Happy New Year, one and all!

I know it'll be a few hours until we ring in the New Year, but it's been a l-o-n-g day at work, and I'd like to see my annual tradition through before I do anything else. (If I don't do it now, I'll forget.)

First, the banner. I don't know who did that panorama of Times Square or where I got it from, so whoever made it, I thank you for an absolutely beautiful image! Let's give a big hand to whoever made that picture!

Second, the first official New Year's custom logo.



Third, I'd like to turn back the hands of time before the clock chimes midnight, and ring in a new tradition that I like to call "The Millennium Museum's Personal Best."

Ready? Buckle up, 'cause here we go!

DECEMBER 22^nd, 2012: The Millennium Museum opens. The first Item displayed is a Year 2000 face-towel. The original

DECEMBER 31^st, 2012: The Museum’s first New Year’s Eve; the next Items are Doctor Who: The Movie and a Danbury Mint Millennium Baby.

JANUARY 1, 2013: The Museum unveils its logo!

FEBRUARY 4: The “On This Day” feature debuts. I admit with some shame that it has fallen by the wayside because it got too hard to do without a handy articles database. (I'm taking a class at Moraine Valley in the new year, so with that I should get access to the news databases.)

MARCH 17: St. Patrick’s Day inspires the creation of a prototype “custom logo.” In this case, the banner’s usual silver gradient changed to the colors of the Irish flag. Little else changed, but the seed of an idea was born.

MARCH 31: The Millennium Museum declares its first season finale and month-long break.

APRIL 3: In the real world, the Museum’s curator gets a job!

MAY 5: Series 2 begins! The first item seen is a collection of state quarters, which were part of America’s Millennium celebration.

MAY 19: The Museum hosts its first-ever video review. It’s pretty embarrassing, but you’ll see a few more of these in the years to come.

JULY 4: The first Fourth of July sees FOUR items posted in honor of the holiday!

SEPTEMBER 11: This issue, a Special Edition, is the game-changer. Here, we learn what all of my previous postings had been leading up to.

SEPTEMBER 29: This issue marked the first time I drew something special for the Museum since the logo. It was a background of fall leaves blowing in the wind.

OCTOBER 13: The “Jack-O-Lantern” variant makes its debut. Also, we look back at The Blair Witch Project.

NOVEMBER 23/24: Doctor Who celebrates its 50^th anniversary, and the Museum responds by commemorating the first-ever Chicago TARDIS convention.

DECEMBER 22, 2013: The Museum celebrates its first anniversary! The week before sees the Museum’s first-ever Christmas celebration—I didn’t mark the occasion the year before because I just didn’t think of it.

DECEMBER 31, 2013:

 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've been waiting for...the last two Millennium Items before we leave 2013 behind.

 

 

I found this in a St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store out in Midlothian, IL. (My work sometimes takes me out there.) This cassette tape came out in 1999, and the publisher is listed as K-Tel International.  

K-Tel is well-known for producing compilation and “greatest-hits” albums that are mostly sold on late-night TV infomercials. Most of the time, their records are the original recordings, but sometimes they use original recordings: this tape’s songs are performed by the Tony Burgos Orchestra. 

There are at least two Louis Prima standards (“Jump, Jive, an’ Wail” and “That Old Black Magic”); Hoagy Carmichael’s “In the Mood” (later appropriated by Benny Goodman); as well as many other songs from the big-band era. 

The collection of old, mostly public-domain songs more than fulfills the “preserving history” credit, but the new recordings add a new wrinkle to that: It breathes new life into the tunes of yesterday. I can’t think of a better way to ring in a new year than this.

 

 

A quick browse through Microsoft Word’s clip-art gallery for some New Year’s fireworks, for something else I had in mind, yielded these four examples from the Year 2000. It’s amazing that they still have all that old clip art in their archives. There's honestly not much to summarize here; I'm just surprised to have found it! Still, it's one for the books.

 

 

 

When I first opened the Museum, my first rule was “don’t just use pictures from the Internet.” The rationale at the time was, simply using pictures found on the Internet would defeat the purpose of hunting for items. As time has rolled on, I’ve since discarded the rule, mostly because time and money are never on my side. Also, Millennium Items are getting harder and harder to find in the real world; the one-month “season hiatus” is also not enough time to go looking. I may expand this to two months in the new year…something to think about. 

