This made MoMA’s kickoff of a series of 24-hour screenings on New Year’s Eve a perfect fit, a civilized alternative to the mobbed masses huddled to the south. The work strikes midnight dramatically with an extended clip from The Stranger, in which Orson Welles dangles from a clock tower, followed by 10 one-second clips by way of a punctuated countdown.

It must have been great for those who made it into the theater. For the 75 or so museumgoers stranded in line, The Clock was a more curious decision: There would be no dropping ball, no Mayor Bloomberg dancing with a surprise celebrity, no drunken shouts heralding the new year.

What could be said for them?

That they were the regular MoMA-going crowd: urbanites and tourists, art lovers and students, one 7-year-old and a smattering of well-heeled society-types who appeared close to midnight and seemed to slip past the line? That they’d chosen to pass the passing of another year passing time in a line to watch a film focused on time’s passage? That they’d forsaken food and drink and good cheer to quarantine themselves from the madness outside? Had they stepped out of time? Had time passed them by?

“They said nothing good happens after midnight,” said Tricia Melloy, in from New Jersey to see The Clock. “I guess I wanted to find out.”

“We wanted to avoid all the New Year’s nonsense,” Justin McKinney told the Transom.Mr. McKinney was in from Montreal with his wife. They’d spent some time watching The Clock earlier in the evening, and after a bite at the MoMA Café, they decided to stick around for the climax.

And so they waited in the museum’s second-floor atrium. They passed time in conversation, or stretched out on divans in the center of the room. They drifted into the contemporary galleries, or popped into the café for a dessert plate or a sip of champagne. One young woman gave the crowd a taste of the spectacle they were missing out on in the streets, pantomiming a strip tease on Philip Worthington’s “Shadow Monsters” installation. Not that anyone really noticed.

Time passed, the line inched forward, and those in it became philosophical.

“Time is arbitrary anyway,” Dan Nation told the Transom. Chinese New Year, he pointed out, is situated, more logically, at the end of winter. “Besides,” he said, “I imagine there are people waiting on line to get into a club somewhere.”

“It’s all very meta,” David Osit admitted, having given up on The Clock to lead two out-of-town friends in search of a bar. “The experience of watching something passing seemed interesting. The experience of waiting on line, not as much.”

Last-ditch strategies were discussed. Rush the door, someone suggested. Tell people the show is canceled. Yell fire. Midnight neared. With 30 seconds to go, an iPad was thrust in the air, live-streaming the end of the year. Everyone shouted out the last 10 seconds.

And then it was over. There were handshakes and hugs and sedate kisses. Everyone looked a little better than they should have in the soft museum light. Ten blocks south, amid the Times Square madness, thousands were dancing in neon, laughing and shouting and who the hell knows.

Time passed. At 12:06, the first lucky patrons began exiting the theater, but we were still waiting. —P.C.

Mayor Bloomberg and Lady Gaga ringing in the new year.

It’s 2012, and according to the Mayan calendar and that documentary about John Cusack trying to save his family by piloting a plane out of New York, we’ve come to the tail end of mankind’s history on this planet. Since we don’t know exactly how many more months (or weeks? or—gasp!—days!?!) we have left until the meteor strikes and obliterates us like it did those dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (here’s hoping some mosquitoes carrying our DNA get trapped in amber!) we’ve decided to look on the bright side of this new year. After all, it may be the last one we’ve got.

And what a New York New Year’s Eve it was! Mayor Michael Bloomberg even invited Lady Gaga to be his date for the midnight ball drop—a match made in some weird, David Lynchian heaven. We were racking our brains trying to think of what those two might have in common except a penchant for wearing questionable sweaters, but couldn’t think of anything. Ms. Gaga’s 2011 campaign was all about anti-bullying, while Mayor Bloomberg sent police in riot gear to end a two-month stand-off with some hippies in a small park. Oh, who can blame him? So he’s part of the 1 percent. Baby, he was born that way. (Perhaps that’s what Mayor Bloomberg and Ms. Gaga actually share in common: a shared tax bracket and love of fine Manhattan apartments.)

