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OK, which is it? January 1, 2000, or January 1, 2001? You will, no doubt, be exposed in the next few years to numerous pundits and talking heads who will solemnly tell us that we have it all wrong, that the new millennium starts on January 1, 2001. There was no year 0 in the Gregorian calendar, they proclaim, so the first decade ended 10 years after year 1, or December 31, 10. Similarly, the first century ended on December 31, 100, and the second millennium started on January 1, 1001. Well, this is all very logical -- and also complete bullshit. There was no year 1 or year 10, or year 100. These calendar dates were backed into by monks hundreds of years later, monks with apparently little knowledge of the Arabic notion of zero. I'm going to put off my party a year because some monks couldn't count? I think not. Most of us, I think, tend to look upon the turn of the century as not an abstract math question, but more akin to the functioning of an odometer. (Monks never had cars, either.) When, back in college, I decided to celebrate the longevity of my '63 Rambler, I did it at 100,000 miles, not 100,001. You can't tell me that when the first two numbers of the year change from 19 to 20, we've not yet reached the millennium. It's counterintuitive. If you follow this reasoning, 1900 was not part of the 1900s, 1970 was not part of the 1970s and 1960 was part of the 1950s. Why can't we define a century as years that start with the same two numbers, and forget all this crap about year 0? The ever-erudite Stephen Jay Gould has pointed out that a millennium is whatever you call it, that there is no cosmic proctor to declare that a particular date or theory is "right" or "wrong." He points out that the celebrations on January 1, 1901, welcoming the current century, were dictated by "high culture" pundits. Up until WWII, there was a distinction between "high" culture and "pop" culture, and the culturatti were looked to for infallible advice in matters such as these. The opinion of us peons were ignored. But now, there is no difference between high and pop, between the New Yorker and the Enquirer, between Lincoln Center and Lincoln Logs. We are culture, and if we decide that 2000 is it, that's it! So Prince had it right. The big party is on December 31, 1999. Those high culture types will show up a year late to find the party over, the booze gone, and the Mylar balloons stuck in the rafters. It might be a good time to round them up and make them watch Three's Company reruns until their heads explode. Note: This page was mentioned in a January 1999 issue of Entertainment Weekly, one with Gywneth Paltrow on the cover. Unfortunately, that's about as close as we'll ever get. Futher note: I was watching West Wing around about the time of Y2K, and two of the characters got into the 2000/2001 discussion. One of them mentioned an odometer and Stephen Jay Gould in making the argument for 2000. Coincidence? I think not.
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