Anyway, case in point: I found this picture of a Times Square puzzle on eBay. It’s a stunningly realistic painting of a Times Square panorama. Besides all the true-to-life billboards and advertisements, there are messages beckoning you to “Welcome A New Century!”

It perfectly captures the exuberant, triumphant mood of the New Millennium celebrations—Times Square has been the mecca for New Year’s celebrations for as long as I can remember, definitely even longer! 

I do remember that there was a Show Boat revival (“Ooooool’ maaaaaan riveeeeeeer…”) at the time, so the big billboard is accurate. Can’t remember if the Broadway revival and the tour revival went along at the same time, or if there was a gap in between, but I do remember the TV advertisements for the “Broadway in Chicago” version.

 

The “…money America is saving with MCI” billboard dates it a little bit, because MCI/Worldcom suffered some kind of a scandal back in 2002 or so, which led to MCI’s bankruptcy.  

Somewhat inexplicably, the Tin Soldier balloons are being pulled by a teddy bear and a white rabbit (blow up the image and take a look at the lower right part of the image).

There’s also a very big ad for “Bloomberg Information Radio.” That’s kind of funny, because Michael Bloomberg has been the mayor of New York City from 2001 until this year, when he will be replaced by Bill de Blasio.

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



I've decided to take the day off!

I admit, this is very belated, but I wanted to take today off because I just can't think of anything to post!

It's more that I want to save my energies for the New Year's Eve post, in which you'll see a couple of specially-themed items and a new custom logo!

See you on Tuesday night!

Are you enjoying your Christmas?

Hello, and Merry Christmas, all of you out there in the real world!

How's your celebrations going so far? Everything's a bit dull around here, so I thought I might do a special post as a nice present!

I'm just waiting for "The Time of the Doctor," this year's Doctor Who Christmas special, on BBC America. It starts at 9:00 Eastern/8:00 Central.

 

 

 

This charming red robot is the first in Hallmark’s “Robots on Parade” series. I believe that I have the second one from 2001; unfortunately, I don’t have the third one from 2002.

Hallmark ornament artist Nello Williams designed it in the style of one of those old “tin toy” robots from the 1950s that ran on D-cell batteries. While it isn’t strictly Millennium-themed, it is in keeping with the theme of “what people in the 1950s thought the year 2000 might look like,” as we saw on the silver-suited Madame Alexander doll.

I’ve had this ornament for a long time, but I never thought anything of it until I noticed the very small “2000” inside the power gauge on its chest.

It's a little blurry, but if you look at it from the right angle you can see the "2000" marking.

It's interesting to look at this robot as an artifact from a past vision of the future because household robots are commercially available today, but they don't look anything like this guy. The most well-known "real robot" to date is the Roomba, a small, streamlined affair about the size of a dinner plate.

The central problem here is how to get a robot to walk like a humanoid with humanoid legs. The easiest way to get around this is to give it something like a dog's hind legs (the proper term is "digitigrade legs"), which are engineered for near-perfect balance and require much less movement than human legs. Find a video on YouTube of a running dog and you'll see what I mean: the "thigh" part is the only part that actually moves.

We humans, by contrast, have to use the thigh joint, the knee joint, the ankle joint, and the toe joints. For us, that's practical and elegant, but the smooth movement they deliver is extremely difficult to reproduce in a machine, which means that any attempt to get that "human walk" will result in the "clank-clank-clank" walk we associate with old-fashioned robots. (Even then, those robots have the additional "cheat" of wheels hidden in the foot mechanism!)

 As far as I know, this difficulty has not stopped some engineers from trying: I did read about a "pendulum"-based mechanism in Popular Science,  but it was still in the experimental stages. The robot itself looked like an oversized "bullet" with a pair of Erector-set legs sticking out of it, which means that it can't do anything but walk at the moment. So, at the moment, non-humanoid robots it is!

 



Çe n’est pas un gateau.

I'm very, very proud to announce that the Millennium Museum has been online for exactly one year to this day. It's amazing that I've kept at it for this long--I thought for sure it was something I'd mess around with for a while, get bored with, close down, and move on to something else. (Well, I do close down for breaks between seasons, but I always come back to it.)