Sadly, the Bloomberg-Gaga combo wasn’t the strangest thing as the clock struck midnight. Kathy Griffin, once again appealing to the lowest common denominator of CNN viewers who are home alone on New Year’s, actually took off her shirt during her annual hosting gig. BFF Anderson Cooper’s tittering response after he stopped pretending to be shocked by Ms. Griffin’s yearly ploy for attention? “You’ve got a rocking bod.”

On the other hand, ABC—which usually keeps New Year’s Eve slightly more classy—flashed an odd image in-between shots of the cheering crowds in Times Square. Was that ... why, yes, it is! Jenny McCarthy, ladies and gentlemen, gently sucking face with a member of New York’s finest. This image was replayed on loop for approximately the next three hours, and later Ms. McCarthy was even interviewed holding hands with the uncomfortable-looking NYPD officer. Don’t worry officer, if Jim Carrey comes after you, you always have your Taser. Actually, that’s not terrible advice for the next time a crazy lady who believes that innoculating children against horrible diseases causes autism (a disease that can be cured by love and a good diet!) tries to wiggle her tongue down your throat in a desperate bid for attention.

But there was one weekend treat to cause New Yorkers to cheer for something other than an arbitrary date on a calender marking their slow progression toward extinction: the New York Giants made it into the playoffs! Hoorah! It was a post-Christmas miracle to see the otherwise Scroogey Tom Coughlin break into a smile after his team decimated the Dallas Cowboys. And hey, maybe that means that Victor Cruz’s little salsa dance after every touchdown will replace Tebowing as this season’s most imitated maneuver by impressionable high school students. At least the wide receiver’s little shimmy-shake isn’t indicative of his steadfast belief that Jesus hates gay people and abortions.

So as you begin to stockpile food, Manolo Blahniks and Champagne in preparations for the end of the world, remember, it’s not over yet. We still have a whole lot of crazy to get through first.

Happy New Year! (Robin Roemer Photography)

Nothing screams "The Mayans will be proven wrong this year!" quite like watching a young man swing from the rafters after hanging himself in a very loose adaptation of Macbeth, but for fans of the interactive production Sleep No More, there was no better way to ring in 2012. After getting an invitation from the Thane himself asking for our attendance a special gold and silver party at the McKittrick Hotel--where Sleep No More has been in residence since March with co-production companies PunchDrunk and Emursive--we arrived up not knowing quite what to expect.

Would we be allowed to remove our Eyes Wide Shut Italian Renaissance-style masks and talk after midnight, or, going with the show's traditional rule, would we be forced into an anonymous silent cheer when the countdown reached zero?

We shouldn't have worried: Emursive and Punchdrunk have done nothing except usurp the expected, and when the audience was corralled into the ballroom at 11 p.m., it wasn't just Macbeth's body that dropped: suddenly, the drapery from one wall descended, revealing a fully-stocked open bar. A strange, Zoolander-ish DJ appeared from one of the box seats, piping in DJ-remixes of dancehall music...1920's dancehall, that is. (Anyone looking for a dubstep version of ragtime classics should look into hiring this gentleman for their next event; he was marvelous.) It was a full fantasy played out on three levels of the hotel: besides the ballroom, bars were open in the faux-lobby "scene" room and in the cabaret that serves as the entrance to the show. Neat trick, not having to pay $8 for a drink (as the usual scotch and soda in the  cash-only bar in caberet will cost you).

And perhaps this was just something we missed during our first visit to the McKittrick, but did Sleep No More always have a hard candy emporium room, or was that just a special little kickback to the guests who paid $125 a ticket to come to the pre-show? (Those wanting entrance at 12:30 could make it for only $100...only $20 over regular admission price, but without the cost of having to be silent for three hours.) The males in our company had a delightful time stuffing their pockets full of hard licorice sweets, while the ladies--sans clothing holes to hoard things in--had to suffice by shoving a bunch of old mints into their cheeks and saving them for later; like chipmunks expecting a cold front.

