sand and everybody screamed with delight as the little turtles instantly started scampering to the sea. All those deep evolutionary instincts triggered at last, every turtle somehow knowing exactly what to do the moment it hit the damp sand. They motored down the beach like little wind-up toys, their enthusiasm absolutely contagious. Then they were all are swept back by a wave (cue dismayed screams from the crowd, shouts of encouragement) - they slowly righted themselves, got reoriented, headed out again - were swept back again (screams, shouts, "Swim!!"). Finally they made it out past the waves. We could just see the tiny dark dots of their little heads popping up for air as they motored valiantly on out to sea - starting their great adventure.

Everybody cheered and applauded, and a man right behind me called out loudly: "E PARE DE COMER OVOS DE TARTARUGAS!!!!" (And stop eating turtle eggs!)

The man next to me said to his friends, very righteously, "I've never eaten them. I don't even know what they taste like."

And then we all went and sat on the beach and watched the sunset, and wished the little turtles well, on their mysterious journey to wherever it is that they go. They won't all survive. But some of them will.

Praia do Forte

2010-01-06T17:42:00.001-08:00

I just got back from 2 full days at Praia do Forte. Once a tiny, poor fishing town, Praia do Forte has been utterly transformed i the last thirty years. I need to take a moment to tell this story, one of the happier stories of Brazil.

Praia do Forte's transformation dates to a small band of young college students, who, thirty years ago, hatched a ridiculously optimistic project to try to protect sea turtles on the beaches of Brazil. At the time virtually all sea turtle nests on Brazilian beaches were failing - people killed and ate the females who crawled up on the beach to nest, and ate the delicious turtle eggs as well. Virtually every one of them. Hardly a single turtle nest remained to hatch, in all of Brazil's vast coastline. And of course, all of the species of sea turtles were crashing precipitously.

The college kids started what is now known as Projeto TAMAR, the sea turtle project. (TAMAR is short for TArtarugas MARinas, marine (sea) turtles in Portuguese).

Right from the outset the college kids stuck to a fundamentally important idea: to save the sea turtles, you have to first save the local people. Get the local people out of poverty, give them other alternatives, other ways to make a living. Enable them to buy other sources of food so that they don't have to eat sea turtles. And educate them about the turtles so that they start to care about them.

Here is what they did. First, they hired local fisherman - the ones who were killing the female turtles and collecting the eggs - to find the nests. And to PROTECT the eggs. They hired dozens of these fishermen to walk the coasts every morning, looking for sea turtle nests. If the fishermen found a turtle nest, they collected the eggs in a bucket and brought them back to Projeto TAMAR, where the eggs could be reared safely and the little turtles could be released to the sea.

And of course the moment the fishermen were being paid to protect eggs instead of to eat them, the fishermen stopped eating turtle eggs.

The TAMAR people realized at some point that the fishermen's wives also needed income. So they started helping the women develop crafts that they could sell to tourists. TAMAR started a gift shop, and bought the local women's crafts to sell in the gift shop. This developed over time into a major emphasis - to make sure the women of the fishermen's families had their own source of income. (Over 50 thriving local craft businesses owe their start entirely to TAMAR.)

TAMAR gradually built a huge sea turtle exhibit - piece by piece, one aquarium at a time - with live turtles as the focus. There are always a few injured ones that can't be released for some reason, so why not let tourists come look at them? They started adding little extra attractions like statues of turtles for little kids to play on, games, movies, restaurants, shops. They hired only local people to staff these stores.

Tourists started to arrive. Pousadas (B&B's) were built. More new jobs for the fishermen and their wives - construction jobs, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, shopowners....

There's a name for all of this now: ecotourism. Or sustainable tourism. Harnessing the economic power of tourism to help endangered species, and help local people.

TAMAR took baby sea turtles to schools and showed the turtles to the kids. Most of the kids had never seen sea turtles before. TAMAR people told me that over and over again, whenever kids were shown a baby sea turtle, their jaws would drop. They'd say "I had had no idea that the eggs I've been eating would make a little animal like this!" Most adults reacted the same way, actually - most had never seen a baby sea turtle in their lives. The same TAMAR person told me that of all the education projects they tried, this one always had the biggest impact - actually meeting, and touching, a baby sea turtle. (It's a lucky thing for the sea turtles that their babies happen to be so adorable!)

