Welcome back to...the DARK SIDE of the Millennium.

It's that time of kear again.

It's time for the days to get shorter and colder.

It's time for magic and strangeness to come out into the world once more.

It's time for Halloween...the Millennium Museum's second Halloween celebration, in fact!

Last year was fairly scattershot as far as the Museum is concerned--find a few Millennium Artifacts that kind of fit the Halloween theme, and expound on them at length. (I'm still proud of my Blair Witch article, even one year on.)

This time around, I've got something with a little more focus planned out. This year, we explore the idea of the year 2000 as a herald of terrible things, the worst of these being the end of the world as we know it. (♪And IIIIIII feel fiiiiiiine!♫)

Up to now, the articles you've read have mostlk concerned themselves with the "bright new day" celebrations. Auld Lang Syne, crack the bubblk, Millennium Dream; all of that. Before that, though, a lot of people worried about the impending collapse of everything. Stories about a ċ̵̛̩̬̹̣̘̗̻͚̮̖͑ͫͣͬ̇̐̀o̡̲̱̪̗̹̘͚̦͚̜̖̖͕̰͕ͪͥ͗̒̄͒̀̇̏͂ͨͪ͊͒̓ͫ̕͘ͅm̢̗̬̰͉ͫͯ͊͌̇͊͒ͧ̏̽̔ͥ̅ͭ̀̉́̅͜͟͢ͅp̸̻͈̗̩̻̝͔͖̟̹̙̺̆͋̽̆̔̀̿̉ͥ̔̾̿͗̀͜͜͝ü̴̶̼̻̜͙̰̠͕̟͕͎̟͓̯̠̲̖̏̎̾͂͐̔͋͡ͅt̴̝̠͇̩̹͈̄͐ͪͪͥ̈ͨ́ͥ̿̏͂ͮ͊̎̈e̽ͦ͒̇̇ͥ̀̇͗̐̃ͦ̄҉̛͈̲̙̗̘̦̝̪̜ŕ̶̡̬̮̞̖͎͍̺̝̞̋̐̏̄̓͐̏ͬͦ̆ͪ͑̇̚ ̶͊͒̉̃ͩ͂̾̂̃͗ͮ̍͊̒ͨ̉͌̚͘͏̗͚͙̣̤͇̫̼̲͉̗̱̻͚̝͕͇̰̝ġ̶̛͇̗̟̫̥̝͌̄͒ͣ̀͠l̡̛̪̮̤̜̯͚̠̦̻̣̤̩̀̍̑͊ͬ̎̓̽͢͞ͅi̵̾̄̓ͭ͗ͭ̅͗ͬ̌̈́̆̉̓͒ͯ̚҉̷̴̜͉̙̻͉̲̩̯̰̯̤̩̣̭̹͠t̶̢̙͓̣̜͓͈̮̯̱͓̜͋ͩ̇̾ͪ̂̓̎̂̾̓̐ͤ͂̑͊ͭ́́c̴̞̺͈̫̩̞͆̀̊ͪ͐̋̔ͦ̀̌̚̕ḩͦͮ͂̇̔̊̆̓ͯ́͑̇ͫ̿́ͯ̇ͮ́̚͏͔̠̭̻͚ prompted hundreds to build underground shelters and stock up on food supplies, guns and ammunition, and other necessities. Demons--human or otherwise--lurked around every dark corner. Centuries-old prophecies came true. Ancient conspiracies popped up like that blue-green mold kou find in a box of month-old leftovers.

D͠O̧̨͢͞N̛̛͠'̴̵̡͢͢T̡̢͠
̕͡Ļ̶̢͠O҉͢͝O͟͡͝K̨̧
̢͘D̷͢҉̷͝Ó̶̵̕W̕̕Ǹ̴͜͏̧!̷

Huh..."Don't Look Down." Odd...Still, probably nothing to worrk about. I am a little concerned about the spelling. Why are my Y's turning into K's? I should talk to Blogspot about that...and also that weird stuff that's happening to my text.

