Invasion of the Mermaids by PXE

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Copacabana recently. A few months back they closed the Metro station in Ipanema, so nowadays the bus drops me on the beach in Copacabana each night and I wander the streets looking for either Siqueira Campos or Cardeal Arcoverde stations to complete my journey home. At first it was a real pain – I got lost quite a bit – but after a while I found that I was getting to know my around the neighbourhood.

As I walked the streets of Copa, I noticed one set of letters appearing over and over: PXE. I’ve seen these letter on walls, shop fronts and especially on those nondescript, grey boxes that contain, erm, telephone wiring? Electricity stuff? Clearly I have no idea what these boxes are for, but I do know that they look better when they’ve received the PXE treatment!

Image source

PXE

PXE, or Marcio PXE to his friends, has a pretty cool blog. I have noticed several themes running through his work and these themes have meant I’ve had to learn some new vocabulary!

Escafandrista – Embarrassingly, I’m not really sure what the proper English word for this is. You know those old-style diving suits with the big copper helmets with a little window and a pipe going up to the surface? Those. Let’s go with “deep-sea diver”.

Lâmpada elétrica – Not so tricky this one – light bulbs.

Sereia – Mermaid.

Put items 1 and 3 (from the list above) together and what do you get?

This piece is entitled A Invasão das Sereias (The Invasion of the Mermaids). Nice isn’t it?