Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Getting that sinking feeling for millennium

YOU CAN feel it now, can't you? It's August 1998, just a few months shy of 1999, the final year before the new millennium. We're on the verge of being on the verge of the 21st century! Excitement is building! God or evolution or whatever has gone to great lengths to deliver us to this hopeful moment in human history. And nothing symbolizes our crossed fingers and expectations for the future quite like the saga of a huge boat sinking in the ocean, killing lots of people. Ladies and gentlemen, the 1999 Titanic calendar!

I laughed out loud when I saw it; couldn't help myself. Not because of the content, which is straightforward enough. Each month features a skillfully executed painting by one Ken Marschall depicting a moment in HMS Titanic's fateful voyage. January: All aboard! The passengers embark. March: The great ship steams toward the new world across a bright blue ocean, beneath a bright blue sky. Then comes June: Iceburg right ahead!

But it's too late, of course. By August those lucky enough to find seats in the lifeboats are watching the foredeck founder. In October, the upended stern breaks off and falls, and you know what happens from there -- the boat sinks.

And that's what's funny! As we spend 1999 sizing up the 21st century -- for so long our imaginary epoch of bubble-topped hover cars, cities in the sky, servant robots and other zippy Jetsonia -- the Titanic calendar will be reminding us of our humbled sense of greatness. Our dangerously overreached ambition. Our foolish belief in our own mastery. This is the household decorative touch that says: You're not such hot stuff after all.

How can you not laugh?

Check out the painting for December 1999. What image sends us bounding brightly into 2000? A submersible exploring the sunken ruins of a vessel that symbolized the bold march of our progress. Yeah, nothing says party like it's 1999 better than slime-encrusted maritime wreckage. And once the clink of champagne glasses has died down and we're standing there on Jan. 1, hung-over and ankle-deep in the new century, we can flip the calendar to January 2000 for yet another picture of the submerged ruins. Just in case you'd forgotten.

I imagine the calendar will sell well, even though none of the paintings feature Leonardo DiCaprio. While "Titanic" mania has abated, its imminent release on video is sure to ratchet it up again -- just in time to make this a fine Christmas gift.

Me, I'm already warming up to this calendar; it appeals to the cynic in me. Because we really aren't such hot stuff -- if we were, I'd be making payments on a hover car by now. So why not spend our final pre-millennial minutes contemplating our hubris?

In fact, given the typical American imperviousness to ironic metaphor (we need to be smacked over the head with the obvious) let's not stop at Titanic calendars. We need all the reminders of our own limitations and foolishness we can get. I say we festoon 1999 with Hindenburg mouse pads and Edsel-shaped auto deodorizers. With "Ishtar" refrigerator magnets and "Cop Rock" kitchen mitts. Maybe then we'll greet 2000 with a proper sense of our greatness.

Then again, I'm probably wrong -- by the time I finish X-ing the squares on my Titanic calendar, GM will likely have a hover car on the lots. In which case, save an Edsel deodorizer for me.

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