Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Trash

7 comments:

Cláudia said...

To me it's an act of bravery to get so close to the trash insides. I am always afraid I might be engulfed by it.

Carnival is over here. You can't imagine how much litter is still away in the streets. Looks like a war has taken place in Rio. Carnival is a war where pleasure starts as the hero and ends up as the villain.

psephis said...

Hmm... got an idea: I should upload some pictures of trash from Greece (usually half of it 's outside the trash can)

Glenn said...

To be fair, I took this on Sunday. The trash on Tuesday night would have been overwhelming. At midnight on every Fat Tuesday, the police drive or ride horses down Bourbon Street to announce that Carnival is over, and it's time to go home. They are followed by a "second line" of trash collectors who begin the cleanup operation then. It's a job.

Cláudia said...

This is when New Orleans and Rio become very far apart. People here would not accept someone saying to them the party is over. Today, Ash Wednesday, there were a lot of people still wearing Carnival Costumes singing and dancing in the streets. Actually, the Carnival never dies here (which can be a nuisance to quieter people...)

Glenn said...

Oh, nobody goes home at midnight, believe me. But there's a phenomenon here I've noticed every year: by Ash Wednesday, the party is over. People get up in the morning, stop in at a church on their way to work, get their ashes, and begin their Lenten "give-ups". The difference between yesterday and today (every year) is the difference between swirling bright color and shades of gray.

Cláudia said...

Your last sentence is a gem, Glenn! So beautiful!

Although we are a large Catholic Country, people here are actually quite far from the churches. Brazilians made a crazy mixture of religions during the centuries. The recipe is so complicated that you would need an expert to explain to you the outcomes of it. The thing is - we may not believe in God, but we do believe in Carnival...

Glenn said...

And people in New Orleans would never understand why we couldn't believe in both.

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