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Samba master class

July 15, 2011 rescharf 0

This is the closest you will get to learning samba without leaving your desk. The one-hour special “Dance the World“, that premiered on  The Travel […]

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Honoring Saint John

June 24, 2011 rescharf 3

Saint John’s festival, celebrated today, is a delicious fake celebration of rural lifestyle, with all the surreal stereotypes that this entitles. It has, almost inevitably, […]

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The Halloween wars

October 8, 2010 rescharf 4

The spooky American tradition of carving pumpkins and dressing as witches or vampires was totally ignored by Brazilians till five or ten years ago. But […]

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Electoral circus

September 28, 2010 rescharf 4

  Cacareco, a rhinoceros adopted by the São Paulo zoo, was elected city councilor in 1958 with amazing 100,000 votes. Thirty years later, chimpanzee Macaco […]

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Saints without a halo*

March 24, 2010 rescharf 2

They were not canonized. They are controversial. There is even doubt if some of them really existed. Nevertheless, Brazilian popular saints generate deep devotion, pilgrimages […]