Word: millennium
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Reaction to the end of the millennium, though, is proving Barnum wrong. Barring a last-minute rush of millennial lunacy, all the riot plans locked deep in the vaults of America's cities will be for naught...
...cultural event, the turn of the millennium is starting to look pretty anticlimactic. NBC's much-hyped "Y2K: The Movie" was a bomb. According to the Los Angeles Times last week, sales for millennium shows and galas have been "tepid." The paper reports that "many worry that what was initially looked at as a historic payday may end up as a bad investment covered in confetti." Celebration 2000, a lavish event to be held at the Javits Center in New York, was cancelled after no one bought tickets. Even singer/songwriter/poet Jewel canceled her hometown New Year's Eve concert...
...possible the millennium is fizzing because everyone just realized this isn't really the end of the millennium. As any math nerd can eagerly tell you, there was no year zero, therefore the next century doesn't technically start until...
That doesn't seem likely. Although The New York Times newsroom is reportedly awash in hysterics over how to cover the millennium--whether or not the Gray Lady should give in to the poor math of the mob--no one else really cares. For most of us, those three zeroes are pretty convincing...
...convincing enough that we're willing to buy Jewel tickets, or dig a fallout shelter, or buy a round trip to Tahiti. Bad math notwithstanding, Americans are remarkably blase about Y2K. "Sarah, Plain & Tall," whooped "Y2K: The Movie" before Thanksgiving. Millennium-themed advertisements are almost universally regarded as lame. And even as Y2K computer problems are beginning to surface--people in Philadelphia have been getting jury notices for service in February 1900--there's not much excitement over the impending milestone...