6/6/6: In Search of the Apocalypse

6/6/6 A DAYLONG VIGIL--REPORTED A FEW DAYS LATE

In honor of the whole 6/6/6 thing, I figure I'll keep a keen daylong lookout for what Wordsworth referred to as “signs and symbols of the great apocalypse.” I want to see if there's anything to this whole End of the World thing or if what we've got on our hands here are signs and symbols of the great same ole same ole.

Portentous or nothing? You make the call.

NOTE: I know by the time you read all this, the verdict will be in and the terrible suspense that I sustained during my relentless investigation will have been resolved. But still, even if the whole End of the World thing is in the rear view mirror, please pretend while you read this that it is still 6/6/6 and the outcome is still very much in doubt.

Okay. First news item. From Yahoo.com. I see that at the sports
gambling site Betus.com, the wager of the day is: "Will the World End on 6-6-06?

Yahoo reports that “By 6 p.m. yesterday, 216 of the 700 gamblers had bet an average of just more than $2 that yes, the world would end. The odds stood at 100,000 to 1.”

Love the idea of people betting in the affirmative that the world will end…and still hoping to collect winnings if they're right. It sort of reminds me of the mentally challenged guy who had been convicted of some capital offense and was on death row in Arkansas. Evidently, the guy's mental deficiency was such that he had no concept of time. He would say things like “After my execution, I am going to behave even better in prison.” Anyhow, he was a big dessert lover and used to save his dinner desserts to have as a treat the next morning. On the night of his execution, they served him his last meal and took him from the cell to the execution chamber. When the warden returned to his cell to clean it up after the execution, he discovered that they guy had put aside his dessert for the next day.
/>(A true story).

OK, here's something from the AP: U.S. to give Iran nuclear technology. Hmm. If one is looking for a sign of the end of the world, there it is. Oh, wait: On closer examination, it's in an attempt to get them to stop their uranium enrichment program…for nuclear weapons. Ok, so maybe not. False alarm. Easily subsume-able under some kind of a “rational” strategy. (Although the idea of the Bush administration pursuing a rational strategy is so remarkably counterintuitive as to be, in itself, a reason to believe the world is ending.)

Let's look into the sports world and see if anything alarming is happening there. Oh, Federer has won in straight sets. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Ho-hum. “Apocalypse shmapocalypse,” he seems to be saying with each methodical thrashing of the yellow felt orb.

OK, here’s something: Ann Coulter is viciously attacking the 9/11 widows: (“ I have never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much."). Well, clearly nothing odd here. I mean if she had said something intelligent or compassionate, it might have tipped the evidentiary scales towards the conclusion of imminent catastrophe and warranted our whipping up a nice little something to serve the 4 horsemen when they arrive. But, no, we are safely in Terra Firma country on this one. I never thought heartlessness could be so existentially reassuring. Thank you Ann, baby. You’re beautiful.

As I return to my tireless search for signs and symbols, I wonder to myself, “Hmm. What could it be? What could truly confirm the imminence of the eschaton?” Maybe Pat Robertson saying something NON apocalyptic for a change. That’d sure get you thinking about the apocalypse. Or maybe the Very Reverend Mr. Robertson getting his Spiritual hearing aid fixed and hearing God correctly for a change-as He intones “Pat, you're a blathering dingleberry.” Or maybe something completely inconcievable. Like Dick Cheney smirking symmetrically?

Shudders. Now, THAT'd be enough to get me putting my affairs in order.

Oh thank you 6/6/6 for occasioning such heightened sense of Vigilance over our world and our times.

Wait, here's something for the end-of-the-world column.

John Updike-- the silver-haired, golden-tongued lettrist laureate of the bourgeousie—has written a book on terrorism?!?!? THAT”s out of the ordinary. He usually writes about suburbia. And, wait, Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times panned it! That's even more impressive. The New York Times slamming a John Updike offering??? That’s like The New York Post praising Hillary Clinton! Hmmm. I don’t want to be an alarmist, but…are those holocaustal fires I’m smelling?

Of course, as I'm scribbling these glib running notes on the day…I am aware that at any minute something could come along (another terrorist attack, a natural disaster, an unnatural disaster, a virgin birth, a rain of frogs, news of the break-up of Brad and Angelina etc.) to entirely overshadow all that preceded it--as the WTC attacks certainly eclipsed (and consigned to oblivion) whatever the second lead story of the day would have been. This is the case on any given day…and is in no way specific to a vigil for signs of the apocalypse. So ignore what I just said. The pressure of this high-anxiety hermaneutic exercise is clearly getting to me.

Ok, ok….relax Teddy. Maybe the world isn’t ending. Documents reveal the CIA knew of notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann's whereabouts in Argentina in 1958 and did absolutely nothing to apprehend him. A perversely reassuring restoration of the expected order of things.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/washington/06cnd-nazi.html?hp&ex=1149652800&en=5edc15401ea8ffdc&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Thank you CIA. I’m feeling much better now.

Of course, that said, I really wonder: What's more unsettling: The though that these things are confirmation of the End of The World or the realization that they are just evidence of business as usual?

OK, back to the headlines: Let’s see: Bush cynically peddling the ban on gay marriage bill. Again, reassuringly ordinary. On the other hand at this very moment not one of the top 8 stories on Yahoo concerns celebrity news or gossip. That is sort of creepy. I smell the distinct whiff of End times my friends.

What’s this? Species thought extinct spotted in Columbia. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060606/sc_nm/environment_frogs_dc) Wow, coming back from extinction? Isn’t that something that’s supposed to happen at the end of time? Of course, I think these frogs didn’t really come back from extinction. What they didn’t mention was that these Columbian frogs were found with white powder coming out of their runny noses. No, they weren't extinct. They were just on an extended drug-fueled bender. I’m gonna file this one under hoax. Or at least misinterpretation.

Uh-oh.

A headline reads: “Scientology revs up to join NASCAR circuit.”

And now this:

“Scientists trying to clone human embryos.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060606/ap_on_sc/harvard_cloning

And this:

Real body found at Fla. fake crime scene.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060606/ap_on_re_us/field_trip_body;_ylt=Amb5rb7Q6xg5fDEPWw6yPdys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

And this: (And, mind you, these are not coming from the Onion or The National Star, but from Yahoo news and The New York Times.)

Lioness in zoo kills man who invoked God

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060605/od_nm/ukraine_lion_dc;_ylt=AhQYA4AQzg
u5hlF2Y_6Q5_as0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

And this:

A guy named Melky upstages everyone in the big Yankees-Red Sox game.

OK. The dam is breaking. The signs are coming down like frogs from the sky. I repent for my secular glibness. This isn’t funny. I get it…I’m being punished….OK…please stop already. Oh, no! And now this:

Study says millions have 'rage' disorder

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060605/ap_on_sc/road_rage_disease;_ylt=AlNOT
jg1H2m_rIMvjEmKnaKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

But the merciless Eternal One does not relent. In what may be the most compelling sign of the impending apocalypse yet, I see that David Lee Roth has become a blue grass singer…and one that makes John Tesch look like he's got the funk. Watch for yourself, ye doubters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9TlsVXnBn0

And, no, it can’t be. This would be the best story of the year if it weren’t the final confirmation of the End of the World: Three simple words my friends. Yes, the three simple words at the End of Time. No they are not "Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata." They are not "Shanti shantih shantih." The are not “God is Great”. They are not “Meet your Maker.” They are…Mexican Midget Rodeo.

http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/west/la-tm-losmatadoritos23jun04,0,5583652.story

OK, I have to go and put my affairs in order. It’s been beautiful my friends. It has been beautiful.

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Posted on 6/9/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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