The emphasis on educating children began to take on all kinds of new unexpected dimensions. One day, a fishermen showed up at the door of the then-tiny TAMAR office pleading for help. His pregnant wife was in labor and they needed to get to a hospital, but had no transportation. So TAMAR started a little informal free taxi service to take local people to health clinics. (Then they eventually built a local health clinic.) One thing led to another and next thing you know they were driving kids to school. I sensed by the way the TAMAR biologist told me this that this was actually quite a logistical hassle - can't you just picture the situation, one of their precious research vehicles, and researchers, having to suddenly leave the beach and go pick up all the kids from school. But, as he said, "We could see how important it was, and obviously we had to do it."

TAMAR started a summer program for the local kids, to help with the turtles. Some kids stayed with them for years and years in a sort of "beach ambassador" program, junior research assistants really. Then TAMAR started helping those same kids apply to college. Next thing you know they were driving a van of those kids to college every day. Next thing, college scholarships. Today, the first crop of TAMAR's young "beach ambassadors" are hitting adulthood. Now remember these are children of local fishermen, born into what was a very impoverished coastal fishing town. Several are in graduate school, several are biologists now, some are in vet school, some in medical school, and one in law school (specializing in environmental law).

Others have chosen to live locally (many still work with TAMAR), to work in the tourist industry, to be fishermen.... The point is, they had a choice.

Early on, TAMAR enacted a requirement for its researchers and employees that I have never heard of in any other conservation project. TAMAR requires that all its employees and researchers must move to Praia do Forte - must live there permanently, with their families. So that they really start to care about the local community.

So, today? At this point TAMAR has grown to dozens of turtle stations spread across 1100 km of Brazil's vast coastline - almost everywhere turtles were known to nest. Hundreds of volunteers and employees patrol the beaches every day during nesting season, looking for nesting turtles, rescuing the eggs. Over 900,000 baby sea turtles have been released. Hardly anybody eats the eggs any more - the turtles are so famous now that people protect the nests wherever they find them. The same TAMAR biologist told me "We just have to put a flag on the nest now, and people see the flag and protect the nest." (TAMAR still occasionally has to remove some eggs - but now it's just to protect them from foxes or dogs or road traffic, not from being eaten by people.)

Gradually, the precipitous decline in the sea turtle populations slowed, then stopped, plateaued... and now all the populations are increasing.

How about the local people? Well, Praia do Forte is a BOOMING tourist town now. It's bloomed into a major tourist destination - primarily visited by other Brazilians. It's organized around a wide, peaceful, shady pedestrian walkway lined with dozens and dozens of shops, all leading you, eventually (ok, after QUITE A LOT of bikini shops and ice cream shops and art shops...) to the sea turtle exhibit. It's got dozens of new pousadas, hotels, bazillions of resturants, and a youth hostel. Bikes for rent, castle tours, canoeing on the nearby lagoon, snorkeling trips, whale-watching.... Yeah, it's touristy. Yeah, it's a zillion bikini shops and ice cream stores one after the other. But I swear to god, this one town has saved the sea turtles of the entire South Atlantic Ocean. And it has completely transformed the lives of the local people.

Some say they prefer the quaint image of the old-time fisherman, heading out to sea in his little rowboat from the tiny old Praia do Forte of the past. But that was a tough life and a poor life and a hungry life (and the sea turtles were one gasp from extinction).

Mr. Caramel

2010-01-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

I know this is supposed to be the "Rio Stories" blog, but I´m currently in Bahia and cannot resist adding a few tidbits from here in the northeast. I´ve had a fantastic week already, first in Salvador, with a great New Year´s with my dear friends Tanya & Dan from Portland, and then a wonderful couple days with Aileen & Daniel (from Seattle).

But now I´m in Praia do Forte, one of my absolute favorite places to come for pure relaxation. Safe, beautiful, enchanting, peaceful, a ridiculous amount of bikini stores, and baby sea turtles! What more can you ask! (I also found the best ever hostel - the Albergue at Praia do Forte. The dorms are a bit crowded, as is normal for dorms, but the private rooms are highly recommended and are a great bargain for single travellers - 100 reais for your own spacious room, en suite!)

