<nettime> Millenium Fever

[dmytrik@syntac.net (Dmytri Kleiner)]

	A n  I d i o s y n t a c t i x   M e m o r a n d u m

Milenium Fever
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Somewhere between sunset of the night before and sunrise on THE DAY,
everything will change. Undead religious heroes will resurrect. Aliens
will invade. Computer programs will crash and cause apocalyptic data
errors, banks will collapse, cultists worldwide will commit mass
suicides and other eccentric gestures.

THE DAY will bring apprehensions, turmoil, hope, frenzy, greed,
prostration, and -- as is the overwhelming custom of our age -- great
celebration and extravagant group debauchery.

THE DAY is January 1, 2000 AD. The holiest of holy days. There is no
question this day will have great meaning and consequences.

Many of the uninitiated believe THE DAY to be the beginning of the
second millenium since the birth of the offspring of a Jewish woman we
now call Mary and either a Roman soldier named Pantera or a meandering
omnipotent God of Abraham, depending who you believe.

These spiritual peasants that are ignorant of the true grandeur and
Holiness of THE DAY seem to believe that THE DAY commemorates 2000
years after the birth of Jesus Christ. I will lead you away from these
errors and help you realise the true significance, the true Holiness
of THE DAY, the greatest of days.

First off, since these uninitiated ones celebrate the birthday of this
crucified hero on December 25th, it would seem reasonable that even
the most unthinking traditionalist would agree that at best THE DAY
was 6 days after the 2000th anniversary of the birth of their Lord.
These 6 days represent the beginning of the Holy Erroneousness that
gives THE DAY it's power and glory. All praise the Holly Erroneousness
for it holds the true great meaning of THE DAY.

The subject of the birthday of Christ is a highly contentious area.
Few disagree that the traditional December birthday of Christ comes
from the pagan winter solstice and not the birth of Christ. The best
guess as to the actual day of his birth is March 13th, fixed by a
lunar eclipse that happened on the previous night, perhaps the
legendary star of Bethlehem. Thus, The Holy Erroneousness of 6 days
grows another 8 months and 12 days.

Is THE DAY Two Thousand years, 8 months and 18 days after the birth of
Jesus?

Not Quite.

Before the year 1 AD was the year 1 BC, there was no "Year Zero" The
Arabic notion of Zero had not yet established itself in the west when
Charlemagne imposed the idea of dating events from the birth of our
remarkable demi-god bastard of Judea.

Therefor, because the first year was Year 1, the first year of any new
century or new millennia must also end in "1". So, in case you're
counting, THE DAY is not the first day of the new millenium, but
rather the first day of the last year of the current millennium. But,
what the heck, who's counting?

Is THE DAY One-Thousand-Nine-Hundred-Ninety-Nine Years, 8 Months and
18 days after the birth of Jesus?

Ummm. No. Uh-Uh.

The Julian calendar's method of accounting for leap years put the
years out of date with the seasons. In 1580 Pope Gregory XIII deleted
10 days from October, although this caused great riots in his time as
hordes demanded their 10 days back, this realigned the new Gregorian
calendar with the seasons and inflated our Holy Erroneousness another
10 days.

Is THE DAY One-Thousand-Nine-Hundred-Ninety-Nine Years, 8 Months and
28 days after the birth of Jesus?

Not exactly.

The phrase "Anno Domini" (The year of the Lord) and it's dating was
propagated through England, Gaul and the known world by the
"Ecclesiastical History of Britain" which was completed by the
Venerable Bede in what we would now call the year 731 AD. Bede based
his AD dates on a set of Easter Tables that provided the date for
Easter Sunday in each year, the tables were compiled in the year we
would now call 525 AD by a Roman monk named Dionysius Exiguus

Dionysius was the first to measure events "from the Incarnation,"
unfortunately he left no explanation of how he figured out the date of
"the Incarnation" and all responsible historians believe that the
cleric Dionysius Exiguus made an error.

In terms of the mysteries of THE DAY and the Holy Erroneousness, it
was the greatest clerical error of all time. The Error of Errors.

Historians argue weather Christ was born in 2 BC,  4 BC, or even
earlier, but all worth noting agree that Dionysius' date was
incorrect, the most damning evidence being that the well documented
Herod the Great, who is clearly alive in the Bible's nativity stories,
died no later than 1 BC, so Christ must have been born before then.
The March 13th day based on the lunar eclipse was in 4 BC, and is the
most cited historical birth date.

So whether this adds 2 years or 4 years to the Holy Erroneousness is
not clear, but what is clear is that THE DAY, that great day of days,
is 2000 years after the anniversary of nothing in particular.

What is certain is that the true hero of this great celebration that
is before us is not Jesus Christ, but rather Dionysius Exiguus! And
the GREAT EVENT which is commemorated by THE DAY is not a birth but
rather a clerical error!

Is THE DAY One-Thousand-Five-Hundred-Seventy-Five Years from the
anniversary of a great clerical error?

Well, not quite, because it's unlikely that that Dionysius composed
his Easter Tables on New Years Day, so the actual Error of Errors
would have been a few days after,
One-Thousand-Five-Hundred-Seventy-Five Years before THE DAY.

What is without question is that whatever happened 730,000 trips
around the sun before THE DAY has long been forgotten. THE DAY is not
about two thousand years ago, THE DAY is about our ultimate
transcendence into the abstract. Our final escape from the mundanity
of truth and our final and permanent plunge into a world created by
our own ideas, traditions and delusions.

In the modern era were labels are more valuable than details, where
headlines matter more than stories, where perception is much more
meaningful than fact, what could be more wonderful than this day?

Look to all the frenzy, all the extravagance, all the tragedy that
will come on THE DAY as great symbols, signs, omens, you must see
these things as conclusive proof of the unbounded Holiness of the
Absurd. The Sacredness of the Preposterous.

Like proudly striking a flag into a landscape with no known
coordinates, we mark THE DAY as existing outside of any relationship
with any other point in time. An unrelated coordinate in on an
uncharted map. Arbitrary yet absolute. THE DAY will soon be upon us!

Hallelujah!

By Dmytri Kleiner, 1998 AD
dmytrik@syntac.net
http://www.syntac.net





---
#  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl