November 2009 - The End Of Times

Mayan prediction for the world's demise? Don't count on it, folks.

I will term it obsession. How else can you describe man's need to codify and describe the way in which the world ends? Whether we're talking about the recent craze over the Mayan calendar, the Revelation of St. John or the misguided statistics of Sir Thomas Malthus' The Principle Of Population, we as a people have always been drawn by thoughts of a collective end.

Some have been more fanciful than others. The Greek and Norse myths have a wonderful final battle of sorts, none more dramatic than the Norse Ragnarok. I mean, what is more dramatic than a giant wolf, whose slavering maw touches both the heavens and dredges the bottom of the sea, devouring Odin in a single vengeful gulp? Nothing, I say.

The last century certainly had no shortage of end stories, some of them founded in political realities. The nuclear bomb is a doomsday device. From Bertrand Russel to Nevil Shute, the reality of a nuclear holocaust is one end scenario that should in fact terrify.

The twentieth century is not innocent of ridiculousness though. Enter the Zombie. A legion of undeath is not a new story, in fact Babylonian myths defining the first Hell involve the goddess of the under world threatening the world with a ravenous legion of the flesh-eating dead.

I won't deign to call this precedence.

Instead we expanded this storyline to include genetic mutations, born of nuclear waste or unstoppable viruses. Lions, tigers and bears: Oh my!

I would be remiss to fail in mentioning that quintessential of modern myths, the alien invasion. Whether of the 1940's communication breakdown type or the more current bloodthirsty Michael Bay variety. There, I mentioned them.

So what does this all mean? Why am I writing this? Because we have a honest to goodness full month of the Devil's Accountant on tap. The subject for the month is the end of times.

Enjoy.