Fat Tuesday

'Coincidence is not germane to a work of art', authoritatively declares my Taschen coffeetable book, but timing is the heart of comedy. Thus it was with great pleasure that after 18 hours of drunken, costumed cavorting through the streets of Rio de Janeiro (I wore a Pakistani kurta, mirrored John Lennon sunglasses, and a giant headpiece crowned with a big plastic ruby -- when people asked me what I was, I simply replied, "A Potentate"), I arrived home, turned on the TV to watch the big Samba School parades at the Sambadrome, and realized that it was Super Bowl Sunday.

So, while Americans were busy not being traumatized by any number of securely clothed breasts, Brazilians were enjoying live-from-the-Sambadrome interviews with the madrinhas de bateria -- the gorgeous women who dance just in front of the schools' drum troupes, enticingly out of reach, 'heating up the drums' as they say. This is a prized position in the school, some of Brazil's most beautiful women are chosen as madrinhas. But it is not just any type of beauty. No milk-pale waifs here: madrinhas are usually brown-skinned, big, buxom, and with plenty of bunda. They wear elaborate feathered head- and tail-pieces, and little else. Usually just a tapa-sexo, a little triangle of plastic or cardboard wedgied up in there to cover the pubes, sometimes painted and glittered over so you can't even see it. Less chance of a wardrobe malfunction...

And there they are, gyrating, glittering, glistening, being interviewed on national TV in all their monumental glory. The interviewers seem a little sheepish, giving a peck on the cheek to these towering amazons, but they keep their cool and don't oggle. Unlike me: I know I sound like a slavering adolescent here, but these women are truly awe-inspiring. This is my 5th carnaval here, I know the ropes, but moments of pure cultural expression like this, I just find so moving.

Seriously, though. Here you have one extreme of feminine beauty, exalted for all to see, with nobody offended or grossed out, an integral part of a major national celebration that is mostly about singing, dancing, and being happy. Meanwhile, in Jacksonville...

Each country gets the entertainment it deserves, I suppose, so Up With People it is, until 2008 at least. It will be dull, but I am sure we'll reap the benefits in ten or fifteen years or so when we have a brood of hale healthy adolescents with no idea what a human breast looks like, while Brazil's youth descend into a sea of titty-crazed depravity.

And what about the event itself? I could not care less about the Super Bowl, but I do find it interesting the degree to which it penetrates the general consciousness. Not even the World Series (when the yanks were in it) gets so much play in the Times. With the Super Bowl, it's not just the game. There are stories about the advertisers, the half time show, the locale... what gives?

I don't know, but it does strike me that if sports, and football in particular, are metaphors for war (to borrow a bit from M*A*S*H* and Rollerball) then the Super Bowl is something like WWII, the kind of war we can all agree on, the kind of war they used to have. The long, drawn-out 7-game series of baseball and basketball are too eerily like our protracted engagements in places like Vietnam and Iraq (where we came on strong, taking the first two games, but seem to be set to lose the series now that the insurgents have the home court advantage). Worse still are those infuriating Europeans with their interminable, uneventful soccer matches that end in ties (like, say, WWI). I mean, hello? The score is 0-0 when the buzzer sounds, so you just go home and call it a day?! Fucking communists.

No, for us what could be better than 22 men grounding each other into the dirt for one hour of regulation time, with salesmen and pretty girls to fill in every last gap, and at the end the victor is declared, the trophy carried off, mission accomplished, and no pesky congressional committee or video replay to come along and tell you you didn't win after all.

And no titties either, thank the Lord. Now if you'll excuse me, it is Fat Tuesday and I have some more drunken cavorting to do...