Thursday, December 31, 2009
Barry / Media
Morning Roundup: Let the Good Times Roll Drop
Posted by Bruce Barry on Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 8:05 AM
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Nashville joins the ranks of cities-dropping-things-at-the stroke-o-midnight-to-ring-in-the-new-year tonight when a guitar of some sort drops from a structure of some sort in front of a crowd of some sort down on Lower Broad. Rodney Atkins headlines the Bash on Broadway festivities, which commence at 7:30, and the weather should be manageable in a cold and breezy sort of way. Convention and Visitors Bureau chief Butch Spyridon says organizers will distribute free hand-warmers to the first 2,500 people who show up; no word from Spyridon on whether hand-warmer recipients will be required to pledge a loyalty oath to a new convention center before receiving the goods.
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The almighty Wikipedia (insert here usual Wikipedia caveats) inventories the copious collection of objects dropped by cities and towns to mark the turn of the calendar. Here at Pith we're particularly fond of drops involving animals (opossums in Brasstown, N.C. and Tallapoosa, Ga.; a goat in Falmouth, Pa., a crab in Easton, Md., a carp in Prairie du Chien, Wisc.) and food (pickles in Mount Olive, N.C and, yes, Dillsburg, Pa.; an olive in Bartlesville, Okla.; a sardine in Eastport, Maine.; bologna in Lebanon, Pa.).
Top honors go to Mobile, Alabama's giant mechanical banana MoonPie, which the city spent $9,000 to create a year ago. Mobile does it with a twist: the MoonPie doesn't drop, it rises at midnight (like a moon - get it?). Harriet Sharer, the Butch Spyridon of Mobile, recalls that when they first launched the MoonPie gambit last year "some people thought people would make fun of us," but says now that the pie is cast "it's going to grow exponentially."
In other news ... a shocking theft at a funeral home in Goodlettsville. ... Tennessee's A.G. is sitting out efforts by attorneys general in other states to threaten Congress with a lawsuit over health care reform. ... Vanderbilt signs a big lease on office space near the Green Hills mall for back-office operations. ... A hazmat scare Wednesday in Columbia. ... And to wrap up the year, the state health department reports that the most popular baby names in Tennessee in 2009 were ... wait for it ... Shlomo and Ivanka! Or maybe it was William and Emma ...
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