The occasion is so special that I had planned to decorate a cake with the Museum's logo, but...well, let's just say that the old saying about "the best-laid plans of mice and men" still applies.

First, the cakes got stuck to their pans and broke in half when I tried to get them out. Then, the tubes of glitter-gel I bought had turned to liquid, further scuppering my plans. Finally, I decided to just draw the cake.



...As you can see, the concept needs a little work, but I'm sure it tastes delicious!

Let's keep celebrating with this week's Millennium Items!

 After a long absence, we delve headlong into the pop-culture side of the Millennium celebrations with these Hallmark ornaments. We’ve had the African-American one since 2000; I bought the “regular” one at that Tinley Park doll show.
(You can sense a pattern forming, right? The show took place a month before the blog opened, and I was specifically looking for Millennium-themed items to report on.)
These are miniature replicas of the full-scale Millennium-issue dolls sold through Mattel’s “Collector Club.” Considerably more upscale than regular, store-bought dolls, the actual dolls wear more elaborate dresses and boast a higher level of detail. That being said, however, these dolls are fairly common on the toy show circuit. Depending on the seller, you can usually find them for anywhere from $25 to greater than $40.
 

This is much more firmly a return to the “pop culture” motif we’ve seen a lot of over the past year (Monopoly 2000 Edition; Millennium Salute G.I. Joe; the M&M’s dispenser; etc.) The addition of the African-American one is interesting in light of the New Millennium celebrations—her inclusion pretty much says, “Good morning, 21st Century!”

Ooh, one more thing: At that toy show, I did see a Latina Millennium Princess Barbie. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t have the money to buy it. If I ever see it again, you know that I’ll be there to either pick it up or get a decent snapshot.

At last, we're kickin' off the Christmas season!

Tick…tock…tick…tock…

Dear readers and followers, we are coming toward the one-year milestone, and fast! It feels good to know that I’ve been doing it for this long…One full year. I can scarcely believe it myself!

I’m not quite sure what to say about it, except that the idea of the anniversary has given me pause to think about some New Year’s resolutions for the Museum.

First, I resolve to make the place a little more state-of-the-art in 2014. You’ll start to see a video-review or two alongside the text articles.

Second, I resolve to at least try to develop the “Mr. Millennium” character a little better. He’s supposed to be an over-the-top showman/museum curator, and when he first appeared in October or so with the M&Ms dispenser, I kind of threw the costume together from whatever bits I could find (the 2000 tie, a waistcoat, and a shirt).

The result…didn’t look very much like a showman, but I was trying to aim for something along the lines of Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor--that is to say, a “totally tasteless” costume with loud, clashing colors.

Third, I resolve to design a building for the Museum. I’ve got something a little bit Times Square-themed in mind (New Year’s Eve, get it?)… 

Ah, but you don’t want to sit around listening to me pontificating about the future of the site, huh?

No, you’re absolutely right! Let's open the Christmas season with a bang! I have here TWO items! (You'll see why in just a little bit. ;) )

I found this for $2 last year at a doll show in Tinley Park, IL. It’s made to look like an angel with wings and halo (though this honestly looks more like a headband). She wears a rather beautiful dress of burgundy velveteen and holds in her hand a plush star. The word “HOPE” is emblazoned on the dress; on the star, “2000.” Better still, it doubles as a tree ornament!

This little bear represents a very interesting start to the Museum’s first actual holiday season. Take her burgundy dress: it sits between red and purple. It’s like the Millennium Bear, with its magenta plush, but this time it sits a little more on the darker side of the cross between warmth and uncertainty. Perhaps it’s best not to read too much into the color, because burgundy, like forest green and the white fur of the bear, is a “winter” color. In any case, the word “HOPE,” embroidered in gold on the front of the dress, offsets the uncertainty.

The bear’s white fur represents light and purity…it is an angel, after all.

The star is the Christmas star that goes on top of the tree. It says “2000” because Christmas 1999 was the last real holiday of the old millennium, and the time has come to make new Christmas memories as the clock strikes midnight a week later.