To get to Praia do Forte you first go to the bus station in Salvador, spend twenty minutes searching for the infinitestimal Linha Verde booth on the second floor, which is surrounded by several dozen other bus companies that you´ve never heard of that go to innumerable towns you´ve never heard of. At the Linha Verde booth, you buy your ridiculosly cheap 9-real ticket for the 1.5-hour ride to Praia do Forte. Then, if you´re me, you futz around in the bus station for a while, buying magazines and sandals and cafe com leite and tiny little pastries. Then you sit on a bench with everybody else and discuss how the Linha Verde bus is running a little late (this has been the routine every time I´ve gone to Praia do Forte). Finally it arrives, and you all pile on and find your seats. It´s totally safe and comfortable bus, a bit old and worn maybe, but cushy chairs and quite comfortable.

And it is a fascinating ride. It´s an hour and a half, and the first half takes you through endless miles of the city of Salvador - poor areas, rich areas, strips of stores of all sorts of things ( "Emperor of Roof Tiles!").

The bus makes several stops in Salvador, and there seems to be an agreement that various candy, sandwich and water vendors can hop onto the bus and peddle their wares for a few stops, as long as they don´t take a seat.

Most of these vendors call out their goods with a sing-song chant that can be positively mesmerizing. The style can range anywhere from a young teenager, new at the game, asking timidly "Sandwiches? Sandwiches? Fresh tuna sandwiches that my mother made?" to a bolder ,more experienced fellow belting out "WAAAAAATER! Cold cold cold WAAAAAAAAAA-TERRRRR!"

But my favorite is a fellow that I call Mr. Caramel. I remember Mr. Caramel from both my other trips to Praia do Forte, and to my delight he hopped on my bus this time too. He bounded on with a HUGE two-foot-high sack of individually wrapped caramels, and launched immediately into a forceful speech:

"DEAR gentlemen dear ladies dear friends! Old people, young people and children! Dear people of all ages! May I call your attention to a magnificent buying opportunity! I have for you today an incredible, spectacular, truly delicious treat! A deliciousness that you will not believe! A deliciousness of genuine quality, CARAMEL, COATED IN CHOCOLATE! Yes, each of these magnificent caramels, is coated on one side in the very highest quality chocolate, and each is INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED! And each of these caramels is just TEN CENTAVOS! - Brigadomig - [here I had held out a ten-centavo coin, and he´d smoothly pocketed it and given me a caramel and said his shortened version of "Obrigado, amiga" - thank you, friend] This opportunity is extraordinary, I know! And I thank you, in advance, from the bottom of my heart, because - Brigadomig - please know that in buying a caramel, you are truly assisting me and my family in our journey through life. I am a worker, a hard worker, trying - Brigadomig - trying to make an honest living by selling this MAGNICENT CARAMAL, COATED IN CHOCOLATE, of the VERY HIGHEST QUALITY, to lovely people such as yourselves, and by buying a caramel you are - Brigadomig - you can know that you are supporting an honest man´s family. Brigadomig - "

He went on in this vein for a good ten minutes. Like I said, it was positively mesmerizing. As he passed out of view behind me I heard an increasing amount of "Brigadomig"s peppering his sales patter, indicating he was making a good number of sales. When he´d worked his way to the back of the bus and then worked his way all the way back again up to the front, he finally fell silent.

The entire bus was silent now - all the conversations had stopped - except for the crackling of everybody opening all their little caramel wrappers. Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle, all throughout the bus. Everybody was focused on the little caramels. I unwrapped mine, and I ate it, and it was

POSITIVELY DELICIOUS.

What was especially delicious was that it was COATED WITH CHOCOLATE.

It was a deliciousness of genuine quality!!! Just as advertised. Mr. Caramel indeed is an honest man.

After a pause to allow us all a moment to relish our delicious caramels, Mr. Caramel turned to face all the passengers again, and launched into a new speech - this one an evangelical sermon about Jesus Christ. I´m not the most religious person in the world (understatement) but this sermon genuinely moved me. First off, a large portion of the bus was getting involved ("And who is the name of this wonderful person who can help you so?" said Mr. Caramel. "His name is JESUS!" - from the far back of the bus.) He eventually started singing a hymn and most of the bus joined right on in singing, the woman behind me belting it out with particular vigor.

And secondly, of course, I can certainly see how Christianity´s message of hope and love and peace must be a positive message for many people here, in the poor and dangerous cities of Brazil, and the even poorer towns that are further out.

As the bus drew up to another bus top, Mr. Caramel finally wrapped up with: "And peace to all! God bless you all! AMEN!" and the whole bus shouted "AMEN" and he hopped off.

