Damn it, where’s death and destruction on a planetary scale when you need it?
Why can’t we get our apocalypses right? Why can’t we pinpoint any one impending doom and say “this is it”? Why? Because the planetary “line-up” in 1982 didn’t kill us with massive earthquakes? Because Orwell’s 1984 didn’t come to pass in 1984? Because we partied like it was 1999 in 1999, but then we woke up in 2000, and were still here? Because Y2K didn’t cause the world to crash? Because most of us survived 2001, and Hurricane Katrina, and earthquakes and tsunamis and swine flu and…? Or maybe it’s just because we’ve got kick-ass computer graphics programs, and because bad news sells more movie tickets than good news.
Whatever the reason, the next doomsday we’re all supposed to fear and anticipate is 2012. This date has been chosen first from the Mayan long count, which runs out at the end of that year (see this Wikipedia entry for a long discussion of the impending disasters). And you’d better believe our major media outlets are gearing up for it. There were at least a dozen big releases in evidence at this Spring’s Book Expo America, and there’ve already been several major and minor motion pictures set before, during, or after one of the several predicted apocalypses for that year.
We’ve just heard from Random House, reminding us that last year, under their Broadway Books imprint, they published Lawrence Joseph’s Apocalypse 2012: An Investigation into Civilization’s End. And now they’re reprinting it, to tie it in to the Roland Emmerich disaster movie 2012, which is scheduled to be released Friday 13 November 2009. Emmerich is the director behind other feel-good films such as The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day. His newest globe-buster (see the official web site) stars John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Danny Glover, Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson, and Thandie Newton.
Random House says the book which spawned this particular movie is “an eye-opening and frightening examination of a growing doomsday movement that indicates a cataclysmic event will occur in the final months of the year 2012.” They also tell us the author is “a journalist who has written extensively on scientific matters and the environment for many publications including The New York Times. He was used as a feature expert in the making of the film and will appear in a documentary-style trailer, which will be released in short form in theaters in October, and in longer versions for DVD distribution to major media.
“His book reveals the curious facts that pinpoint the year 2012 as the year of ultimate doom. The ancient and incredibly sophisticated Mayan calendar—still revered for its accurate tracking of the seasons, stars, and eclipses—abruptly ceases its forecasts in 2012. Perhaps not coincidentally, several fields of modern scientific study (from seismic research to meteorology and astronomy) indicate that the Earth is overdue for a major natural disaster. Imminent possibilities include: widespread volcanic activity, the inversion of the magnetic poles, impact with a comet or asteroid, another ice age, or the destruction of the ozone by increasingly bizarre and harsh sunspot activity. The book follows Lawrence through his daily life as he uncovers ominous truths and suspicions for the years ahead. Ultimately, he concludes: we are all in a race against time.” And, just to prove he’s got the goods on the end of the world, he’s got a web site.
Far be it from me to mock someone for trying to make a buck off a gullible public, but tell me if I’m getting jaded. We have another doom-and-gloom movement telling us that, on the one hand, we’re to blame, and on the other, that there’s nothing we can do to stop total destruction. To prove the claim, we have pointers to the distant past, “ancient and incredibly sophisticated” people who must have been far smarter and more capable than we are, so of course we have to trust them, except that we’re only interpreting what we think they thought.
Lawrence Joseph’s book, Roland Emmerich’s movie. I probably won’t take the time to read the former; I may blow two hours to see the latter (I like good computer effects as much as the next person). But I’m going to be fretting about 2012 just as much as I worried in 1982, 1984, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004… well, you get the idea. Nevertheless, I wish Mr. Joseph well; I hope he can rake in as much as possible from the believers in the next two years, before we all have to go find that next apocalypse.