The Cultural Center of Federal Justice

The trick in which one projects an image of a speaking face on an inanimate object has spread far and wide. Your correspondent first saw it presented as art by Tony Oursler, and the first time you see it, it's undeniably cool. It was also well done at the Latvian speaking stones installation. The Brazilian Federal Justice Cultural Center has a less expertly installed version in which various primary source legal experts discuss the formation of the modern Brazilian court system. For the enlightenment of our readers, one such installation is pictured above for those who are impervious to nightmares about slightly malformed disembodied heads discussing jurisprudence on command.

Vidigal

We haven't visited the favela of Vidigal. Favela is the Brazilian word for "shanty town" or "slum" or "poor neighborhood." As the Rio police undertake a slow but successful campaign of "pacifying" the favelas and forcing out the most prominent drug-trafficking elements, the hillside towns have become a tourist attraction. In this case, we took a picture from the safe distance of a couple miles of water away, with Vidgal's lights spreading up the Two Brothers at sunset.

Grumari

Hey, we made it outside the city! Not far outside the city, but far enough to find this lovely beach, called Grumari. Best part is that it has a park behind it rather than a series of apartment buildings as is the case in Ipanema. The whole baby thing on top of two work schedules has definitely slowed down our pace of exploration in comparison with prior tours, but it hasn't quite stopped us entirely. More soonish!

A cheap one from around the house

I think this picture of a nationalistic bar of soap really says a lot about life in Brazil. Exactly what that is, I don't know. Probably something more than the fact that they spell Brazil "Brasil." Let me know if you figure it out!

Hip Hop

Ok, last picture from Carnaval. There might be more interesting pictures and crazy costumes, but I'm getting tired of them, so our few readers probably are, too. But these costumes are great! Right? I'm sure there's a great history somewhere about how the carnaval costumes developed from elaborate to ridiculous. We're certainly in the latter category now.

A rainbow of Carnaval fun

In theory this ought to be a better picture than it turned out being, what with all the color and contrast and such. But we couldn't really move to a place where the composition would have wound up better, which is a pretty serious constraint on trying to photograph a parade from an assigned seat. Anyway, we have a few more nice carnival shots, and then we're going to try to move on to new territory soon. Our biggest problem at the moment is getting out with the camera. We get out sometimes, but now we carry so much baby stuff around that we don't always want to add a camera bag to the load. But for our adoring and dwindling viewing public, we will try!

Uh, More from Carnaval

Sorry, we should really move on. But we can't yet. So here are some portrait-style pictures of people in the same general section Carnaval parade.







Yeah, the guy in the middle is smacking himself on the ass for the camera. Good times.