Monday, February 23, 2009

And on the eighth day, we rest

Thank gosh. The past two days of blockos have been extremely fun, but after 8 hours each day in 90 degree weather, accidentally rubbing arms against other sweaty, dancing robots, and getting five different burn lines despite applying and reapplying sunscreen, I was ready for a bit of a break. So we stayed at home today and I read one of my books, wrote a little, and chilled out. I even got to do some laundry. But enough of this uneventful day, you want the good stuff...
Yesterday we were in downtown Rio by 830am and my host took me to see the famous steps of Lapa. A Chilean artist has been working since 1990 on building tile into around 180 steps. It started with the tiles being only the colors of the Brazilian flag, but has since evolved into tiles from all over the world. My description isn't doing it justice, so google it: "the Selaron Stairway". We walked up and down and even met the artist, who happened to be doing paintings of the stairway...He asked where I was from and when I told him Los Angeles, he asked in Portuguese whether I knew of Snoop Dogg, who had called his stairs "beautiful".
We went on to a bloco which was pretty similar to the herd of cattle from the day before, but with less marching and with more people hanging and dancing on buildings. From there we went to Ipanema Beach for another bloco, and this one stretched for at least 3 miles along the strand. We were dancing and singing (I was basically just mouthing sound) when a hole parted in the crowd and these two statuesque and busty Brazilian women started samba-ing like crazy. Standing nearly six feet tall and wearing incredibly skimpy clothing, they were spinning like a pinwheels so aggressively I wondered if they were on acid. Noticing strange looks around me I started to examine them more closely, and (wouldn't you know it) under their heavily made-up faces and Rapunzel-like hair was the significant presence of Adam's apples. My friend told me they were "he-shes", and they were getting looks from everyone. It was hard not to, really, since they were dancing so relentlessly, tossing their heads back like elephants waving their trunks (no phallic reference intended). They were truly mesmerizing, especially when one's nipple became exposed without his-her knowing it, but he-she continued to dance. Why should it matter I guess? It's like a man having his shirt off, right...??

1 comment:

  1. sounds alot like mardi gras. those steps are so pretty, the picture of the artist i saw he is donning the oldschool handlebars from the 1800's. wish i could grow facial hair like that. miss you dylann, glad you having fun and experiencing everything they way its supposed to be done.

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