I also found this at the same doll show as the bear above. This little periodical was published throughout the 90s up until the early 2000s. Interestingly enough, the publisher, Publications International, no longer does specialty magazines like this. Instead, it now handles book sales (e.g. children's activity books, etc.). The cover price is listed as $4.99; I swiped this off a table marked "Free--Take One." It was practically calling out to me!

Since the publisher is no longer active, and since this is more than ten years old, I'll make a Christmas present of this and reproduce half of it for this year's celebration. (The next half--the actual ornaments--will come later.)

 

 

 

Looking back at the first Chicago TARDIS convention from 2000!

Today is Sunday, the 24^th of November, and yesterday marked the 50^th Anniversary of the British science-fantasy series “Doctor Who.” I myself have been a fan for 17 years (1996-2013), and I’ve never looked back.

This year marks another milestone for me: Next week, I’ll be attending my fourteenth Chicago TARDIS convention, at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center. With this in mind, I thought it might be a good idea to go back in time and revisit the first-ever Chicago TARDIS, held in Arlington Heights on Thanksgiving 2000.

The very first souvenir book.

A little historical context for you: Throughout the 1990s, “Visions” was the Midwestern “Doctor Who” and general British TV/SF/fantasy/horror convention. It started in 1990 and ended in 1998, but the dawn of a new century saw Chicago TARDIS rise from Visions’ ashes. Since I was too young for Visions, I feel less than qualified to talk about it…let us move on to Chicago TARDIS.

OK…I have to stretch way back for this one, because up until 2007 or so we used Chicago TARDIS primarily for Christmas shopping; the actual experience was secondary. I was like a kid in a candy store, though!! Just the sheer volume of stuff boggled my little mind, especially when you consider that I had only been a fan for about four years (dear God, how time has flown). The first thing I remember was a car with the license plate number “DRWHO63,” which I’ve seen for most of the years I’ve attended. The second thing was a young woman (?) in a Second Doctor costume with a homemade, radio-controlled K-9 (the Doctor’s tin dog) in tow.

The guests that year were Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor); Mary Tamm (the first Romana—sadly, she died in 2012); John Leeson (K9); and the crew behind the then brand-new Big Finish audio dramas, one of whom was New Series monster voice-actor Nicholas Briggs. I’ve since seen Sylvester at two further CT’s—2006 and 2012. I affectionately call 2012 “the broke year,” because even though I was unemployed and down to my last $100, I still made the effort to go to the con to get that third picture and complete the set.

Now let me tell you, if there’s one thing you can say about Sylvester McCoy, he is a hoot. We gathered around for the picture, and Mom asked him, “Is it all right if I touch you?” because she feared he might object. Instead of objecting, he belted out, “See me…Feel me…” from The Who’s Tommy, and everyone cracked up laughing. Last year, to celebrate my coming full-circle as a fan, I returned the favor at his Q&A session by reading his monologue from “Survival,” the final episode, but as if the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) were saying it.  It made a lot of congoers' day, I can tell you.

Chicago TARDIS has given me a lot of memories and a lot of new friends over the years. Next week, there won't be a new update, because I'll be at the convention. That being said, though, I will start redecorating the site in time for Christmas! 

Now where did I put those blown-plastic reindeer? (*trips over a cord of tree lights*) WHOOOOAAAAAAHHH!

I'm okay...I'm okay!

We're getting close to the ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

In only five days, the Millennium Museum will be one month away from celebrating a full year of activity! The year HAS flown by, hasn't it?

I have a birthday cake-themed logo in mind, but I don't know if I'll be able to implement it in time. Unlike my hand-drawn logos, I want this one to be a more "physical" model, because the perspective is going to be tricky.

Oh, what am I saying? I've got a full month to worry about that! Let's get on with this week's post, shall we?

Yet another Millennium-themed plushie. I found this handsome specimen at Mike Bjorn’s Tux-A-Rama in Kenosha, WI. He’s fully decked out in top hat, tails, shirt, and bow tie, and his pocket watch is set for ten minutes to midnight. (The perfect time, really—the party atmosphere is always the highest at that point on New Year’s Eve.)

