Published: January 2, 2008
RIO DE JANEIRO: It's good to begin the year in a country where coconuts are cleaved with nonchalant grace and the air is salty-sweet and there are guys on the beach from the "Life is Too Short Surf Club" and the Minister of Tourism advises those frustrated by long lines in airports to "relax and come."
That last remark, from Marta Suplicy, was voted one of the quotes of the year by the daily O Globo, along with another from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva evoking the most sensitive point of the female anatomy to explain his search for the essence of an energy accord with the
This is a serious as well as a sensuous country with a stock market up more than 70 percent in 2007, burgeoning oil and ethanol industries, planes for export, iron ore to keep the Chinese happy, and much else to buttress its rising-power status. But pleasure trumps sacrifice and there's a "jeitinho" - ingenious fix - for anything.
So I've resolved to adopt Brazilian karma for 2008 and forget all the little irritants that plague American lives: microwaved croissants, high-five contagion, globalized brunch, death by PowerPoint, shops calling themselves "shoppes," the inconsistency of belt- and-shoe-removal rules at airports, Apple addicts vaunting the latest gadgets and people who convey agitation or anger by writing in ALL CAPS.
I'm not even going to be irked by automatically flushing toilets that flush before you're done, "hot towels" that are just wet, automatically activated faucets that never activate, congealed risotto, the prodigious capacity for getting tangled of cords for iPods and computers and cellphones, backpacks with wheels, rolling backpacks being rolled by adults, voice-mail hell, or the middle-aged trying to sound hip about the Web.
Nope, I'm done with irritation. Give me expiring hotel key cards, yet more on Princess Diana and Dodi, TV correspondents waiting for hurricanes, headache-inducing prosecco, Web sites I'll only visit once that require a password, conspiracy theorists, people afflicted with the control-freak-martyr syndrome ("I do so much I never have time for myself"), tape dispensers that don't work, sommeliers who decant indifferent wine, even Christmas starting the day after Halloween - I won't raise an eyebrow.
Test me with flickering video images on planes, the noun-verb frenzy as in "you disrespected me," the insidious beat from others' iPods, people who say "waiting on" rather than "waiting for," the systematic relegation of Saddam Hussein's crimes to a subordinate clause, offshore wind turbines, the unerring instinct of hotel mini-bar replenishment people for arriving at the wrong moment, equally ill-timed calls from mothers-in-law, and the decorative use of indigestible red peppers. You'll find me happily tuned to Bossa Nova.
I refuse to be troubled in '08 by sensible "orthotic" shoes, kids staring at computer screens, kids saying "wait" at the start of sentences, surreptitious below-the-table BlackBerry use (the technological equivalent of picking one's nose, as my colleague Jill Abramson noted), undercooked arctic char, cinnamon or chocolate on cappuccino, greetings on your TV screen in hotel rooms, overfilled wine glasses in restaurants, organic everything, or people on the train saying "Hi, honey, I'm on the train" into cellphones. Nope, this is my Candomble season.
You can throw it all at me: overheated rooms, bank clerks who ask "Have I exceeded your expectations?" and rob you with the fine print, Brian Williams' bristling chest, theft-dissuasive hotel hangers that can only be suspended on rings with key-like slots, super-sized sushi, "adventures" in Africa for the rich, fear-mongering from banks about identity theft, Starbucks staff operating in slow motion, Chicago's ban on foie gras, and, as my daughter Jessica pointed out, all those people who respond to a compliment by telling you how much they paid ("I got it at Banana Republic for 75 percent off"). I'll be viewing the world through the surfer's prism.
I know, starting in Iowa today, we will watch the race for the most important post on earth unfold, one that will end our subjection to President Bush's irritating smirk and Vice President Cheney's irksome scowl, and we will watch in the hope that the fear that has pinched our lives and made us more irritable will be undone by November's winner.
No new president is going to deliver a tropical
Still, it's a rich political moment. We've got a woman, a black, a Mormon, a creationist and perhaps a Jew in the race: Some U.S. taboos are falling. The end of a vexed political season may be in sight. Here's to an irritant-lite, liberating 2008 for all, and not just in Copacabana.
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