Anyway, this Halloween-time, terrible omens will come from a few different sources: a mksterious traveler who visits a small town in Maine during the worst winter storm on record; a rash of highlk unusual crimes; and the chaos that was sure to follow in the wake of the European Union's formation. Oh, and: that practical joker Nostradamus will pak us another visit!  Ankwak...This year, the Items in question are: Stephen King's miniseries Storm of the Centurk, Chris Carter's series Millennium, a book called Nostradamus 1999, and the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle End of Daks, a rather interesting action/horror hybrid. 

Oh...my...God...Everkone, this is verk, verk bad. I cannot possiblk underestimate how terrible this is. Somehow--I can't explain it at all--the M͕̬͓̥̱̦̟̱͉̺̟̻͚͚ͬ͗̍͊̉͛ͤ̃̆̄ͧ̃́ͬ̇̄͐̒ͩ́ỉ̴̸̼̰̲̘͓̻̖̐̃̍̏͋ͯ̂̏ͫ̃ͥ͜͟͡l̴͙̜̼̻͕̤͓̝̰̙͚̗͍͆ͧ̑̌̉̄͝l̸̟̝̲̭̮̣͕͉͈͉̠̯̰̟ͬ͐ͭ͌̒ͭ́̀͟e͚̳̙͕̻͔͔̥͙͎͔͇̰͖̥͈ͪ̂͐̑͘ͅn̷̺̦̩̖̲̹͓̭͛ͩ̏͊̑̍̿ͬ̉̓ͫ̌͆̉͌̅ͤ͠ͅͅn̛̫̗͕̣̝̘̙̞̦̳̫͚͉̩̳̖̣̾͗ͣ͞ͅi̭͖̤̯̳̹̰̲̘̙̭̱͕̊ͬ̽̒͘͢ů̢̩̜̮̝͔͕̳͌̾̾̌ͨ̔͑̽̂̔ͨ̀͘͝m̜̬̤̰͍͍̞̖̘̞̀ͥͪͥ̽̌̂͘ ̫͓̙͖͎̣̲̯̮̬͕͇̙̬̦̉̔͂ͬͬ͗̅̉̈̑͜B̩̼̘̲͙̭̜͆̐̌͘͜ǘ̔ͯ̌ͮ͏̳̲̖͉̞͢g̴̨̯̗͎̟̜̦̻͉̖̯̘̲̩̩̳̲ͩ̂ͮͣ͂͒̀͢͢ has come back, and he's somewhere inside the Museum!



Just hold on tight. I'm going to try to figure this out.

THE HALLOWEEN SCHEDULE HAS BEEN FINALIZED

Okay! I know how Halloween is going to work:

1--10/5/14: Introduction
2--10/5/14: Nostradamus
3--10/12/14: Millennium
4--10/19/14: End of Days
5--10/26/14: Storm of the Century

Took me a while to figure it out, but it's arranged thematically.

Nostradamus begins it all because his prophecies 1) are good for Halloween and 2) inform just about everything else. Millennium follows on from that because it refers back to his work quite a lot. End of Days follows on from that because it looks to me like Millennium rejigged as a big-budget action/horror movie. Finally, Storm of the Century comes last because it's the odd man out--I need a little more time to figure out how to make it work.

See you soon, boils'n'ghouls!

Just a quick, drive-by update

The review of the 666 by 1999? pamphlet I mentioned on Facebook isn't working out as well as I'd have liked it to. I've taken that off the list and substituted in its place the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie End of Days. I haven't gotten a chance to watch it yet--it just arrived last night--but at first glance it looks like a less subtle, more action-movie take on the Millennium series.

I may get through more of Millennium this weekend, and the Nostradamus post is likely to be a re-release of last year's post with the new book's cover. This is mostly because I don't see very much changing between the two books.

