It Happened Last Week

Fat City

By Jim Holt
Published Dec 6, 2004

As the holiday season officially commenced, New York noticed with some consternation that it had already gained five pounds. Thousands of people converged on Rockefeller Center to watch the annual lighting of the Christmas tree. “It’s so big,” said an awed German tourist of the 71-foot-tall Norway spruce bedecked with 30,000 lights. “I think Americans do Christmas the most beautiful way. It’s not as nice in Germany.” The perils of driving on the FDR in a vehicle of inappropriate size were dramatically illustrated when a bus from Canada carrying a Polish folk-dance troupe had its roof sheared off by an overpass. The unfortunate driver, variously identified as Wu Wuk-Ho or Yu Yuk Ho, said he had noticed the first warning sign but did not heed it, and did not heed subsequent signs, which he failed to notice. A traveling exhibition of the treasures of the ancient boy-king Tutankhamen will bypass the Metropolitan Museum when it comes to the U.S. next year, Egypt’s chief archaeologist announced. This was a grave blow to the city’s cultural pride, as the last King Tut blockbuster not only helped define the seventies as the “joke decade” but also inspired an unforgettable Steve Martin song. Anna Benson, a former stripper and model who is married to Mets pitcher Kris Benson, announced that she would “screw” the entire team plus coaches, batboys, and groundskeepers if she ever found out that her husband was unfaithful to her. He is being closely watched. A retired Navy diver accused of stalking the singer Sheryl Crow, who he claimed was telepathically encouraging his affections, was acquitted by a Manhattan jury, sending the reassuring message that while it may be undesirable to be creepy, it is not actually against the law. Tom Brokaw logged his final night as the NBC evening-news anchor, leaving many New Yorkers nostalgic for the big billboard that used to loom over the West Side Highway saying, IF IT AIN’T BROKAW, FIX IT! And Yankees star Jason Giambi admitted to putting a liquid steroid known as “the clear” under his tongue, which did bugger all for his batting average.