On his left ear, there’s a certificate of authenticity, which I’ve included a detail of. It was designed by doll and toy designer Lee Capocci, as you can see on the lower right corner of the certificate. It also says, "Issued once every thousand years," so it looks like I'll have to wait for the year 3000 for mine. :) 

 Uniquely, this bear includes a sound chip that, when pressed, gives an electronic rendering of a New Year’s Eve countdown and a few bars of that perennial New Year’s classic, “Auld Lang Syne.” At least I think it did...this one had some fairly run-down batteries inside it, which made it sound incredibly garbled.

At the time, you could have probably picked him up for about $20 at any department store, but I don’t think I ever saw one of these at the time. In fact, I only became aware of it when I saw it at Mike Bjorn’s in late August or so. And that’s why I started the blog: I’m more aware of stuff now than I was thirteen years ago!

Before I go, I just want to say that the "On This Day" stuff is sort of hard to do without getting some kind of a membership for one of those news-archive sites. Oh, to be in college again, where I could look up that kind of thing for free...That's why you haven't seen very much of it lately.

Finally, I give you a preview of next week: It's a retrospective of the first-ever Chicago TARDIS convention, which started on Thanksgiving weekend of 2000.

This is it...The final week of our very first Halloween celebration.

 

 

On this last week before Halloween, I thought I’d take us back into the realm of fiction and fantasy with a look at the Harry Potter franchise. (The Walter Mercado book has the slight problem of not being Halloween-y enough, but at least I had the germ of this post’s idea bubbling away in the back of my head.)

When the first book came out in, oh, 1999/2000 or so, I hadn’t read it until Christmas of that year, so as usual I was a bit out-of-step compared to the rest of the world…about all I remember is one or two kids dressing up as him for Halloween at Central Junior High.

It’s not a very awe-inspiring start, is it? Oh, dear me…Ask me anything about Doctor Who and I’ll yammer on until your head explodes, but ask me about Harry Potter and I’ve got little to say. 

For me, the books are a good but unmemorable read, but they sparked a renaissance of “realistic fantasy” that still resonates today—I need only bring up Once Upon a Time, Warehouse 13, and Steven Moffat’s present-day take on Doctor Who as examples. All of these shows combine magical elements with modern, real-world sensibilities, and J.K. Rowling’s books are kind of a trend-setter in this light. There were other, similar works, but Harry Potter is the first mainstream example of “magical realism” done consistently.

Perhaps the series’ impact is greatest on film. The Harry Potter movie franchise took the then-unprecedented step of allowing its characters and actors to age in real-time. The filmmakers and executives at Warner Bros. should be applauded for their faith in the source material, but keep in mind that there almost wasn’t a series. The original approach, per the first movie’s DVD extras, would have been a “greatest hits” reel from the first three books, condensed into Harry Potter: The Movie. When this just didn’t work, everyone said “Okay, let’s just adapt the first book straight and see what happens.” (Interesting side note: Harry Potter’s then-competitor, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, attempted this approach and suffered as a result.)

Adapting each book turned out to be a good decision, because the books start out as a lighthearted children’s series with slightly dark overtones, but things get dark starting around Book 3 (I maintain that this third book is the midpoint of the series, the “grey area.”) People that you’ve come to identify with start dying and not even magic can bring them back. By the final book, the “chosen boy” has grown into a young man running for his life, and the world that once loved and revered him has turned against him.

A lesser series might not have moved past the lightweight fantasy, but Harry Potter stands out as a hallmark of the New Millennium for never talking down to its readers.

Welcome back for Week 2 of our Halloween celebration!

This week’s artifact:

In 1998 and 1999, the “end of the world” was on everybody’s mind…I sorely wish I had saved Charles Grant’s Millennium Quartet for Halloween, because those four books would have been perfect. As a result, the 16^th Century prophet Nostradamus briefly overtook the mighty Pikachu in terms of media saturation, because you could find Nostradamus magazines on your local supermarket’s tabloid rack, Nostradamus documentaries on cable, and scholarly works on Nostradamus’ prophecies on the shelves of bookstores such as Barnes & Noble and Borders.  