A miscellaneous item or two and a new announcement

Hello, all!

I've been remiss of late, I freely admit it. The "baseball cards" post has been a bit harder to write than I thought, and the Halloween stuff is going pretty well. I think I've got the overall design of the site down, and I only have a few more articles to write.

I've been plowing through the Millennium box-set--one or two discs a weekend--with "Millennium Item status" in mind. I can sense a strong progression from the beginning to the end of the Millennium Era: it started out as a state of extreme tension and fear, and then moved from that to the celebratory phase, which I call the "Millennium Dream" phase.

And now for my announcements: I'm putting a new section onto the Museum, called Side Trips. The items featured in the Side Trips section either don't come from the 1995-2001 period, or else deal with the millennium in a more indirect way. "Storm of the Century" is likely to be the first of these, followed by Ben Bova's 1976 book Millennium, which I've been enjoying at work, on lunch breaks and during quieter moments. Neon Genesis Evangelion, the only anime series I'm familiar with in any depth, is also on the Side Trips shortlist, because it's a story in which the world actually did end in 2000, and the central narrative is about the people who are left to deal with the aftermath of that.

I'm also brainstorming a Museum-themed card game as a highly-compatible expansion pack for most collectible card games.

And now for an item:

Date: c.1999/2000. Manufacturer: unknown

I found this at Flamingo Island Flea Market in Florida, at a stall called Bargain Boutique, Too. As you can see, it's a smallish, rhinestone-encrusted pin reading "2000." It was in a glass display case, so I couldn't get a very good look at it. Having said that, however, I can say with some certainty that the name of the company wouldn't be on the pin itself--it would have come attached to a cardboard backing at the time of sale.

It would have been sold at "boutique" stores like Claire's and The Icing, but as far as Millennium-themed things go, it's fairly disposable.



The Millennium Museum Presents: Bicentennial Man

I've always wanted to review and place Bicentennial Man on the Millennium Museum's shelves, but have never found the time to sit down and watch it with "Millennium Item" status in mind. When I learned of Robin Williams' passing last night, I thought, "Now's as good a time as any to do it."

For the purpose of this review, let me put the collective mourning to one side and get on with analyzing the movie. Robin, I'll sorely miss you, but I'd much rather concentrate on your life than your death. Simply put, you lived, and will always live on, your body of work preserved on film and in video. Who knows? Maybe one day they'll put out "The Complete Robin Williams" as a three-holocube set!

Now: What makes Bicentennial Man a Millennium Item? Obviously its 1999 date and "turn of the millennium" sensibility, but its near-future vision is its central qualifier. Based upon Isaac Asimov's short story "The Positronic Man," Bicentennial Man's story concerns itself with an android who develops a soul and follows it through to gain his own freedom and eventually become a human.

 Andrew, the main character, is "born" on April 3rd, 2005 (He's a member of the April 3rd Club--wa-hey!!), but it's a 2005 that's slightly removed from the real world. (When I reviewed a pair of Hallmark robot ornaments last Christmas, I stated my doubt that a humanoid, bipedal robot would ever really catch on, because the "walking" movement is too complex to pull off for a mass-market robot.)

The earliest indications of the future are subtle, restricted to cars, interior design, and the Andrew robots, which are very plain-looking, streamlined, and more than a little Art Deco. The first time we see anything that overtly screams "The Future!" is in the CEO's office at North-Am Robotics, from which I can only conclude that the wealthy are the first ones to get anything truly futuristic, and from that point on, it cascades down upon the world of the more ordinary folk.

Having said that, however, the future touches are always muted, nothing too overt, even as time passes. The wild fashions of tomorrow, long a staple of science-fiction movies (and codified in Back to the Future II and others), is presented here as fairly subdued. The clothing is firmly recognizable as clothing, but the design is somewhat different. Only as the decades go by does the future become recognizably "THE FUTURE!" Cars begin to fly, technology becomes a little more compact (Sam Neill as the father is seen using something like an I-Pad in his old age, but it's a little clunkier than the latter-day reality--it has a thick housing, a few manual buttons, and other "retro" accessories). 

