i have no idea what’s going on in the above picture.. but it looks kinda colourful and fun. AND it was taken in a place called the ’sambadrome’! definately the coolest named building i’ve heard of so far today.
i’ve always had a strange desire to go to carnival (or, as they say in brazil – ‘carniVAL!’) but i’m constantly put off by images of being chased through swarms of dancing people adorned with feathers, by a large mute man with silver teeth (a la Moonraker..)
however, the reason for this (nearly two weeks after the Rio festivities) is because i just read that during the samba and whatnot, a gang managed to steal $50 million worth of paintings from a museum – some work from picasso, dali, matisse and monet no less – and then ‘fled with the paintings, melting into the crowds following the band‘. inspired. you couldn’t make that up. i can just picture them salsa-ing away with these painting under their arms.
it did leave me wondering (as art-theft crimes often do), what are they going to do with the paintings? colour me out-of-touch with the shadowy world of stolen art, but i’ve never understood what the point of stealing them is because why would anyone buy them if they cant display them(?).. blah. loco. in this case, it seems that they tried to sell one of the paintings on an auction site a week later (buyitnow price – $13million), but presumably no-one put in a bid for it.
as a side note, the reward for information about the stolen paintings is $5,000. that’s $5,000 – for paintings worth $50 million. hmm.. something not quite right there..
