Nightlife

Gentle readers may have heard that Rio de Janeiro is a dangerous city. What you have heard is true. At night people in cars tear through traffic lights to avoid being attacked by roving gangs of thugs while their cars are stopped. Certain parts of the city are to be avoided altogether. This is not easy to do considering the city's topographically-influenced way of separating the rich from the poor. There are a number of mountains scattered throughout the city called morros. On the morros are the favelas (slums). In the valleys in between the morros are the shops and the middle-class who must pass through tunnels under the mountains to travel between work and home, etc. Of course not everyone who lives in a morro is a thug. Most people are simply the working poor. Still, it is the drug lords and the thugs who control what happens in the favelas. Though lately it seems the drug lords are being replaced by armed militia-for-hire who have connections to dirty politicians and the police. [See the following recent article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/world/americas/13brazil.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&emc=tnt]
The faux carioca explains all of this to you so that you understand why she seldom goes out at night. Even the major thoroughfare where her middle-class Copacabana apartment building is located is considered very dangerous after a certain hour (let's call it 11). Oh sure, she could go to Ipanema or Leblon and take a cab back home. But boring, overpriced nightclubs don't interest the faux carioca and she doesn't know anyone who can accompany her to the more interesting bohemian night spots. Still, your faux carioca is nothing if not resourceful when she is determined. Last night she simply had to attend the prostitute fashion show on the wrong side of the city's longest tunnel.

Daspu (www.daspu.com.br) is a fashion line created by a group of prostitutes. "Daspu", of course, being short for das putas (from the whores). In yesterday's O Globo, the faux carioca learned that Daspu was putting on a fashion show so she ditched her plans to crash another fashion event. Readers should note that it has been fashion week in Rio for the spring/summer 2009 Brazilian collections and the faux carioca wanted to catch at least one show. Perhaps not surprisingly, Daspu was not invited to participate in Fashion Rio and so created their own show calling their event "off-fashion." But however to get to the gig?

The faux carioca could find only one person willing to join her and sadly he is a walking target for all manner of assaults. Thankfully there's some kind of magic in the Carmen Miranda Museum. The museum and its staff have been like a charm to your gentle writer. When the faux carioca's target companion realized that it would be safer for everyone if he didn't travel so far afield, she told the delightful staff about her dilemma. The museum's director expressed an interest but had another comittment. One dear woman said she would go and that she had a car--considerably safer than public transportation or trying to find a taxi in the neighborhood after the show ended.

So the two women drove to São Cristão just north of the Sambodromo where the event was being held in a samba school.

To be continued.