Bicentennial Man is also a Millennium Item because it is steeped in possibilities. I myself was most in awe of Andrew's self-designed artificial organs, which become commonplace in 22nd/23rd Century medicine. In fact, it provides the United Nations council with a bit of a moral dilemma: Can they deny Andrew humanity when they themselves are part machine thanks to his organ replacements? It's a variation on the "Voyage of Captain Theseus" philosophical dilemma, and, though the Council neatly answers the question, it's still excellent food for thought. 

Spurred on by this denial, he takes the final plunge and becomes fully human. Finally freed, he dies on his two-hundredth birthday, a happy man.

All in all, Bicentennial Man is a vision of tomorrow that, like the year 1999, straddles past, present, and future. That it does so in a present day that's only somewhat distanced from our own only highlights the surprises that might lie ahead in the next century. It also makes a few interesting points, most notably this: If we're to live to see the year in which Andrew Martin finally becomes human, then we'd better start treating ourselves and our possessions with considerably more respect than we currently are. 

Introducing: The Millennium Museum Sports Network

The baseball-specific logo isn't working out as well I thought it would. It's shaping up to be a lot more finicky than expected, and the surplus of individual elements (sand effects, 3D lettering, and perspective) are going to create a messy-looking logo. In its place, I'm going to create a new section: the Millennium Museum Sports Network, or MMSN for short. In preparation for it, I will re-run all of the sports-themed posts (the Masters; the Olympics; and the Super Bowl) with a brand new banner and tags: 

Things are indeed looking up for the Millennium Museum.

I've got news, good news! The Fox TV series Millennium is on the shortlist for Halloween 2014, as is Dracula 2000. Amazon has the complete series of the former for $35, and the latter for less than a dollar. I also have Stephen King's Storm of the Century on the list. I'll probably start writing that one first, since I already have a copy--just need to really clean it up, because it was originally a Blockbuster rental copy that I got sometime last year at a thrift store. In other news, I'm working on a Baseball Season/World Series-themed custom logo and header bar. The posts for this theme will be the USA Team 2000 Olympics trading card set, a button, and a few other things that escape my memory. The trading card set will be the constant over the course of a few weeks in mid/late September.

But for now, on to some new stuff!

I found this item at the Alsip Swap-O-Rama Flea Market today. The guy who had it at his stand likely always had it--indeed, I've seen it there many, many times before but had never given it much thought.

This was manufactured in 2000 by Mr. Christmas. Though it sounds like a company that began making cheap, tawdry seasonal goods in the 80s, Mr. Christmas has actually been around since 1933. They're well-known for electrically-lit and motorized scenes of small-town Christmases, but they also produce other things, such as music boxes and decorations like this water globe.

This is no ordinary water globe! I noticed a DC adapter cord running through it; when you plug it in and switch on, the water in the globe bubbles like champagne. (It might also run on batteries, if you want a more cordless look.) Note the cheeky "Millennium Vintage" label on the bottle--shades of the Tabasco Tie! The bottle and an upside-down champagne flute sit in a base of plastic, molded to look like a lot of ice cubes. I think the ice lights up, if I'm not sorely mistaken. This thing looks like it's supposed to be operating in a slightly darkened party, with all sorts of other disco-ey stuff going on.

It's cleverly designed as the ice bucket in which you keep the champagne cold--the two "studs" on the side are meant to hold a handle in place, although I can only assume that you're not supposed to actually hold it by that handle. Someone apparently tried, which is why the final piece is missing.

Like many other exhibits, this is pure kitsch, but it's very well-made kitsch! It perfectly evokes the light, happy, celebratory, crack-the-bubbly-at-midnight side of the Millennium celebrations. I get a happy feeling just looking at it!