New Year's

FLASHBACK

These pointy revelers were Vanity Fair's stylish suggestion on "How to Spend New Year's Eve, Modern Style" in the dry days just after the "newest and bluest laws" were passed. Sixty-two years later, our hints are not as defiant, though just as spirited. In Italy, do as the natives do and throw your furniture and crockery out the window to start the New Year crashingly. Eat lye-soaked lutefisk in the Midwest, in the Nordic-inspired rite. Watch out for the dark man with a lump of coal who arrives at midnight in Nova Scotia; usher him in for a year's good luck. In Japan, catch the live broadcast from Kyoto of young monks ringing the Buddhisttemple bells 108 times, once for each human evil. And in Muslim North Africa, build a bonfire and leap over it to scorch the evil spirits. Here, of course, it's still simply kissing strangers, and spirits by the case. Joyeux nuovo year.