The Millennium Museum's First Fourth of July Spectacular!

Happy Fourth of July! It’s a few days early, yes, but to do a Fourth of July special after the holiday is too gauche. 

I had a good rest on my mini-vacation last week; it gave me a little more time to think about writing and creating that wonderful new banner you see before you.

The fireworks you see in the banner are pictures I took at last year’s Fourth of July celebration in Kenosha. I had known about my Kodak Easy-Share’s “fireworks” setting, but hadn’t tested it yet. Let me tell you, it takes fine pictures, but there’s a downside: Using the Fireworks setting “freezes” the camera for a few seconds while it processes the images. In other words, you have to time it very carefully.

I think at least one of the four you see up there has a “prismatic” effect on it. That was a laughably simple but hard-to-pull-off physical trick: I have these “magic glasses” that I bought at the Smithsonian in 2001 during the 8^th-grade trip to Washington, DC, and their prismatic lenses make an already awesome fireworks display even better. Last year, just before the show started, I thought, “I wonder what sticking the lens in front of the camera will do?” It worked beautifully, but holding lens and camera, and keeping them lined up, was very painful after a few minutes, and a few of the “prismatic” pictures are noticeably shakier than the ordinary ones. If you want to give it a try, I’d recommend finding a set of inexpensive cardboard glasses that you can cut up and stick onto the camera lens with tape; your hands will be free to hold the camera steady. 

Looks like our impromptu photography lesson's over; now it's time to check out today's exhibits.

Full-on shot of the bear; detail of his tag.

This little guy first showed up in March 2013, but I include him here because he’s a 2000 edition, and also because he’s decorated in the colors of the American flag. There’s nothing about it that screams “Millennium!” other than his 2000 issue date, but I’m glad I bought it because now it rounds out the four items I needed. 

I am honestly surprised that a bigger deal wasn't made about "the first Independence Day celebration of the 21st Century," but then again, it's a holiday that doesn't really need a lot of special merchandise--the Stars and Stripes are generic enough that anything which didn't get bought this year can be put away and resold next year.

A joint program developed by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the White House Millennium Council, this large pamphlet contains a series of suggestions for Americans of all ages to capture and preserve the stories of their relatives and those closest to them; the idea was to create a metaphorical tapestry or quilt out of these stories.

The concept went a step further in that it took advantage of the then-fledgling Internet. To quote NEA chairman William Ferris, “Our website is a virtual ‘front porch’ for every American…Once you post your family stories and photographs in the online collection; you can discover more about your ancestors as you create your family tree and see how each branch connects with the nation’s history.”

Former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton offered her own perspective: “My History…will help make our nation’s celebration of the new millennium a time that reveals and enriches the spirit of millions of Americans…It is a time to honor the past and imagine the future.”

The “My History” website was, in a sense, an early prototype of the Millennium Museum. It preserves the past while it retains that undeniably American sense of optimism about the future. It’s the perfect time capsule, but I responded most to the idea of fusing stories of American people with a then-new method of communication…the turn of the Millennium saw the World Wide Web become affordable to everyone around the world. This was thanks, in part, to the efforts of America Online, which became a giant by offering a flat monthly fee for unlimited Internet use. At the time, other companies charged an hourly rate, which seems absurdly cheap now but was a problem when things took a long time to download.

  But there is another way in which My History is a prototype of the Museum: Whereas the book/website sought to preserve history as a guide for a bright new future, I seek to preserve the history and the optimism that surrounded the Year 2000 celebrations as a demonstration of optimism lost.

 

 

All right…This is one of the times when I wish I were a little bit more high-tech, because “Space Invaders 2000” practically screams for a video review.

How about I make a deal with you? Since the Millennium Museum is a growing and continually-evolving work, I sometimes see fit to revisit older items as time goes on and I gain new insights about them. For next year’s Fourth Spectacular, I’ll revisit “Space Invaders” with a video review.

Published by Activision in 1999, this update of the classic arcade game is one of several Millennium revivals. The other games in the loose “series” were “Asteroids” (the ad you see was on the back of the “Invaders” booklet), “Centipede,” “Pong,” and “Breakout,” all of which Activision owned. 

As a “Tank” pilot, you have to go each planet in our Solar System and wipe out the invasion forces, represented by hordes of brightly-colored, toy-like aliens. Since the aliens are invading Earth, interplanetary travel raises the question: Why are you not going from continent to continent and wiping out the invasion fleet?

 Better leave questions like that to one side. You’re here to fire rockets, kill aliens, and chew bubblegum…and you’re all out of bubblegum.

 

This screenshot gives you an idea of just how varied the Invaders are.

This was one of the first single computer games I bought when we got the Gateway PC in 2000-- all of the other games came bundled with the PC. The action gets a little repetitive, but that’s just being faithful to the original game. Much of the “new” flavor comes from the aliens themselves, many of whom use signature attacks such as dive-bombs and diagonal shots; and also from “special” powers you gain from killing four “like” invaders in a row, such as boomerang missiles, acidic clouds, and “a frickin’ lay-zer beam” (to quote Austin Powers’ arch-nemesis Dr. Evil). The end-of-level bosses provide something of a challenge, but mostly you just have to dodge their attacks. 

 At the end, you have to beat the original “Invader” from the arcade game’s artwork: a huge, black Yeti with glowing yellow eyes. In a surrealistic touch, the Invader is like a moving cardboard cutout, as seen when he walks across the screen.

At the end, you have to beat the original “Invader” from the arcade game’s artwork: a huge, black Yeti with glowing yellow eyes. In a surrealistic touch, the Invader is like a moving cardboard cutout, as seen when he walks across the screen.

When you beat the game, your reward is a reproduction of the original 1978 classic, in keeping with the Millennium theme of preserving the old along while adding something new. 

The graphics and music hold up reasonably well in 2013. The techno-inspired soundtrack has a good beat to it, and the enemies still look very good. The pre-rendered FMVs (see below for an example) that bookend the game still look pretty good even if they’re slightly pixellated and grainy.

 

Screenshot from the opening FMV. I still say it looks pretty good.

 Overall, this is a worthy addition to any Millennium-themed Fourth of July gathering. It offers fireworks a-plenty, and nothing says “Fourth of July” better than shooting up hordes of marauding aliens!

Third time’s the charm for our last exhibit, as we revisit that consummately American icon Mickey Mouse. (We’ve seen him before in “Fantasia 2000” and on a Walt Disney World pin, both of which are on the same post.)

This cup came from McDonald’s in 1999/2000 or so…I think it was released alongside the “Toy Story 2” Happy Meals. It’s a tie-in with Walt Disney World’s Millennium celebrations, and it was one of four—this is the EPCOT one. The front of the vessel shows Mickey in his Sorcerer’s Apprentice robes, in full color; the other three sides depict Spaceship Earth, the World Pavilion, and the WDW 2⁰₀⁰ logo complete with subliminal “Mickey” silhouette. (Thinking about it right now, I’m pretty sure Disney only made such a fuss about the year so that it could depict the three zeroes as a Mickey Mouse shape.)

The other three cups in the series represented the Magic Kingdom (Mickey in his normal appearance), the then-newly opened Animal Kingdom (Mickey dressed as a safari explorer), and  Disney/MGM Studios (Mickey dressed as a Hollywood director). I can say with all certainty that EPCOT was by far the most common one. 

The set of four cups represents a now-extinct breed in fast-food marketing...one of the last sets of French-glass cups I saw was Burger King's "Lord of the Rings" goblets, which had red LED lights in the removable bases. If you were careful with them, they could last for years. Unfortunately, they broke very easily, especially if the handles weren't sturdy to begin with.