Street Runes from São Paulo

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About a year ago I spent about a week in São Paulo. I didn’t have much money (and São Paulo is expensive!) so I spent quite a lot of time wandering around and getting a feel for the city. Before going I had read this article on the BBC website, which tells of some of the strong culture of creativity in Brazil’s largest city. 


I was particularly intrigued by mention of Beco do Batman (Batman’s alley), a 100m stretch of alleyway, covered in all kinds of awesome looking street art. Somewhat typically of me, I never got round to going to this place (I’m saving it for my next visit), but while strolling around the streets I did see loads of amazing street art. 


But as well as loads of nice images, I noticed a lot of strange rune-like symbols all over the place.

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Things you find under bridges in Rio

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The photo, taken in Botafogo,  shows one of my favourite pieces of street art in Rio. Technically excellent, stylistically interesting and (hopefully) it makes you think.

I’m not great with art history and arty references, but this piece by How & Nosm reminded me of Picasso and Cubism in general (I just googled this to make sure I wasn’t being utterly ridiculous. Can now confirm there is definitely a resemblance!).

 

It’s a beautiful piece by identical twins Davide and Raoul Perre, better known as How & Nosm. They are known as the other identical twins in the graffiti world, in reference to Brazil’s very own Os Gêmeos (the twins).

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The Emperor’s Tree, Freed by Slaves

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One of the things I love about life in Brazil is that there are plenty of public holidays. Next Tuesday is the ‘Proclamation of the Republic’ holiday and seeing as it lands on a Tuesday, many people will get Monday off work too. Four days off work just as the summer is getting going? Yes, I’m pretty happy about that. Of course the weather forecast is showing 4 straight days of thundery rain, but right now the sun is shining and I’m heading off to Jardim Botanico, Rio’s botanic gardens. 

The Imperial Palms of Jardim Botanico.




The huge Imperial Palms (Roystonea oleracea) of Jardim Botanico are hard to miss, having been planted in great avenues lining many of the paths. These long-lived palms form a fascinating part of Rio’s history. 

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For Funk’s Sake!

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Picture this: You have been doing a lot of long days at work – getting up early, coming home late (you rarely have time for a proper lunch). It is Monday night and you are still tired from the weekend when there were various late-night events, at which your attendance was non-negotiable. 


When you got home from work tonight you managed to get a quick bite to eat and then head to bed – it is just before midnight and apart from the occasional dog bark, the night is quiet and peaceful. You close your eyes, so tired that you can feel your heavy body sinking deeper and deeper into the mattress as sleep takes you. Half-dreams flit in and out of your consciousness but you are too tired to take much notice. And then…

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Step Up

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In case you didn’t know already, there are a lot of very steep hills in Rio. The thing about building on steep hills is people need a way of getting up and down. I suppose the default solution to this age-old problem is simply to do nothing – walk up and down the steep hill. At the other end of the scale you have trams, elevators and cable cars.

But cable cars and elevators are expensive, so for the most part the people of Rio make do with steps. Living in Santa Teresa I know all about these as I have three routes up/down the hill I live on and two of them involve long, steep steps.

7 banks of 11 steps – I think even Rocky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NubH5BDOaD8&t=1m55s) would find that hard going. For some reason the little girl on the right decided she’d prefer to use the storm drain. Kids are weird sometimes aren’t they?

 

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