Celebration

When it ended, the scene was like something out of Mardi Gras. It was a Lakers victory celebration, only a continent away. Europe doesn't have a Super Bowl, but this will do, at least until the next big soccer extravaganza. On a Monday afternoon, on a wonderful Twenty Ten course that had been turned into a giant mud pie by days of rain and now was basking in sunshine, Europe won the Ryder Cup. In a competition of golf, with an overwhelming aroma of nationalism, it had defeated the big 'ol, rich USA, which is always special for Europe.

Four hundred years ago, on a mission to evangelize and baptize America's Indians, eight Franciscan friars trekked through the desert with Spanish explorers. Although most people think Christianity came to America on the Mayflower, the first permanent Catholic settlers actually arrived earlier, in 1598, in what is now New Mexico, establishing a tiny enclave about 80 miles from Albuquerque.

ABC's "Nightline" today aired Madonna's too-hot-for-MTV video in its steamy entirety, and Madonna--the picture of propriety in a buttoned-up black dress--defended the clip as a "celebration of sex." "Why are we willing to deal with the reality of violence and sexism and why aren't we willing to deal with sexuality?" she asked in an interview. "If we're going to have censorship, let's not be hypocrites about this," the pop singer added.

The Boy Scouts of America's Orange County Council Camporee will hold a celebration of the Orange County Centennial on Saturday at the Los Alamitos Country Club. The celebration, which will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., will feature outdoor recreation activities including a water catapult, tug of war and flagpole raising. Events will conclude with an evening campfire ceremony, open to the public. The celebration also marks the 36th anniversary of the National Jamboree held in Orange County in 1953.

The county's Cambodian community will launch New Year's festivities a week early with a celebration in Santa Ana on Saturday where youths 9 to 18 will perform traditional and folk dances in native Cambodian dress. The program, open to the public, will be held at Carr Intermediate School, 2120 W. Edinger Ave. in Santa Ana. Doors open at 7 p.m. Cambodian musicians will accompany the dancers, said Chea Sok Lim, dance coordinator for The Cambodian Family in Santa Ana.

The phone rang a little after 8 Wednesday morning, and it was the call Nancy Fontaine had been waiting for. John Weir was on the line from Washington, and with him was his father, the Rev. Benjamin Weir--the first of seven American hostages to be released in Lebanon. Fontaine hung up the phone and broadcast the news over the loudspeaker, and the 99 residents of the Hylond Convalescent Hospital in Westminster knew that several months of prayer had been answered.

A celebration of the life of public relations pioneer Patricia L. Tobin, who died June 10 at age 65, will be held at 10 a.m. June 27 at Faithful Central Tabernacle, Faithful Central Bible Church, 321 Eucalyptus Ave., Inglewood. Information: (323) 857-0869.

Heidi Siegmund Cuda missed the boat with "Party Town Misses Its Millennial Moment" (Jan. 3). She claims Los Angeles "got caught with its pants down" because we had no massive New Year's Eve festival, and blames the empty streets on Y2K fears. Nonsense. (And did it occur to her that perhaps Pink's closed early due to those empty streets, not out of millennium panic?) Our sprawling metropolis has no central gathering place, and thus had no central celebration. Instead, we had a most American--and Californian--alternative: a wide array of choices.

So let's make sure we have this straight: Tonight's two-hour trip down bell-bottom lane, "A '70s Celebration: The Beat Is Back," features a reunion of sitcom characters Lenny and Squiggy, who in the '70s were celebrating the '50s. In other words, we now have nostalgia for nostalgia, which instead of being the province of perverse science fiction is probably America's destiny. The reminiscing is much more linear during the rest of the special (at 8 p.m.

Dancers, musicians, friends and colleagues will celebrate composer John Cage's 75th birthday (Sept. 5) at a week's worth of Festival events. The Los Angeles-born "grandfather of the avant-garde" took time out from his new "Europera, Parts I and II"--a collage of European operas set to premiere in Frankfurt on Nov. 15--to talk with Festival about turning 75.