Midnight in the Garden
continued
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Umberto Eco, Here, too, you entered through a little garden… Amparo drew me aside as we went in. “I’ve figured it out,” she said. “That tapir at the lecture talked about the Aryan age, remember? And this one talks about the decline of the West. Blut und Boden, blood and earth. It’s pure Nazism.” “It’s not that simple, darling. This is a different continent.”…. If the outside was seedy, the inside was a blaze of violent colors. It was a quadrangular hall, with one area set aside for the dancing of the cavalos. The altar was at the far end, protected by a railing, against which stood the platform for the drums, the atabaques. The ritual space was still empty…. |
“Atabaque – a large tom-tom
that is used in Afro-Brazilian
religious celebrations”
— The Sounds of Samba
at Yale
“Of African origin, and made of jacarandá wood in a conical shape. A calfskin head covers the top of the drum. It is used a lot in capoeria and candomblé and umbanda rituals all over Brazil. There are three kinds of atabaques: Rum, Rumpi, and Lê. Rum has the deepest sound and is a solo drum; Rumpi has a medium sound, and Lê is the highest. These three hold the beat.”
Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom….
— Cole Porter, “Night and Day“
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Your feats end enormous, In the name of the former |