There’s a Sport Invented Here Called Frescobol
It was even yellower in person.
Maybe you’ve played some variation of Frescobol. A google image search yielded this image of a woman with probably fake boobs playing it. It’s funny how things come together when you’re learning about a new culture. On a few of my trips to the beach here I’ve thought “man, these Brazilians are really into that beach paddle game (click on that link and imagine that my brain works that way, when i think of the words beach paddle game something like those images fill my mind) and they’re really good at it.”
Also I noticed this thing on my way into work…
I didn’t take this picture. I got it from here.
It’s part of an abstract tile mural outside of Sarah Kubitschek Plaza (a space for the elderly) in Copacabana. I drive by it every morning and I always got a little laugh out of the name frescobol which means something like coolball or freshball. I’m laughing as I type. Anyway, I’d just laugh it off and didn’t pay attention to the weird shapes on the rest of the mural (here and here). It wasn’t until today that I finally asked the internet what it really is.
The last time I saw people playing freshballs on the beach I thought, “this game is great because all these two people want to do is keep it going, neither of them has an incentive to make it harder for the other. Neat sport!” And now the inscription on the mural doesn’t make me laugh so much anymore. It says:
Homage to frescobol. A sport invented in Brazil in the 50’s, in this very neighborhood between posts 4 and 6. The only sport with a sporting spirit without formal dispute, losers or winners.
The guy’s name down at the bottom, Millôr Fernandes, belongs to a Brazilian writer who helped invent frescobol. Interesting cat. Just because he invented this sport, I’m going to seek out his writing. Oh, and posts 4 and 6 are posts along the beach in Copacabana. Each post is 750m apart. I live further down by post 12.
July 9th, 2005 at 12:08 am
Maybe we are immature, but me and guys who sit by me at work have been giggling about “freshballs” for some time. We also briefly discussed “enchendo saco de alguem” which means “filling somebody’s sack.” It means to bother somebody, or burden them. But when said aloud it makes me giggle. I just told my supervisor to stop filling my sack. I expect I’ll be hearing from HR soon.
July 11th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
If I were Jed in Brazil, I’d be playing Frescoball every afternoon, and I’d be wearing a banana-hammock, and I’d be playing Frescoball with a girl with fake boobs and mesmerizing tan-lines. And then I’d try to get her drunk with ice-cold Brazilian beer. I’d use my blue eyes and sexy american accent to lure her back to my apartment and make her dinner and get her drunker. Then I’d write a story about it and put it on my website for all my friends to read.
But that’s just what I would do if I were Jed in Brazil, but unfortunately, I’m neither.