In answer to the question more than one person has asked:
You may (or may not) find this hard to believe, but I didn´t do a single thing for carnaval except enjoy the absence of people. That´s right, the absence of people. I don´t know how it is in Rio, but in São Paulo, carnaval is something you have to go to, to seek out. It isn´t something that comes to you, ex cept on television.
My image of carnaval was always the city streets packed with gorgeous revelers, one massive city-wide party of booze and sex, or at least a ton of good fantasies. But here it is held in one specific location that you pay to go to, not unlike the state fair. Well, actually, I guess, it is a lot unlike the state fair, except for the fact that it is at a specific location that you pay to enter. I don´t know anyone who went there. But Monday and Tuesday of last week were my two favorite days so far in Brasil, because the stores were closed and the streets were empty of cars and people, with just a tiny fraction of the activity of an average Sunday morning.
Before I knew how peaceful it was going to be, I made some half-hearted attempts to see if Heitor couldn´t be persuaded to go to carnaval, but he had no interest at all. The main attraction is the competition among the various samba schools, and some year I will make a point of seeing that; for now I just watched it on television. Heitor is a marvelous singer and dancer, and he used to be a member of one of the samba schools. He was pleased to see on line that his old school had won the competition this year, but he didn´t even watch as much of it on television as I did.
Some year I will make a point of going, just as I used to go to the state fair once every few years. At some point whenever I was at the fair, I was struck with the thought that "oh my god, these are all my fellow citizens and they all have a vote." If I have the same thought here, it will be even scarier, because in Brasil it is against the law not to vote. Cést la vie.
No comments:
Post a Comment