Letter from Boston

New Year's Festivities

By MASAKO YAMADA

I went to my lab for a few hours Dec. 30 and discovered that quite a few of my peers didn't have any plans, fancy or plain, for New Year's Eve. This surprised me, since this day had been heralded as the "Party of a Lifetime" by the media. However, perhaps I should not have been too surprised, since I didn't have any special plans either.

The only activity I could think of was to go to the First Night celebration sponsored by the City of Boston. The program looked interesting, but I couldn't help thinking that it was a bit sad to rely on a public event for entertainment on such an important day. Therefore, on the 30th, I decided that I wanted to throw a party. I discussed this with my boyfriend and we decided to host a small dinner Dec. 31.

It was an abrupt decision — only a day in advance — so we immediately started calling and e-mailing people whom we suspected would be free. We also had to move quickly to prepare all of the food. I decided to serve salmon caviar with pancakes and temaki-zushi with assorted fillings, since they are self-serve dishes that are easy to prepare and serve, but they also feel festive and luxurious. The food was not difficult to prepare and I even had time to watch the worldwide New Year's festivities on TV. No Y2K problems were reported in the countries that faced the year 2000 before we did, so it didn't even occur to us to save water in the bathtub.

We had a cozy party with the seven people that showed up. There was plenty of food and wine, and we went downtown to see the midnight fireworks after we finished eating. It was not a fancy affair, but I was glad that we managed to get a group activity going. After the fireworks, we half-heartedly looked around for an "exciting" party, but we couldn't find any (at least, not any that were free). That was OK with me. We wandered around Boston Common for a while to look at the decorations and then everybody headed home.

New Year's Day doesn't really strike me as an indoor family holiday in the States and I saw many people outside on New Year's. Many stores were open, from local mom-and-pop stores to national chain stores.

My boyfriend and I decided to go to a free champagne tasting at a local liquor store, and then we went downtown to do some shopping. We spent 30 minutes shop ping for jeans and spent the rest of the evening wandering around the city and absorbing the festive atmosphere.

Most of the people we saw seemed to be in good spirits, but some of them seemed almost impatient with the calm Bostonian New Year's Day. We stopped at an outdoor rotunda where a local band was playing as part of the First Night program. A very happy, slightly crazy-looking woman instructed us, "It's New Year's!! Hold your arms up like this and swing them from left to right!! IT'S NEW YEAR'S!! Whistle like this!!"

The band was a flamboyant brass jazz band that did an excellent job of creating a colorful, exciting atmosphere in the middle of the large park. However, I could see that the members wanted to see a bit more excitement among the audience.

We passed by another First Night pavilion that had an Enchanted Village diorama inside and encountered another jolly person. We asked him how much the tickets were, and he said "It's $1 (¥105)!! I printed those tickets, and they still wouldn't let me in without buying one!!" He then said to my boyfriend, "HEYYYY!! You look just like one of my favorite guys in the whole world, Larry!! I don't remember his last name, but he's with those two other guys ... Curly and Moe!!" This funny guy tried to push us toward the pavilion and we were tempted, but we decided to pass on the 45-minute wait.

I have to admit that some of the First Night presentations were less-than-stellar, but I don't think an external governing organization should be expected to make all individuals happy. True excitement has to come from within ... and I think the city did a very good job of providing many opportunities for residents and visitors to have a good time. At least, I had a good time.

Shukan ST: Jan. 14, 2000

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