Why was everybody so interested in some old geezer from four hundred years ago? Well, for one thing, his prophecies are accurate and kind of eerie. Also, the craze started in October, which meant that it was about time for a couple of good scares. As Stephen King once pointed out, horror always works best when it taps into a specific cultural mood. (The Prophecies are in the public domain, too, which meant that you could practically print your own money if you spiced it up with enough fire and brimstone!)

Now that our introductions are made, let’s move on to some of the prophecies. Please note that all citations refer to the Damon Wilson book, which I found at Oak Lawn’s public library.

Doomsday, July 1999:

In the year 1999 and seven months,

From the sky will come the great King of terror.

Resurrecting the great King of Angolmois.

Before and after Mars will reign happily.

(p. 428)

“Year 1999” and “seven months,” that’s July 1999. Easy enough. But what to make of the “great King of terror” coming from the sky? Damon Wilson doesn’t quite know what to make of it, but I remember reading in a large art-book called Little Boy: The Art of Japan’s Exploding Subculture something about a Nostradamus craze hitting Japan in the mid-70s/80s. In that book, there was a passage about the “Great King of Fright

Perplexed about the “Great King of Terror” though he is, Wilson explains “the great King of Angolmois” on page 429: he suggests that Angolmois is an anagram of the French word for “Mongols.” “King of Mongols” is therefore a reference to Genghis Khan, who butchered hundreds of thousands during his reign in the thirteenth century.

"Before and after Mars will reign happily:” Mars, of course, is the god of war in the Roman pantheon.

So, on July 1999, “the great king of terror” will come from the sky, and from this Genghis Khan will be resurrected (figuratively—it means that we’ll see a leader who will kill as many as Genghis Khan did), and that the 21^st Century will be a time of war. The past thirteen years have proven him accurate. So far, so good…Let’s take a look at his other millennium prophecies.

The Millennium Bug, Midnight 31 December 1999

That which lives but has no senses,

Will cause its own death through artifice:

Autun, Chalan, Langres and the two Sens,

Hail and ice cause great damage.

(p. 452)

“That which lives but has no senses…” Oh, that’s me, obviously—“where there’s no sense, there’s no feeling.” (I kid, I kid.)

Seriously, now: Damon Wilson’s notes suggest that the first line is Nostradamus’ prediction in 16^th Century terms of the modern computer, and that “death through artifice” is a prediction of the Millennium Bug (452). (“Death through artifice”…I like that. Nostro, old bean, I think you might have predicted a heavy metal album.) The artifice in question could be—and this is my own conjecture—a reference to the idea that computers would go from 1999 to 1900 instead of 2000, and this is where all the hubbub came from.

“Autun, Chalan [sic], Langres, and the two Sens” refers to communes in France. (add external source)

Nostradamus’ reference to these communes quite frankly puzzles me. Is there a connection that I’m missing?

“Hail and ice cause great damage.” No-o-o…you think? Somehow, I don’t think this is to be taken literally. Instead, we have to look at this as a figure of speech. “Hail and ice” = “freezing,” or “things going cold/stopping.” With the “2000/1900” shift in the world’s computers, it was thought that everything from planes to nuclear power plants to stock exchanges would go dead…and, by extension, society itself. The made-for-TV movie Y2K: The Movie ramped up these fears to include pacemakers stopping. Granted, it was predicted to be that bad for a while, but thankfully our best computer technicians prepared for the event.

Nostradamus also predicted that a series of natural disasters would plague us in the coming century.

For forty years the rainbow will not appear,

For forty years it will appear every day:

The dry earth will grow more parched,

And there will be great floods when it is seen.

(p.453)

“For forty years…” For heavens’ sake, man, make up your mind! I will admit that things have been pretty inconstant, especially within the last couple of years. The first two lines, of course, refer to the story of Noah’s Ark, in which God flooded the earth for forty days and forty nights and left behind a rainbow as a kind of peace offering.

This prediction could, on the one hand, be a literal prediction of bad weather to come. On the other hand, it also makes sense if you consider that Noah was one of the first (if not the first) “doomsday prepper.” Y2K survival kits were big sellers around 1999, as were generators, guns, etc., and there was an awful lot of talk about preparing for the coming apocalypse. (Never mind that a community of people would get more mileage out of their combined supplies by sharing and pooling their resources…but then again societal collapse is almost always portrayed as once-friendly neighbors suddenly waging war against each other.)

