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Sometimes the New Year comes in feeling merely newish, a matter of changing months and not much else. But sometimes the New Year brings with it a powerful sense of regeneration, as if, like certain insects, you were entering a new stage of complete metamorphosis.

It’s hard to know which kind of New Year is coming until it comes. Changing digits — from 2013 to 2014 — may be all the change you feel you need. Yet there are only so many New Years in any one life, and it never hurts to be ready for the eventful year, which, as Thoreau once wrote, will drown out all our muskrats. (Or, as the muskrats might say, the year which will drown out all our Thoreaus.)

There are no hymns to the New Year, and the only music most of us associate with this holiday is that dirge of the departing year, “Auld Lang Syne.”

There is no traditional ceremony either — everyone seems to celebrate the day in a different manner. And perhaps this is a holiday that defies both tradition and ceremony. Does it make sense, after all, to welcome the New Year in the Same Old Way? There is not much ritual in turning to a new page in the calendar. All the ritual lies within us, in the aspiration to live up to our highest hopes.

The dead of winter is not a natural season for rebirth. Yet all of nature, dormant now under the cover of cold and snow, is preparing for a re-emergence that always seems spectacular when it eventually comes. Meanwhile, we persist, as much like ourselves on Jan. 1 as we were on Dec. 31. The newness we hope for is something that is ours to construct day by day.

The New Year Within,
NYT, 31.12.2013,
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/
opinion/the-new-year-within.html

Times Square

Celebrates 100th Ball Drop

January 1, 2008

Filed at 9:01 a.m. ET

The New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- Not even a fractured foot could keep Ryan Visto from joining more than a million revelers in Times Square to watch the symbolic sphere make its 100th descent into the new year.

The 18-year-old visitor from San Francisco had taken a tumble on his skateboard in Central Park and landed in the hospital. His family decided the mishap wasn't going to stop them from missing the city's biggest New Year's Eve party.

''They wanted to keep him for surgery,'' said Sheena Visto, his mother. ''But I told them to throw a cast on and do surgery later. We had to come.''

So the family -- with Ryan sitting in a wheelchair borrowed from the hospital -- merged with the masses who counted down the new year as a ton of confetti rained down on the urban canyon.

University of North Carolina junior Reid Medlin, 21, and a couple of his friends arrived for the party without hotel reservations and planned to stay up all night.

''I think the best part is being here with friends,'' he said as people in the crowd kissed. ''This was beautiful. It makes you appreciate everything.''

Organizers said well over a million people attended the festivities.

The Times Square tradition of dropping the new year's ball began a century ago with a 700-pound ball of wood and iron, lit with 100 25-watt incandescent bulbs. This year's event featured an energy-efficient sphere clad in Waterford crystals, with 9,576 light-emitting diodes that generated a kaleidoscope of colors.

The entertainment lineup included Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest handling the countdown to 2008 and musical performances by Carrie Underwood and Miley Cyrus. Even New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez showed up, shaking hands and posing for photos.

A different sort of ball-drop was planned in Brooksville, Fla., north of Tampa, where a 200-pound fiberglass tangerine would ring in the new year. And in downtown Miami, the Big Orange was to slowly climb to the top of the Hotel Inter-Continental, followed by a laser and fireworks show.

About a million people were expected for the 32nd First Night celebration in Boston. The event included a half-dozen ice sculptures, each weighing 30 to 45 tons, performances by hundreds of artists, and a midnight fireworks display over Boston Harbor.

Authorities in several cities, including Phoenix, Dallas and Detroit, pleaded with residents not to celebrate by firing guns skyward. Emergency Medical Service technicians in New Orleans planned to don combat helmets made from the same fiber used in bullet-resistant vests.

The Chicago Transit Authority continued its New Year's Eve tradition of offering penny fares on buses and trains as thousands were expected to head to the city's fireworks shows on Navy Pier. Philadelphia also had a huge fireworks display planned, with 4,000 fireworks shells scheduled to explode over the Delaware River.

In Pasadena, Calif., thousands of spectators reveled and some even slept on sidewalks as they anticipated the Rose Parade. Celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse will serve as grand marshal of the floral extravaganza with the theme ''Passport to the World's Celebrations.'' The parade also features 21 marching bands and 18 equestrian units.

Police kept a close eye on the crowd, which continued to celebrate despite winds and temperatures in the 40s -- cold for Southern California. Jim Colligan, 47, of La Crescenta said he has been camping out at the parade for 14 years with his barbecue and heating lamp.

''We open the barbecue up to everyone. This is my Christmas, this is my time to give,'' Colligan said.

Revelers took to the Las Vegas Strip to watch more than 30,000 effects rocket from the rooftops of seven casinos. The eruption of light and color was choreographed to a playlist of pop music, country hits and, of course, crooner Dean Martin.

More than 300,000 people were expected to crowd the Strip and downtown resorts for the countdown to midnight. They were expected to spend more than $200 million in restaurants, theaters and clubs -- with a big chunk of that going to the hefty door charge, usually around $250, at the Strip's slick nightclubs.

For that much money, patrons could see pop star Avril Lavigne, booked to host the party at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. The LAX Night Club in the Luxor casino scored both Hilton sisters -- Nicky and Paris -- for its bash.

''It's a party city. It's wild out here!'' said Stephanie Smith, 21, of West Covina, Calif., as her friends polished off yard-long margaritas and walked the sidewalk outside the Wynn Las Vegas resort.

By the time the West Coast partied, New York City sanitation crews had already taken control of Times Square. Most of the crowd had dispersed by 12:25 a.m. Tuesday and workers cleared up the confetti, plastic cups, gold streamers, water bottles and other party errata left behind by the revelers.

