……and we all know that means:<\/p>\n
Time for \u201cThrow out the old year, make way for the new!\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 70s, in Naples, Italy — a city of three to four storey apartment buildings built up around the ancient villas and castles — throwing out the old year was taken as seriously as throwing\u00a0 that ratty old couch out the window. (Haven\u2019t you always wanted to do that?) Tooling around the city on New Year\u2019s day you\u2019d see a selection of smashed furniture, and even the random sink or toilet, hurled ruthlessly onto the cobblestones.<\/p>\n
I always wondered if they had checked for passersby beforehand, or if a couple of people each grabbed a side, took a running start from across the room, charged full-tilt at the window and heaved the thing out in front of them at the last minute. Knowing the Neapolitans as I do, I would guess the latter.<\/p>\n
Safety did not seem to be a big concern in that culture, at least not in those times. They probably screamed something while they did it and considered that fair warning. Plus if you were dumb enough to be out roaming the streets on New Year\u2019s eve, what could you expect? You might say they had a sort of survival-of-the-smartest sort of approach toward safety.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if they still throw out the old year in this way, but I do know that safety is a known concept among today\u2019s Italians and has even trickled through to the Neapolitans. I could give some examples as\u00a0 proof but I don\u2019t want to get too far away from my point. …
\n…which was what? Oh yes, getting rid of stuff as a metaphorical throwing out of the old year. Very motivating. And there\u2019s still time!<\/p>\n
Next I\u2019ll post a photo essay of the items I\u2019ve gotten rid of during this last month, how and where, etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
……and we all know that means: Time for \u201cThrow out the old year, make way for the new!\u201d In the 70s, in Naples, Italy — a city of three to four storey apartment buildings built up around the ancient villas and castles — throwing out the old year was taken as seriously as throwing\u00a0 that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,24,23],"tags":[27,49,48,53,50,47,52,51],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roomforapony.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}