[Rhodes22-list] Biggest Party In The World

[Steve Alm]

The biggest party/music festival in the world is going on right now in
Brazil--Carnival!  It goes on for a full week, 24/7 and culminates in a
frenzied finale on Tuesday--Fat Tuesday-- the day before Ash Wednesday and
the beginning of Lent.  We have a satellite dish and we get the Brazilian
broadcast station, Globo.  They've been showing the parades from all across
Brazil and these are the most over-the-top productions I could ever imagine.
They make the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade look like a high school homecoming!
Maybe someone more internet-savvy than me can come up with some sites that
show live feeds or streaming video.

The parades are a competition and a sequence of "samba schools" as in
"school of fish" for the way they swim through the streets. They're
developed and rehearsed back in the vast favelas (slums) and comprise
thousands of people in each one.  They have a specific underlying theme and
one song that prevails in the whole school accompanied by hundreds of
drummers and dancers.  It can take up to an hour for each school to pass,
and there are dozens of schools in every parade.  The floats, costumes and
music are unbelievable. Sometimes the whole float IS the costume for one
very important person, or maybe the costume is a beautiful woman dressed in
a fancy hat and some paint--that's all.  Some costumes consist of nothing
but glue and glitter.  There's no shortage of T & A.  8-)   And bless
Globo's heart, they show it all.  Most costumes are so elaborate you can't
believe it.  These poor, poor, poor people collect beads, sequins, fabric,
etc and spend the whole year hand-making their costume.  After it's over,
they carefully take their costume apart and save every bead for next year's
costume.

Virtually every business closes for Carnival except the bars, hotels and
restaurants.  Everybody just goes for it!  If you're not in the parade or
watching the parade, you're out on the street anyway partying you butt off.
There's nothing like this anywhere else in the world.  Feliz Carnival!

Slim