2011, geriatric, riddled with dementia and confetti-thin bones, must sleep now, perchance to dream of its characters and events taking a place at the fore of Time’s mantle, and make way for 2012, bare and milk-fresh, to grow into another year or the Apocalypse’s finale.
For us, it’s time to celebrate another ending and another beginning, to party with family and friends, to share knowledge of what has been and what’s to come. We at WaFB are happy to provide such knowledge, in hopes that it makes your celebration even richer. Behold, New Year’s Fun Facts:
- New Year’s was invented in 1001 by Manfred Newyeares, a confetti and year-shaped glasses maker.
- Every New Year’s Eve the Times Square Ball is dropped at midnight in New York City. But what becomes of the Ball on New Year’s Day? Each New Year’s Day, the Ball is auctioned off to the highest bidder. For the past five years, the Ball has been fought over by The Magnificent Mort, a Long Island-based magician who wants to the use the Ball for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah illusion that makes the rabbi disappear, and Gleb Zubarev, a Russian playboy who wants to fill the Ball with go-go dancers and caviar. However, both are outbid each year by Dr. Camille Johanson, a geneticist who, after testing a potentially cancer-curing serum upon herself, grew to the height of one hundred feet. Dr. Johanson lives on an unknown island in the South Pacific and her need for the Balls is “none of anyone’s goddamned business.”
- There are no lyrics beyond the first two lines of “Auld Lang Syne”.
- On New Year’s Eve, children from the towns along the U.S./Mexican border are randomly selected and gathered together along the Rio Grande. A sweet bread is baked with a charm hidden in the dough. When the bread is served, the child whose slice contains the charm becomes the Chupacabra. At midnight the lucky child will make the transformation into the mythic beast and maintain the position through the new year.
- No one has ever made the New Year’s resolution to eat less gerbil.
- For those familiar with the film Being John Malkovich, you will recall how, near the end of the film, Dr. Lester and friends enter the portal to Malkovich to prolong their own lives. This may seem like a wild creation by screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, but not to Dick Clark. Clark, host of American Bandstand and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, has in fact discovered a portal to his Rockin’ Eve co-host, Ryan Seacrest. This New Year’s Clark hopes to make the jump into the mind of Seacrest and truly become “The World’s Oldest Teenager”.
