A sight-seeing boat has been launched, something Rio has long needed, since its greatest attraction is still that fabulous bay and its islands. Eight gondolas are being built for the Lagoon, a large, enclosed body of water south of the city. According to the papers, these are “copied exactly from a bronze model Governor Lacerda brought from Italy,” and will have “red velvet awnings.” Provision has been made for outboard motors, too, in case it gets too hot for rowing. Two new cable cars are about to start making the trip to the top of the Sugar Loaf and back. Again according to the papers, the “visibility” will be better from these than from the old ones. This is hard to believe: How could that panorama be improved?
* * *
Although the pace of city life increases constantly, there is still time to stand and stare in Rio. Men linger in groups in downtown cafés or at newsstands to discuss the latest political moves or look at the passing girls. Visitors are always surprised at how many men who would be — in Henry James’s word—“downtown” in New York are on the beaches at 10 o’clock on weekday mornings. This does not mean that Cariocans do not work hard when they work. They just go about it differently.
There is, in fact, much moonlighting. With the present inflation, it is hard to see how workers or the middle class could make ends meet if it were not that everyone down to the humblest nursemaid and lottery-ticket seller did not have some little “business” going on on the side.
* * *
There was some talk of having Carnival for a whole week, in honor of the quatercentenary, instead of just the usual four days, but even Rio finally quailed at the thought and the idea was dropped. But Carnival sambas were in the air for weeks in advance; each night, groups went singing and dancing through the streets with their drums, rehearsing. Traffic would stop, or edge around them, and little boys tag along. No Cariocan can resist that rhythm: The cook sambas in the kitchen, and the guests in the sala move to it unconsciously (the word is rebolar) as they go on with the conversation.
The sambas, marchas and other Carnival songs are the living poetry of poor Cariocans. (The words “rich” and “poor” are still in use here, out of style as they are in the affluent parts of the world.) Their songs have always been made from whatever happened to be on their minds: obsessions, fads, fancies and grievances; love, poverty, drink and politics; their love for Rio, but also Rio’s three perennial problems: water, light, and transportation. As an old samba says:
Rio de Janeiro,
My joy and my delight!
By day I have no water,
By night I have no light.
One of this year’s sambas gives the honest reaction of the masses to last spring’s “revolution”:
Kick him out of office!
He’s a greedy boy!
I’ve nothing to investigate,
What I want is joy!
Justice has arrived!
“Pull” won’t work again!
Some have fled to Uruguay;
Some have fled to Spain!
And here is this year’s version of the annual complaint about the Central Railroad, the line that carries thousands from the huge working-class suburbs north of the city in to work. It is addressed to President Castelo Branco:
Marshál, Illustrious Marshál,
Consider the problem
Of the suburbs on the Centrál!
I’m sorry for poor Juvenal,
Hanging in the old Central
All year long …
He works in Leblon
And lives in Delight,*
And gets to work mornings
Late at night.
Marshál!
Because of its difficult, if lively, topography, the traffic problems of Rio are even more of a nightmare than those of other big cities. Governor Lacerda appointed a tough air force man, Colonel Fontenelle, to see if he could solve them. First, to everyone’s confusion and rage, he changed the direction of almost all the one-way streets: then he attacked double, triple and, some swear, quadruple parking. His system is simple: The police go around letting the air out of the tires of illegally parked cars.
It must be said that this measure, considered much too “hard” by the easy-going Cariocans, has partly succeeded. Anyway, bus travel in the city has been speeded up. This year at least three sambas refer to Colonel Fontenelle’s campaign (with appropriate noises). The odd thing is that these sambas were composed, and are mostly sung (and hissed), by those who have never owned cars in their lives and never expect to.
The words of sambas are nothing without the music, and some of the longest-lived and musically most beautiful have the most hackneyed lyrics. Love — light love and serious love — infidelity, prostitution, police raids and line-ups (the subject of a very pretty one this year), moonlight, beaches, kisses, heartbreak, and love again:
Come, my mulatta,
Take me back.
You’re the joker
In my pack,
The prune in my pudding,
Pepper in my pie,
My package of peanuts,
The moon in my sky.
How much longer the samba can hold out against commercialism, television and radio is impossible to say; there are already signs of deterioration. Especially deadly is the new practice of broadcasting sambas over loudspeakers during Carnival itself, so that the people don’t, or can’t, sing them the way they used to.
Ironically, what may prove to be the real kiss of death to the spontaneity of the samba is that the young rich, after years of devotion to North American jazz, have discovered it. A few years ago only the very few Brazilians, mostly intellectuals, who cared for their own folk-culture took the samba seriously, or went to the rehearsals of the big schools up on the morros, the hills. This year, crowds of young people went, one of the symptoms, possibly, of a new social awareness since the “revolution.” And some of this year’s crop of songs show a self-consciousness, even a self-pity, that is far removed from the old samba spirit.
* * *
Poets are also taking up popular songs, inspired perhaps by Vinicius de Moraes, who wrote the libretto of the movie “Black Orpheus.” He has lately been appearing at a nightclub, Zumzumzum (Rumor), singing his own songs. A young imitator of Yevtushenko, from the south of Brazil, declaimed his poetry to a packed house in Rio, wearing red sweater, white trousers and no socks, with his hair in his eyes. His book is called “The Betrayed Generation.” In fact, a conviction, more or less clearly defined, and more or less justifiable, of “betrayal” seems to be the attitude of both rich and poor, while for the younger rich, a slight subversiveness is considered chic. The Little Castle is a new night club out on Ipanema Beach, and its rich young clientele are often called the “Castelinho Communists”—or parlor pinks.
* * *
The most popular show for many weeks has been “Opinion,” named for the samba “Opinion,” by Zé Kéti, a Negro song writer from the favelas. The cast consists of Nara Leão, one of the first girl singers of “good family” ever to appear in Rio, who represents the repentant uppercrust; Zé Kéti himself, who represents the favelas; and a young Negro from the north, João Batista do Vale, representing the alienated worker who comes to the big city. The three meet, tell their stories, sing, wander about, sit on crates, etc., to the accompaniment of drums, a flute and a guitar. Joan Baez and Pete Seeger are popular now, and so some rather irrelevant North American spirituals and chain-gang songs are included. The death sentence of Tiradentes, “Toothpuller,” the national hero who was condemned for rebellion against Portugal in 1792, is read aloud. There are jokes like: “Red? That color’s out of style now.”