The woman in the seat behind me kept quietly singing the hymn, under her breath, for the next several minutes, as we zoomed along the sunny highway out of the city of Salvador and into the beautiful, palm-lined, sunny, hot, and achingly poor coastal towns of northeastern Brazil.

The wolves of Rio

2009-12-29T19:55:00.000-08:00

The third major problem that Rio must solve, HAS to solve, is its horrific violence. Make no mistake, Rio is a city at war. Every single citizen of Rio has the mentality of life-during-wartime. It is a war of the traficantes (drug smugglers). Traficantes versus each other, traficantes versus the military police, traficantes versus the protection gangs, traficantes versus anybody unlucky enough to get in their paths; younger and younger traficantes without any hope of any kind of a life, without hoping of even living out of their teens. Traficantes versus the world.

Every day brings some new sad horror. Even in my first ten minutes in Rio, sitting in the airport waiting for the baggage carousel to start up, I overhead the following exchange between two women seated next to me:

Woman 1: "So what brings you to Rio? Are you here in vacation?"
Woman 2: "No, I'm here to join my husband because his son just got shot here."
Woman 1: "What??"
Woman 2: "My husband's son, and a friend, were in a Range Rover and a couple of guys pointed guns at them, shot them both and tossed them out of the car. The friend died. He was a very famous martial arts expert. My husband's son is still alive but he's in intensive care. He was shot 3 times."
Woman 1: "I'm so sorry."
Woman 2: "Guess how old they were. The two guys who did it."
Woman 1: "How old?"
Woman 2: "Eleven and twelve."

(I later found out the murdered Brazilian was Marcos Jara, a well-known ju-jitsu trainer who lived in the US and was visiting Brazil for the holidays to see his family. He and his American friend were just driving out of the city to visit lovely, bucolic Paraty - a town I have visited myself. Marcos happened to stop his car to get something out of his trunk... and he just happened to stop right in the middle of a dangerous favela. He was jumped, and they were both shot. O Globo has an extremely sad article about his mother, who said: "He was my oxygen. I no longer know how to breathe." He was killed on Christmas Day.)

I am always on alert when in Rio, but overhearing this miserable conversation put me on extra alert. Good thing because a night later, last night, I was almost jumped myself. I brought it on myself, of course - first by coming to Rio in the first place, and second: I was out too late, as usual, and was walking along a street that I shouldn't have been walking along, as usual, and had been too cheap to take a taxi all the way home, as usual. I'd taken a combi (little minivan) almost all the way home, but hadn't realized that my friend's new apartment was further off the combi route than I had thought; so I was walking just the last couple blocks from the combi stop back to her place.

The street was empty of people and quite dark, but was also quite wide-open. I could see pretty far in all directions and there was a pretty steady flow of car traffic along the street, including a lot of taxis that I could flag down if necessary, so I wasn't too worried. Still, though, it was a VERY empty street and rather dark and I knew it was a bad area, so I was on Extra High Alert, constantly glancing in all directions.

Like most gringas in Rio, I dress for this kind of situation, as follows: I wear only a tiny bag that looks as if it could not possibly have anything interesting in it (though actually it has the teeny-tiniest camera I could possibly find to buy. But it looks, from the outside, like it has nothing at all in it.) I wear it slung across my chest, not over one shoulder, so it can't easily be pulled off. I wear NO jewelry, NO watch, NOTHING that could possibly interest anybody. I wear shoes I can run in. And last, I usually do not walk with other Americans or, worst of all, American men (they are absolute magnets for thieves) - the last thing I want is to be in a crowd of loudly chattering English speakers.

So I was zipping along the street, using my Extra Fast, I-Know-Exactly-Where-I'm-Going Rio walk, feeling extremely exposed and vulnerable and on super-high alert, glancing in all directions.

I thought suddenly: This is what it's like to be a prey animal. To be, for example, a deer in the northern Rockies (which I had just been to) - now once again the home of wolves. Lots of wolves. A deer living in the wild like that spends its entire life constantly on guard. Constantly knowing that at every moment, there is somebody, somewhere, watching; assessing whether the deer looks like a good easy meal.

I actually had that exact thought in my head: "I'm a deer!" - when the traffic died away, all the cars suddenly disappearing in one of those odd traffic lulls, and a lone man on a motorcycle came by, and he turned his helmet and looked at me. I immediately saw that he was a wolf. I saw his helmet turn, saw him assess me, saw him decide to veer all the way across the 3-lane street and charge me head on and charge right up onto the sidewalk coming toward me at TOP SPEED. Right onto the sidewalk, right at me, accelerating. I could not see his eyes, just that blank black motorcycle faceplate as he reached out toward me. I did not have even the slightest hesitation. I knew the moment his helmet turned that he was a wolf, and I was a deer, and deers RUN, so I RAN. I ran FAST.

