Is the world going to end Friday?
Does your car go “poof” when the odometer rolls over?
No?
Same deal with the net effect of the Mayan calendar.
But that won’t stop the party — electro-raves among the Guatemalan pyramids, beer fests in Buckhead, and seekers of harmonic convergence worldwide — as participants gather to bid farewell, or simply raise a toast.
The End of the World soirees in Atlanta will run the gamut:
- The courtyard at the East Andrews entertainment district will be transformed into a "Mayan Temple" complete with "sexy priestess" for radio station Q100's "End of the World" party there.
- Revelers at the Terminal West in the King Plow Arts Center will adopt a more trendy "zombie apocalypse" theme, including the appearance of a zombie Santa Claus.
- "Evolve Atlanta: Birth 2012 and Beyond" takes a sober approach, drawing visitors to the Unitarian Universalist Congregationto to meditate on "a world that works for everyone."
The Mayan calendar is to blame for this spate of end-times chatter, though the Mayans themselves were rather sanguine and not given to doomsday predictions, said Mark Van Stone.
Van Stone, author of “2012: Science & Prophecy of the Ancient Maya,” said “the apocalyptic part of the Mayan myth comes entirely from modern speculation.”
That modern tendency seized on the Mayan’s estimate that the previous world ended after 13 “b’ak’tuns” (or about 5,125 years). The 13 b’ak’tuns of the current world will end on 12/21/2012.
Americans seized on the significance of the date because “We live in an apocalyptic society,” said Van Stone. “The pilgrim fathers were religious fanatics whom England wouldn’t tolerate. We have this apocalypticism in our blood.”
Not everyone is pleased with the hoopla.
Guatemala’s Mayan population has expressed official disgust with the government’s plan for events to draw 90,000 partiers to Guatemala City, calling it “folklore for profit.”
Others are approaching the date with a wink and a grin. Terminal West is hosting two parties, Friday and Saturday. The second will be the “Hey, we’re not dead party,” said Carter King, whose band, Futurebirds, will perform both nights.
The only death threatened at the Fernbank Science Center’s Friday night presentation of “Mayan Prophecies” is a tasty serving of Death by Chocolate.
Presentations at the Fernbank planetarium and others will probably address secondary rumors that the planets are going to align on Dec. 21, which will cause cataclysmic results.
However, no planets are lining up said David Dundee, astronomer at the Tellus Science Musuem in Cartersville, and even if they did, the effect on the earth would be negligible, because of the immense distances and the tiny masses involved. (You know, the old inverse-square law: Gravitational attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between objects, in case you forgot.)
“They could line up in straight lines or spell out letters and it doesn’t matter,” said Dundee.
On the other hand, “anything is a good excuse for a party,” said Dundee, “and no party is complete without your neighborhood astronomer.”
