“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”: Adventures of a Curious Character

As soon as we started to march, I saw a policeman, way down at the other end of the road. He looked, saw what was happening, and started diverting traffic! Everything was informal. Nobody made any arrangements, but it worked fine. The people were holding the ropes around us, the policeman was diverting the traffic, the pedestrians were crowded and the traffic was jammed, but we were going along great! We walked down the street, around the corners, and all over the damn Copacabana, at random!

Finally we ended up in a little square in front of the apartment where the boss’s mother lived. We stood there in this place, playing, and the guy’s mother, and aunt, and so on, came down. They had aprons on; they had been working in the kitchen, and you could see their excitement—they were almost crying. It was really nice to do that human stuff. And all the people leaning out of the windows—that was terrific! And I remembered the time I had been in Brazil before, and had seen one of these samba bands—how I loved the music and nearly went crazy over it—and now I was in it!

By the way, when we were marching around the streets of Copacabana that day, I saw in a group on the sidewalk two young ladies from the embassy. Next week I got a note from the embassy saying, “It’s a great thing you are doing, yak, yak, yak …” as if my purpose was to improve relations between the United States and Brazil! So it was a “great” thing I was doing.

Well, in order to go to these rehearsals, I didn’t want to go dressed in my regular clothes that I wore to the university. The people in the band were very poor, and had only old, tattered clothes. So I put on an old undershirt, some old pants, and so forth, so I wouldn’t look too peculiar. But then I couldn’t walk out of my luxury hotel on Avenida Atlantica in Copacabana Beach through the lobby. So I always took the elevator down to the bottom and went out through the basement.

A short time before Carnaval, there was going to be a special competition between the samba schools of the beaches—Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon; there were three or four schools, and we were one. We were going to march in costume down Avenida Atlantica. I felt a little uncomfortable about marching in one of those fancy Carnaval costumes, since I wasn’t a Brazilian. But we were supposed to be dressed as Greeks, so I figured I’m as good a Greek as they are.

On the day of the competition, I was eating at the hotel restaurant, and the head waiter, who had often seen me tapping on the table when there was samba music playing, came over to me and said, “Mr. Feynman, this evening there’s going to be something you will love! It’s tipicoBrasileiro–typical Brazilian: There’s going to be a march of the samba schools right in front of the hotel! And the music is so good—you must hear it.”

I said, “Well, I’m kind of busy tonight. I don’t know if I can make it.”

“Oh! But you’d love it so much! You must not miss it! It’s tipicoBrasileiro!”

He was very insistent, and as I kept telling him I didn’t think I’d be there to see it, he became disappointed.

That evening I put on my old clothes and went down through the basement, as usual. We put on the costumes at the construction lot and began marching down Avenida Atlantica, a hundred Brazilian Greeks in paper costumes, and I was in the back, playing away on the frigideira.

Big crowds were along both sides of the Avenida; everybody was leaning out of the windows, and we were coming up to the Miramar Hotel, where I was staying. People were standing on the tables and chairs, and there were crowds and crowds of people. We were playing along, going like sixty, as our band started to pass in front of the hotel. Suddenly I saw one of the waiters shoot up in the air, pointing with his arm, and through all this noise I can hear him scream, “0 PROFESSOR!” So the head waiter found out why I wasn’t able to be there that evening to see the competition—I was in it!

The next day I saw a lady I knew from meeting her on the beach all the time, who had an apartment overlooking the Avenida. She had some friends over to watch the parade of the samba schools, and when we went by, one of her friends exclaimed, “Listen to that guy play the frigideira–heisgood!” I had succeeded. I got a kick out of succeeding at something I wasn’t supposed to be able to do.