Other Olympic Observations

[pll]

[\PS Just watching the Closing Ceremony......................hmmmmmm, not keen, although Stomp absolutely brilliant! Far too many old songs, in my humble opinion and where the hell did they dig up Ray Davies from the Kinks!

We get to watch it only now. I am liking it thus far... precisely because of some old songs. George Michael!? Resuscitated... That is some odd facial hair style.

[Penny4]

I think the USA uniforms are a little silly, especially the women's. If I were one of the athletes, I would have rebelled by wearing my track suit.

[colby]

I think the USA uniforms are a little silly, especially the women's. If I were one of the athletes, I would have rebelled by wearing my track suit.

When I saw some of the other teams in theirs, I thought, cool! The track suits are cool, comfy, and fun. Then I saw the US athletes... bah. The Canadians and British look dressed much more appropriately for the party!

[ClockworkOrange]

We get to watch it only now. I am liking it thus far... precisely because of some old songs. George Michael!? Resuscitated... That is some odd facial hair style.

From George Michael onwards it got considerably better, there were some great stars, so Mrs Grumpy enjoyed it in the end.

[pll]

In the Rio segment of the closing ceremony, the NBC folks were *totally* lost. It was a neat thing to see Marisa Monte on that float, made to look like Iemanjá, a mother goddess in the African Yoruba religion, also worshiped in Brazilian candomblé. The problem I found with that segment is that it is typical of Olympic ceremonies: trying to be super symbolic, it loses the audience.

Anyway, I would recommend to everyone on this forum to listen to Marisa Montes singing "Carinhoso" (Affectionate) with Paulinho da Viola. The video and lyrics (translated to English) are in this page -- it is just beautiful:
http://lyricalbrazil.com/tag/carinhoso/
"Carinhoso" is a 1917 song by a composer/saxo player known as Pixinguinha -- think Louis Armstrong to grasp how influential he was.

ETA: the song starts at 1:31 in the video. Prior to it, there is historical footage of Pixinguinha, then some words from Paulinho da Viola (which literally translates to Little Paul of the Guitar) about the significance of the song. Marisa Montes says she had never interpreted it publicly, only at home and in the shower, "like all Brazilians".