The entire world suddenly clicked into a fascinating three-dimensional game. All the objects around me - garbage can, small tree, series of concrete pedestals - suddenly took on extremely interesting characteristics as Potential Motorcycle Obstacles and seemed almost to glow. And I could see potential running paths emblazoned around them: the trajectory of the motorcycle coming at me vs. the various trajectories I could choose to run on. So just as his bike was leaping up onto the sidewalk, I was accelerating too and I was choosing a course. I ran obliquely at him, and I shot just past his outstretched arm, just out of his reach, at an angle, so that I was quickly far beyond him and he couldn't turn his bike around fast enough to get me.

I shot around the corner and bolted across the street to a central meridian that had some more helpful trees. More Moorcycle Obstacles. More potential running paths stretched out all around me. Which to pick? Where was he? Should I run in circles around the tree hoping for more cars to come soon? Or can I make it to that distant garbage truck, and those 2 garbagemen, that I now can see two blocks away? Does he have a gun, or is he just a pursesnatcher? I saw him starting to turn his bike to face me. I plotted a new course. (Run around tree.)

But finally a lone cab was coming - and the cabbie actually pulled over and got out to yell at the guy (99% of Brazilians are incredibly helpful. It's the other 1% who are the problem.) - and normally I would have thanked him and gotten a cab ride, but somehow I had so much mental and physical momentum by then that I could not stop running, and all of a sudden I was 2 blocks away at the garbage truck.

The two garbage truck workers hadn't seen any of this and just thought I was lost. They greeted me with a surprised "Ah, você está perdida!" (oh, you're lost!) Far behind me the biker gave up and left. I scooted the last block back home.

Oddly I was, and still am, not the least bit startled or spooked. I just went home and had some toast and cheese and read my cheesy sci-fi book, like usual. Like any gringa in Rio, I am always waiting for stuff like this to happen, and this was just the latest of a number of close scrapes, though this was the first time I've been targeted by somebody moving quite that fast, and requiring quite that much of a sprint. In retrospect I think he was probably just a purse snatcher, and what most likely made him give up was that he saw that my little, and very uninteresting-looking, bag was diagonally across my body and not easily snatchable.. and I had no jewelry at all ... and I was running pretty fast.... In other words: I looked like a fast deer, and not a particularly tasty one. So the wolf chose to continue on, to look for a slower, and tastier, deer.

Why was poor Marcos Jara the unlucky deer, and why was I the lucky deer, this weekend? I don't know. He was a world-class jiu-jitsu expert; but he was facing a gun. All I can do is run, and I'm not even very fast - but luckily for me, it was just 1 guy and he had no gun. Really I think it's just luck. All I really know is, beware of the wolves.

But then there's the filth....

2009-12-29T19:36:00.000-08:00

And on the filth front, I'm sorry to report that the waters of Copacabana and Ipanema beaches are the very most disgusting that I've EVER seen them. The waves at Ipanema are an opaque, muddy yellowish-brown that was absolutely appalling. I couldn't believe it. I went to the water and cupped some in my hands, to see if I was imagining how dirty it was, but no - even just a SINGLE HANDFUL of water is detectably yellowish-brown. Ick. You know it's bad then.

It didn't smell, so I wonder if it is not raw sewage exactly, but possibly the algal bloom that often follows raw sewage. I can't imagine that there can be anything alive in there. Poor fishies.

Everybody was still swimming anyway. So in the spirit of what-the-hell Rio boldness I went swimming myself. I'd just dunked under once when I got an attack of the heebie-jeebies and fled back out of the water instantly. I was in the water for maybe 30 seconds and woke up the next morning with a bright red skin rash all over my legs. Coincidence??

So, sadly, it looks like I won't be swimming at Ipanema this year, or at least not unless the currents change. Well, I'll take that as just a good excuse to go down to Recreio and visit my friend Kat now and then at her Surf-n-Stay hostel.

Even so I didn't really appreciate the scale of the problem till this morning, when my Salvador-bound flight did a huge, slow bank over the entire city of Rio. I looked down and my heart sank. I have seen this before, but somehow it seems much worse now. Guanabara Bay was SOLID FILTH. It was SOLID brown, the ENTIRE Guanabara bay was SOLID brown. And speckled with constellations, galaxies, universes, of millions upon millions upon millions of tiny white dots of floating garbage and plastic.