Nostradamus made several other predictions about natural disasters, but since they’re mostly variations on a theme I’ll skip over them in favor of more interesting territory…These next passages seem to predict nuclear catastrophe.

By heat like the sun upon the sea,

Around Negrepont the fish are half broiled.

The inhabitants will cut them up,

When Rhodes, and Genoa are in want of biscuits.

(p.456)

“According to Erica Cheetham, ‘Negrepont’ is the Italian name for the island of Ruboea [sic]” (Wilson 456). Damon, you silly goose, you meant “Euboea” when you said “Ruboea.”

Anyway…Euboea is a Greek island out in the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. I wonder: Do the locations Nostradamus references hold any significant meaning, or is he just using them as examples? I’m inclined to think that he says “Euboea” because Greece has a very warm climate, and anything that makes the already warm water hot enough to broil the fish in the sea is cause for alarm. The image of dead, half-broiled fish floating up to the surface is extremely unsettling.

Now: What causes “heat like the sun upon the sea?” Obviously not the sun itself, but then the sun is a gigantic fusion reactor, which means that Nostradamus is trying to explain a nuclear meltdown. Remember that movie, The China Syndrome? It gets its title from the image of a reactor going into meltdown, becoming a superheated glob, melting a hole in the earth, and “digging to China” like in the cartoons.

“The inhabitants will cut them up/When Rhodes, and Genoa are in want of biscuits”—In a time of starvation (“in want” here means “lacking”), these fish are not going to market anytime soon. In fact, Damon Wilson suggests that this might be one step of a clean-up operation (456).

From Monaco as far as Sicily,

All the sea coast will be left desolate:

There shall be no suburbs, cities nor towns,

Which will not be pillaged and ravaged by Barbarians.

(p. 457)

This is it: the end of the world. There are neither cities nor towns because everything has been pounded to rubble, perhaps in some nuclear accident or attack. Barbarians are not out pillaging and ravaging because a) even the most ruthless barbarian should be smart enough not to go into a radioactive wasteland; b) there’s nothing left to pillage and ravage; and/or c) everyone—yes, even the barbarians—has died.

Nostradamus’ predictions about future warfare are even more chilling.

When a fish that is both terrestrial and aquatic,

By a great wave is thrown upon the shore:

With its strange, smooth, and horrible shape,

From the sea the enemies soon reach the walls.

(p.460)

Commentators have suggested that this “fish” could be a beached submarine or some kind of undersea missile (461), but I, in a more playful and macabre mood, would venture to say that Nostradamus got a vision of Pacific Rim. All four lines, especially the last two, sound a lot like the Kaiju devastating the human world. Let it not be said that I am out of touch with current events. For those of you who might not have gotten a chance to see this wonderful, wonderful movie, go out and buy it on DVD. You’ll be glad you did!

Ennosigee fire from the centre of the earth,

Will cause the new city to tremble.

Two great rocks will war on each other for a long time,

Then Arethuse will redden a new river.

(p.462)

Now, this one is properly chilling, or at least it will be with some explanation. “‘Ennosigee’ in the first line is probably a distortion of the Greek word ‘ennosigaeus,’ meaning ‘earth-shaker’” (462). “The new city” is fairly vague, but many take it to mean New York City…which becomes alarming when you take 9/11 into account. “Two great rocks…” Perhaps this means America vs. the Middle East (Iraq/“a rock”? Sorry; bad pun, I know).

“‘Then Arethuse…’” I’m not sure what to make of this allusion. It could be a reference to the nymph of Greek mythology, whose legend is often conflated with the story of Artemis (man approaches her while she’s bathing; she kills him), but “it might be a cross between Aries [sic] (the Greek god of war), and the letters ‘USA’” (462-3). Unlikely, but since the last line refers to something fairly obscure, anyone’s guess is as good as mine.

I should point out that when this book was published in 1999, an attack like 9/11 was practically unthinkable to so many of us. If that’s what Nostradamus was thinking of, then he must have had a hell of a gift.

With that, I think I’ll stop here, as the predictions I’ve supplied are the only ones that I can really connect to the Millennium.