What is a "samba de enredo" about? Carnival time!

Carnival is approaching rapidly and the cities where the event is celebrated are rushing to get everything ready on time!

Carnival in Rio and other cities is a serious business and preparation begins right after the Carnival season finishes, after all, organizing a 4,000+ parade formed by amateur dancers and choreographers, and the making up of a theme song, costumes, floating cars, drummers is not something that can be put on hold until the last minute.  
On this Carnival season, I am going to publish some articles on the theme, portraying not only the famous Carnival of Rio de Janeiro, but also the many forms of Carnival celebrations that happen in Brazil and in other parts of the world.  

To start with, how about some new "Carnival-related" words for our vocabulary? We start with the word SAMBA DE ENREDO and in the next articles you will meet other important vocabulary for the Carnival season.  

Let's keep in mind that vocabulary learning is not only learning a bunch of words and their usage, but mainly, to learn what the word mean in cultural/historical/social aspects.  This is how we can increase rapidly the number of vocabulary we are able to study and not to forget, a common complaint students make.  

Here we go:

Samba-enredo or samba de enredo – the Samba Theme, they help to understand the theme, so they have to be clear, poetic and show good taste.

But what is all the fuss about it?  And why is it so important for a carnival parade?

Each school parading in Rio or São Paulo competitions must present a "samba de enredo" and one of the things the judges take into account when marking the scores for each presentation is the participants engagement with the song.  Everyone must sing the theme.  When the samba de enredo is ready, by the middle of the year, the schools launch the tune in CDs so that people can buy it and rehearse the song.  It must be catchy, with repetitive chorus, easily memorable and 


The samba de enredo is chosen at the beginning of each year by the carnavalesco (professional who is responsible for the production of the parade of the samba school he works for) and the president of the samba school.
They create a blurb that explains the topic of the parade and  the samba de enredo must be made based on it​​.   They also plan the order of the floating cars during the parade and the different sections, according to the number of people.   The dispute to choose the song for the samba de enredo usually happens at the school grounds and a evaluation panel is assembled to evaluate each song presented by the samba writers. The panel is composed by "old school" carnival experts, older "carnavalescos" and important people from the community where the school is inserted.  

The parades of samba schools in Rio Carnival has immortalized songs that all Brazilians know to sing.  Neguinho da Beija-Flor, a renowned samba composer, says:  a good samba de enredo is responsible for 70% of the successful performance of a school."

The school receives a large number of different compositions of samba songs. They are selected and performed several times on "decision day", at the school for the jury and the community to define which one stirs the audience. The one to win is the one that most excites the crowd!


Based on articles from the following websites:
http://www.sesctv.org.br/destaque.cfm?id=5992&destaque_id=4
http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-entertainment/rio%E2%80%99s-carnival-glossary/
http://www.homesinrio.com/carnival-in-rio.htm

Defenestrar: a very Portuguese verb

Portugal has scrapped 4 holidays in 2012.  

The government drops the holidays of Republic Day (5 October), Independence Day (December 1), Corpus Christi (mobile holiday this year to June 7) and the Assumption of Our Lady (August 15). The proposal is part of the draft labour reform that will be analyzed by the social partners next week and then back by the Council of Ministers.

For many people in Portugal, having the two civil holidays cancelled is understood as a provocation, an offensive way to underestimate the power of people:  the abolishment of the monarchy and the retake of Portugal from the Spanish hands.   Nothing could be as offensive.

A blogger says:

"It is a tremendous symbolism, that the year of Troika occupation will be the last year Portugal will celebrate its independence."

Source article

Do you know what happened on this day, on the December 1st in 1640? 

On December 1st, 1640, Miguel Vasconcelos was the Secretary of State (prime minister) of the Duchess of Mantua, vice-queen of Portugal, on behalf of King Philip IV of Spain (Philip III ofPortugal).  He was hated by the people, being Portuguese, for collaborating with the Philippine representative of Spanish domination. He was the first victim to be thrown out of the window.   Yes.  This was how the Portuguese people decided to oust the enemies of their land.  .

After entering the palace, the conspirators hunted for Miguel Vasconcelos, but there was no sign of him anywhere in the Palace: they had walked the halls, the offices,the chambers of the minister, and nothing.  It turn out that Miguel de Vasconcelos, when he realized that he could not escape, got inside a closet and shut himself inside with a gun. 

What finally denounced he was hiding there inside was actually the size of the cabinet: the fugitive, trying to move there inside to change his position, squirmed inside, causing a loud noise due to the amount of paper, boxes etc which were inside the cabinet.  The conspirators heard it all and started to kick the cabinet's door, finally having it opened and shooting Vasconcelos.   Then, they grabbed the corpse and  threw it out the window.
The body fell in the middle of a mob who started to revenge on it all their wrath, committing real atrocities and after that,  being left at the crash site to be licked by dogs, a symbol of pure debauchery.

Another blogger says:

"This is the last year when December the 1st and the Republic day will be national holidays.  Interestingly these are two dates supported by popular revolutions. Maybe for this government, revolutions are neither good to remember nor to celebrate."

Source article 

Vocabulary:

The special verb (action word) to learn from this story is the verb that defines the "spirit" of the revolution on the December 1st in Portugal:  DEFENESTRAR - to violently throw through or out of the window.

Revolution - Revolução 

Palace -  Palácio

Cabinet (furniture) -  Armário

Troika  -  The term Troika has been widely used in Greece (Greek: τρόικα)^[1] and Ireland,^[2] and now Portugal (Portuguese: troika)^[3] to refer to the presence of the European Union, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund in these countries since 2010 and the financial measures that the three governments have been forced to take.  (wikipedia)