Well, Guanabara Bay is an enclosed bay - I knew it was badly polluted - but how about the oceanfront beaches, Copacabana and Ipanema? Was my experience at Posto 7 of Ipanema just an isolated one? I was hoping to see a spot along Ipanema that might be a little cleaner. But we banked over that entire stretch of coastline and I was appalled to see a solid band of yellow-brown water that extended offshore for approximately a mile. It was HUGE. You could see clearly where it met cleaner Atlantic water further offshore; there was a clean, undulating line a mile offshore, where brown met blue.

I could see tiny spots around certain points of land where the blue color fought back, fought closer, almost reached the land... almost... but not quite. Even Barra da Tijuca, beach of the rich, was rimmed with brown.

We flew over rivers that were pouring opaque brown paint into the sea.

We flew over Rio's once beautiful Lagoa. Not only solid brown but DARK brown.

We flew over the Cristo. The top of his head was just visible, sticking up through the low cloud that often hovers over the Corcovado. He has a very clear view of the Lagoa, and Copacabana, and Ipanama, and Guanabara Bay. Oh, how he must weep.

How can this horrific environmental catastrophe possibly be salvaged? Is it beyond hope? Is there any realistic hope of turning this around? There must be. Bodies of water can be brought back from the most horrible pollution. We did it in the US, once upon a time, back in another lifetime when the United States was once the environmental leader of the world. Back when we past the world's first endangered species act, the Clean Air Act -and, prodded by the infamous 1969 incident in which the Cuyahoga River of Ohio actually caught fire, we passed the Clean Water Act. That law has produced some near-miraculous turnarounds in water quality. Even New York City Harbor has some oysters again. (And the Cuyahoga is pretty clean now.) The Clean Water Act isn't perfect and the US still has some horrible problems - take one look at a satellite shot of our once magnificent Chesapeake Bay, our largest estuary, now almost entirely a dead zone, to see what I mean. (And see the New York Times' current expose "Toxic Waters" if you're really interested.)

But seeing Rio's waters makes me realize how far the US has come. As bad off as the Chesapeake is, it is nothing like Guanabara.

Well, if the Olympics don't cause some real action on this, then nothing will.

The Metro reaches Ipanema!

2009-12-29T19:03:00.000-08:00

I've just wrapped up a quick 3-day visit in Rio before zipping to Salvador today. The 3 days was just a little preview to the much longer stay in Rio that I'll have in January & February. I haven't posted anything yet because I didn't have much email access this time in Rio - because I was staying with my friend Chris again, who no longer has email in her apartment because she is HOPELESSLY, HOPELESSLY ADDICTED to Facebook on her Blackberry and can't be bothered to tear herself away from it long enough to use the old-school regular Internet.

The Brazilians seem to have discovered Facebook en masse during 2009. I noticed it mid-year when I suddenly got a flood of dozens of friend requests from all kinds of Brazilian friends who had sniffed out my profile somehow. Banga friends, Monobloco friends, friends from I don't know where, escolas, blocos, all suddenly on Facebook. (And when the Brazilians all pile onto a social networking site, watch out. Nobody knows how to socialize like the Brazilians! Brazilians have long been the acknowleged rulers of Orkut, Google's social networking site - an astounding 50% of Orkut's users are Brazilian.)

I've got to say I notice little signs of technical improvement like that everywhere now. Rio is impressively wired and just about everybody (except me of course) seems to have some kind of internet access. All the escolas now have websites (even though they're often filled just with cryptic, flowery, incomprehensible passages about their history, and fail to have certain basic information like the address of their quadra). Even the poor favela kids in the escolas seem to know about the net now, and mug for your video cameras hoping you'll post it on Youtube. (Properly pronounced "ee-uu-too-bee" of course).

What really startled me, in terms of technological improvements, was the subway. For ages, Rio's been slowly ambling through an interminable series of delays in slowly getting its main subway line to reach all the way through Copacabana and, eventually, to Ipanema. For the whole five years I've been going there they've been casually chipping away at the planned Cantagalo station in far Copacabana, and occasionally tossing a shovelful of dirt out of the site of the long-rumored station further in Ipanema's General Osorio plaza. I used to ask Brazilian friends when these stations will be completed and they would just laugh.

Well, last year Cantagalo finished! I was amazed! I thought, well, at that rate it'll probably be another five years before the Ipanema station is finished.

Imagine my shock: The Ipanema station is OPEN!!! I walked up to General Osorio plaza and there it was, a lovely gleaming white dome leading down underneath the plaza. My jaw literally dropped. And it is beautiful. Lovely and huge. I noticed they've also switched the entire subway line (at last) to using rechargable permanent magnetic cards. The place looks impressively high-tech. I saw they'd put a huge sign up in front of it that announces proudly that Rio spent THREE HUNDRED MILLION REAIS (about 180 million dollars) on this one station.

And I thought: The Olympics. That's why this station suddenly was finished so fast - they had to prove to the Olympic committee that they really could get major infrastructure built FAST.

It made me look at all sorts of other aspects of Rio with a new eye. I noticed the airport is subtly improved - lots of new little shops, a new bookstore, a nice cafe. Lots of new buses. They've nearly doubled the number of subway cars. (Still not nearly enough, but oh well.) On a smaller note, they have also had a minor, but critical, technical breakthrough in ventilation of crowded bars - most of the clubs in Lapa have suddenly acquired a ceiling-mounted battery of most excellent tiny silver fans.)

What else will the Olympics bring? What everyone is wondering is - will Rio pull it off? Will they manage to really fix up the city? What everyone is hoping is that the Olympics will be the catalyst for major improvements that will be long-lasting, long beyond the Olympics, much as happened with Barcelona.

There are 3 formidable challenges: the infrastructure, the violence, and the filth. Well, so far so good on the infrastructure. The filth: that's going to take some work. (more in next post). The violence: that's the hardest of all. (more in the post after that.)

Anyway. I kept taking the subway to Ipanema over and over again just so I could pop out of the station right in the General Osorio plaza and say to myself "I'm in Ipanema!!" Ipanema to Lapa, Lapa to Ipanema, Ipanema to Lapa, Lapa to Ipanema, over and over again. "I'm in Ipanema!" "Hey! I'm in Ipanema AGAIN!" Let me go on record as saying I LOVE THE GENERAL OSORIO STATION IN IPANEMA. And now I want an apartment in Ipanema worse than ever... an apartment of my VERY OWN. (no, it's not enough to have an apt. in Salvador; I clearly need one in Ipanema too!)

Lapa for Carnaval!

2009-12-10T00:55:00.001-08:00

The rumors are true - I've recklessly quit my job again and am heading back to Brazil. Three months this time! It'll be my last use of my Brazilian visa, so I might as well do it right.

This time I had the bright idea that it would be fun to stay in Rio's main music district, Lapa, for the month of Carnaval. I happen to have a friend who has an apartment for rent right in Lapa, so, I wrote him, and he wrote back, and it's available, and I booked it, and I paid him, and it's for real! I'm staying in Lapa! For the 5 weeks around Carnaval - fantastic!

I'll do a little hopping around before that - New Year's in Salvador in my own apartment with friends, a couple weeks in Laranjeiras or Flamengo with still other friends, plenty of beach time before and after the Carnaval season. But I'm so pleased that my main spot will be in Lapa for Carnaval itself. All the music clubs are there, and so many of the bloco rehearsals and classes, and I will be much, much closer to the escolas, and much, much closer to Santa Teresa too (one of my favorite areas of Rio). My bloco Bangalafumenga has moved its rehearsals to Lapa this year. Can-not WAIT. I'm listening to my Brazilian Portuguese podcast lessons every day... I already have my Brazil suitcase all packed. (Literally. It's totally packed and ready to go.)

This move is a big one because I also am leaving Portland and leaving my job. Basically I will not have a permanent residence for three months. So, not only am I packed for Brazil, I've already moved all my stuff out of my house, and nearly totally packed up my office at work. I've got a big going-away party planned on Saturday (actually it's not planned at all, but I went ahead and invited the whole world anyway). Then a couple days in Seattle, a couple days in Boston with family, I fly out late on Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas I will be on Ipanema beach. Settling in for a three month stay.

Want to come along? :) It's all waiting for you.

Salvador stories on sambagypsy

2009-06-01T10:26:00.001-07:00

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...

2009-06-01T10:25:00.001-07:00

... 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

2009-03-03T23:07:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-03T23:04:00.001-08:00

(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!

2008-02-17T16:47:00.000-08:00

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.