''It's amazing how much garbage people leave,'' said Brian Hawkes, visiting from Birmingham, England. ''I wouldn't want this job to clean up after them.''

------

Associated Press writer Kathleen Hennessey

contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS spelling of descent.)

Times Square Celebrates 100th Ball Drop, NYT, 1.1.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-New-Year-US.html

Times Square Confetti

to Carry Messages

December 30, 2007

The New York Times

Filed at 9:26 a.m. ET

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- Messages and wishes for the new year from people around the world will float down on the New Year's Eve revelers in Times Square when the confetti is dropped.

For the first time, anyone can get a message printed on a piece of the multicolored confetti by visiting the Times Square Information Center or by using the Internet to type a message on a ''Wishing Wall Online'' -- http://tinyurl.com/2c5efd.

The message-carrying pieces will be mixed among the more than one ton of confetti, organizers said.

Messages can be serious or silly, said Tim Tompkins, a spokesman for the Times Square Alliance, which organizes the party.

So far, messages have included everything from wanting to be taller or having a smarter boss to healthy children and asking for the safe return of a child from Iraq, he said. ''Peace in the World,'' reads one posted on the ''virtual wishing wall.''

''Another person wrote that they wanted their husband to get a green card so that they could join them here in the states,'' Tompkins told WABC-TV.

------

On the Web:

Times Square Alliance: http://www.timessquarenyc.org

Times Square Confetti to Carry Messages, NYT, 30.12.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ODD-Confetti-Wishes.html

2.30pm update

Violent attacks

mar new year celebrations

Monday January 1, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

Violent incidents which left one man dead outside a pub in Bath and another in a critical condition after being shot in a London nightclub, have marred new year celebrations in the UK.

The Bath victim, who has not been named, was found lying on the pavement outside the Longacre Tavern on Julian Road, Bath, in Somerset, just after 1am today.

He had suffered what police described as "abdomen injuries". Four men, all from Bath, were later arrested on suspicion of murder and were being questioned by detectives.

A shooting incident at the Elbow Rooms club in Islington, north London, left a man in a critical condition and and a man and a woman with gunshot wounds.

Police were called to the club at around 2.10am to reports of shots being fired on the dancefloor following a disturbance.

Two men and a woman were arrested near the scene in connection with the shooting and were being questioned at separate north London police stations.

Meanwhile, the London Ambulance Service (LAS) reported the highest number of emergency 999 call outs since the millennium, and in France more than 250 people were arrested as vandals set alight hundreds of cars.

In one of the few British cities where celebrations survived the stormy weather, the LAS received 1,562 calls between midnight and 4am - the majority being drink-related.

The level of calls was up 8% on the same period last year, and the highest since Hotspots such as Trafalgar Square, Parliament Square, Leicester Square and the banks of the Thames river saw LAS staff working with St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross.

The service operated a non-emergency ambulance to deal with minor alcohol-related injuries. A treatment centre was also set up at Guy's hospital minor injuries unit to help reduce the burden of the extra demand.

An LAS spokesman said: "Our biggest problem, not just on New Year's Eve but every weekend of the year, I would say, is alcohol-related calls and that makes it difficult for ambulance service staff to respond to real emergency calls in a timely manner."

Meanwhile, a search resumed today for a man swept from rocks into heavy seas on the Cornish coast.

The man, in his 20s, wearing only shorts and a long sleeved top, was reportedly washed into the waves by heavy surf at Trevone bay, near Padstow, at around 4pm yesterday. A search was launched but was called off last night once it grew dark.

In France 25,000 police were on duty last night and fireworks were banned in Paris, in an attempt to maintain order.

Overnight, 258 people were arrested as an estimated 400 cars were set alight across the country. But the French police said there was less disorder than in 2005.

In Ireland, a murder hunt was launched after a man was stabbed at a New Year's Eve house party.

Gardai were called to the house in Tralee, County Kerry, last night after an argument broke out. The victim, in his mid-30s, was still alive when he was taken to Kerry General hospital, but he died from his injuries at around 10.30pm.

One man, in his early 30s, was arrested and is being questioned about the attack. A postmortem examination is to be carried out today.

Violent attacks mar new year celebrations,
G, 1.1.2007,
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jan/01/
1

Editorial

The Hope of a Fresh Start

January 1, 2007

The New York Times

New Year’s Day is the simplest holiday in the calendar, a Champagne cork of a day after all the effervescence of the evening before. There is no civic agenda, no liturgical content, only the sense of something ended, something begun. It is a good day to clean the ashes out of the wood stove, to consider the possibilities of next summer’s garden, to wonder how many weeks into the new year you will be before you marvel at how quickly 2007 is going. “This will be the year ...,” you find yourself thinking, but before you can finish the thought you remember what all the previous years have taught you — that there’s just no telling.

We are supposed to believe in the fresh start of a new year, and who doesn’t love the thought of it? But we are just as likely to feel the pull of the old ways on this holiday, to acknowledge the solid comfort — like it or not — of the self we happen to have become over the years. We may not say, like Charles Lamb in 1820, that we would no more alter the shape of our lives “than the incidents of some well-contrived novel.” But we know what he means.

No one has faced the prospect of New Year’s time more honestly than Lamb. He knew that its real theme was what he called “an intolerable disinclination to dying,” something he felt especially sharply in the dead of winter, awaiting the peal of bells ringing in the new year. It was an inescapable syllogism for him — New Year, the passing of time, the certainty of death.

What it forced from him was the very thing it should force from all of us — a renewal of our pleasure in life itself. “I am in love,” he wrote, “with this green earth; the face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets.”

The Hope of a Fresh Start,
NYT, 1.1.2007,
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/
opinion/01mon1.html

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