1999

With Y2K looming and the possibility that our newly computerized world might collapse at midnight of 12/31/1999, this Planet-of-the-Apes-inspired card captured the sentiment of what we thought might happen (OK, what I was really sure was going to happen – others not so much).

When computer programs were first written in the 1960s, the year was denoted with a two-digit code (leaving out the 19) to minimize computer memory which was limited at the time. As the year 2000 approached, it was thought that at the stroke of midnight when it became 1/1/2000, computers everywhere would register the year as simply “00,” which would register as 1900 in computer-speak, and everything would go haywire as dates were set backwards by a century. Airplane navigation systems would fail, ATMs would stop working, our entire infrastructure would descend into chaos. We'd have no water, no food, no electricity. As such, government agencies, corporations, computer programmers everywhere were working feverishly to correct this and make the year four digits wherever it appeared in programs. As the new year approached, many were confident the fixes were completed enough to avoid catastrophe. I was fairly convinced we’d still end up with a computer-induced apocalypse. I didn’t know the Planet of the Apes movie well, but when I saw a still of the final scene with the Statue of Liberty half buried and the rest of New York City gone, it seemed like the perfect backdrop for my Y2K-themed card.

This was the only time I photoshopped the actual image for my cards (aside from 1997 when we used photoshop to alter the color only). For this one, I bought an 8"x10" black and white still of the final iconic scene of Planet of the Apes (I believe there was a store on 23rd Street that sold movie stills). Then for my role, I bought some burlap, wrapped myself in it to make a dress and bought a long-haired cave-woman looking wig. I made the Time Capsule by covering a plastic garbage pail with a sheet and writing “2000” on the sheet with a thick marker. Geoff knew of a tiny sandy beach in Central Park and we met there. On a cold blustery winter day, I buried the Time Capsule in the sand along with some New Year’s decorations, I stood barefoot in my burlap dress and started digging sand with a borrowed shovel. It was very very very cold.

Afterwards, a local photo lab on Bleecker Street named Spectra Photos worked with me to merge the foreground photo of me, barefoot in the sand, in my home-made burlap dress and buried time capsule with the background still from the Planet of the Apes. Since these were photoshopped, I didn’t print them in the darkroom myself but I did still hand color them.

My one design regret is that, in hindsight, I wish the Time Capsule read 1999 (and not 2000) since in this scenario, 1999 would have been when the time capsule was actually made and buried, and 2000 would have been the post-apocalyptic scene we are witnessing in the card.

P.S. Despite my impressive stash of water and canned goods in preparation of everything going haywire at 12:01am on 1/1/2000, Y2K was a big dud and after all that hype, nothing happened!