Midnight was count down by cast members dressed up as different numbers, and when a working clock that read "Happy New Year" reached its final "r," several peacocked dancers in shimmering skivvies and flesh-colored leotards jumped up on what was previously the banquet table and proceeded to can-can. We finagled our way into the VIP lounge, where we shared a whiskey with the father-in-law of one of the producers, who, much like another tragic Shakespearean king, was affectionately showing off his three daughters to friends and close relations.

Before the bell struck twelve, we overheard the performer who had played our Macbeth engaging friends by dropping his sulking leer for a more fay posture, while the bartenders retained their English brogue throughout the course of the evening. (Now we know why none of the characters in the show talk...it would totally ruin the effect!)

As we were wished a solicitous New Year's Eve by a young woman serving drinks with a Scottish lilt, we tried to decipher whether her accent was real, or, like so many other things in Sleep No More, a pure fabrication. Either way, we agreed, it had the desired effect of keeping us in the realm of the source material for the rest of the evening...Shakespeare by way of Hitchcock; the perfect dreaded doomsday fantasy to ring in the end of days.

The Alliance, which coordinates the ball-dropping ceremony for New Year's Eve, has essentially given free advertising space on a giant electronic billboard in the middle of Times Square to Facebook to the detriment of one of New York's brightest companies.

The billboard is encouraging people to check in on Facebook Places, not its competitor and the darling of Silicon Alley, Foursquare.

According to Mashable, the Alliance is working with Facebook to encourage revelers to check in on New Year's "just as a fun thing to do."

Not cool, Times Square Alliance. Facebook Places may have seven times as many users as Foursquare, which most of the people in Times Square on New Year's Eve probably have never heard of, but did you have to give free ad space to a $50 billion company?

ajeffries@observer.com | @adrjeffries

Tomorrow night, DFA hosts their Holiday Freakout! at Le Poission Rouge. Predictably, most of the evening’s entertainers draw on the dance music favored by DFA and its stars/founders, LCD Soundsystem—retro house flavored with a touch of NYC punk. All of which is fine by us. Pat Mahoney and James Murphy (both of LCD fame) will be spinning together. Also on hand will be DJs Matt Cash, Juan MacLean, and (we love it) Shit Robot. Invisible Conga People will also squeeze in a live set. [Tickets on sale now]

But really, what better way is there to honor JC’s birthday than an evening spent with the Wu-Tang Clan. Raekwon, RZA, Ghostface, Inspectah Deck, UGOD, Method Man, GZA, Masta Killa, and Cappadonna should all—barring any unforeseen drama—hit the stage at the Hammerstein Ballroom next Tuesday, December 23. In other Wu news, it seems Staten Island historians Robert Wilburn and Charles Tinsley have put together an exhaustive, 450-page study chronicling the rise and fall of the Wu-Tang’s late 20th century dynasty. The Onion has more. [Tickets on sale now]

THEATER

Of course, you could go to Irving Berlin’s White Christmas or the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, but then how could you look at yourself in the mirror the next morning? Instead, try “Oh, Holy Shit: It’s Christmas!”—the holiday show that dares to dress our Holy Mother in drag. In “Holy Shit”—the third installment of Mimi Imfurst’s infamous Virgin Mary Trilogy—Braden Chapman (that’s her non-drag name) wonders how much it would suck to be a teenager pregnant with God’s child. “Being 13 years old and married off to a carpenter who is 40-something, and all of a sudden God asks her to have his baby; she’s just really freaked out,” Chapman tells the Times. Fortunately, Mary has pop stars like Katy Perry, Fergie, the Pussycat Dolls, and, of course, Madonna, to keep her company. The blasphemy commences this Sunday, December 21 at 7:30 p.m. Don’t bring the kids. [Tickets on sale now]