纽约人"解脱日"粉碎烦恼迎新年
Looking forward to next year was not enough for some New Yorkers Tuesday. First, they needed to shred the bad bits of 2010.
So on annual Good Riddance Day, members of the public were invited to jot down their least favorite moments and memories, then stuff the paper into a giant shredder set up at Times Square.
Big Apple resident Melissa Altman said she shredded "a name, a person I liked for a while, a person I just want to get rid of."
"It's the guy who didn't know I existed," another woman said, throwing her piece of paper into a bin, which then dumped its cargo into the truck-sized shredder.
Two cast members from the musical "American Idiot" tore up a note inscribed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," referring to the recently overturned law that barred gays from serving openly in the military. That too went into the big shredder.
One woman said she had scribbled "California" on her paper.
Others had less grandiose grudges from 2010. "Inhibition, passive smoking and restless leg syndrome," Seth Magee, a graphic artist, wrote on his paper.
Whether the high-tech voodoo works is one thing. But the shredder certainly shreds -- and the shredded paper is recycled as toilet roll.
"You can trust me: none of these memories will ever be seen again once they enter this truck," said organizer Lori Raimondo, with the Times Square Alliance.
The crowd was much smaller than usual on Good Riddance Day on account of the snow left over from a major blizzard on Monday. But on Friday huge numbers of people are expected to greet 2011 on Times Square in relatively balmy conditions.
对于一些纽约人来说，仅仅展望来年还不够。首先，他们需要“粉碎”2010年的那些令人不快的记忆。
周二是一年一度的“解脱日”，纽约民众受邀在纸上写下最令他们不快的时刻或者记忆，然后将纸扔到纽约时报广场的一个巨大的碎纸机内。
纽约市民梅丽莎•奥尔特曼说她把一个名字“粉碎”掉了。“我一度很喜欢这个人，但现在只想忘掉他。”
“这是一个根本不知道我存在的人”，另一位女士说着将一张纸扔到一个箱子里，之后这些物品都被倒进那个卡车般大的碎纸机里。
音乐剧《美国白痴》中的两位演员撕掉了一张写着“不问不说”的纸条，丢进大碎纸机里。“不问不说”指的是刚被废除的禁止同性恋在军队公开服役的法令。
一个女人说她在纸上草草写了“加州”这个词。
有些人对2010年的怨恨似乎没那么深。一位叫赛斯•麦基的平面设计师在纸上写的是：“拘谨、二手烟和下肢不宁综合症。”
不管这种高科技“巫术”是否真能清除烦恼，碎纸机肯定是将所有纸张都彻底粉碎了，粉碎后的纸将会被回收，做成卷筒卫生纸。
这一活动的组织者——纽约时报广场联盟的洛里•雷蒙德说：“相信我，一旦这些记忆进了碎纸机，人们就再也不会看到它们了。”
因为周一暴风雪的积雪还没有清理干净，所以今年参加“解脱日”活动的人比往年少很多。周五的时候天气会相对暖和一些，预计到时候会有大批民众在时报广场迎接2011年。
Vocabulary:
shred: to cut or tear something into small pieces（切碎；撕碎）
jot down: 草草记下；匆匆记下
shredder: a machine that tears something into small pieces, especially paper, so that nobody can read what was printed on it 切碎机；（尤指）碎纸机
grandiose: seeming very impressive but too large, complicated, expensive, etc. to be practical or possible（夸张的）
voodoo: a religion that is practised especially in Haiti and involves magic and witchcraft 伏都教，巫毒教（尤指海地奉行的一种宗教，涉及魔法和巫术）
blizzard: a snowstorm with very strong winds（暴风雪；雪暴）
balmy: (of the air, weather, etc.) warm and pleasant（空气、天气）等温暖惬意的
