Check out sambagata's blog!

My friend Pauline is in Rio now, and she's started a great blog - www.sambagata.blogspot.com. It's about time that girl started a blog! I've always felt sort of silly about being the infamous Rio Blog Girl, because truth is, Pauline's been going to Rio for years and years and years longer than me, and is far better connected with the inside scene in the escolas. (And pagode, too.) Her best friends are some of the very top players in the city. (note to those who remember my older blog entries: Pauline's "Brazilian family" are the ones who treated my parents so marvelously during our visit to Mocidade.) I also have to add that she's also got one of the very best ears for swing and feel of samba of anyone I've ever me, maybe because she is both a wonderful samba dancer AND a wonderful player, a rare combination.

Pauline was actually my original connection to the Lions, too. We had a funny encounter in Rio my first time there - we spotted each other across the room in a samba dance class in Botafogo, and we both half-recognized each other and we were both trying to think: Do I know her from Mocidade?... from Lapa??... from the Sambodromo??? From Salvador???? But at the end of class we discovered we both were American, then that we were both from the Pacific Northwest, and then: "WAIT a minute, do I know you from SEATTLE?" Turned out we'd crossed paths once in Seattle, and we'd never actually seen each other in Brazil before at all. Pretty funny.

Anyway, she turned out to be from Portland, Oregon. And then I realized she was a player with the legendary, mythical group that people in Seattle used to talk about in hushed tones: The LIONS OF BATUCADA. I still remember sitting with her in the little cafe of the samba dance school and thinking: The Lions! She's with the Lions! I'm talking to a Lion! I begged her to see if I could come visit and watch a rehearsal someday. (Just watch; I didn't think I could play with them.)

So that's how I ended up here in Portland. Strange to think of it, really.... here I am today, teaching at the University of Portland - just today I was telling a whole pack of bright-eyed 18-year-olds all about Archeopteryx and how the horse got its hoof - and running the crazy gigantic study on the Asian elephant calf at the Oregon Zoo.... and practicing my new Lions timbal part tonight, and laughing with a bunch of Lions at tamborim sectional last night. All of it ultimately due to meeting Pauline.

Anyway - her blog is great, and she is, as usual, deep in the musical heart of Rio and having all kinds of great experiences. So check it out. And if you see her there, please give her a huge hug from me!