THAT WAS THE MILLENIUM THAT WAS

© 1999
, 2010
by John Scalzi

This electronic edition of this collection was made available for free and can be shared on a non-commercial basis. Don’t sell it! Don’t buy it! Just enjoy it.

These essays originally published on Whatever, John Scalzi’s blog:

whatever.scalzi.com

INTRODUCTION (from 1999)

Oh, look. Another Millennium thing. Just what we need -- and I am well aware, thank you very much, that the Millennium doesn't truly occur until 2001. However, when there are 6 billion people on a planet, 5,999,900,000 of whom maintain that the year 2000 is The Millennium, the wee, small, logical voices of the remaining 100,000 count for exactly diddly. People like their major historical events to coincide with nice big round numbers, and there's little value arguing that point any more. 2000 it is.

Now, I originally wasn't planning to do anything regarding the millennium, because, really -- who
isn't
doing something on the millennium? However, the thought then occurred to me: When will be the next time I'll be able to wrap up an entire thousand years? (Yes, I know, 2001. Shut up.) Everybody's doing their millennial thing, but that doesn't mean it's automatically a bad thing. After all, everyone breathes oxygen, and that doesn't stop me from following the crowd. 

And so, beginning November 1 and going through the remainder of 1999, I will present daily my selections for the Best of the Millennium. But not just any selections -- I'll b cataloguing the things people
really
care about (or should, in any event). Like: Best Lopsided War. Best Vision of Hell. Best Condiment. And how could we omit: Best Plague. No one else is going to get around to these categories, and, damn it, they deserve comment as well. So
I'm
gonna do it. Each day, for the rest of this millennium (or, more accurately, for the rest of the popular perception of this millennium). 

THAT WAS THE MILLENNIUM THAT WAS

Best Beverage of The Millennium.

Coffee. Hands down (and shaky). Discovered in 850 by an Arab goat herd, who watched his goats gobble some beans and then perform the world's first poetry slam, coffee finally hit the big time in the 16th and 17th centuries, when coffeehouses (almost none of them Starbucks!) were the rage in London, Paris and other European capitals. Nowadays it's the planet's favorite beverage; some 2 billion people suck down java every day. 

Who is your average coffee drinker? Look in the mirror. Most serious coffee drinking begins in college, when the realization that your parents are now actually
paying
for your education inspires a student's very first all-night study session. This first true exposure to coffee generally ends in catastrophe as the student sucks down about six cups too many and spends several hours shaking
 
like
a Kobe earthquake survivor. But eventually the correct daily dosage is found, and a lifetime "friendship" with the brown stuff begins.

More than a beverage to keep people awake, coffee is a symbol of the American century, its jittery charms indelibly tied to an industrious people who rebuilt the world, from the days of Henry Ford to these days of Bill Gates, fueled by
caffeine
jolts that helped exaggerate America's already overly-developed "can-do" spirit. Take a look at the Empire State Building sometime, or a Dodge Viper, or the demo of the Quake Arena videogame. You can almost smell the bitter tang of that 7th cup that inspired that one guy to say, "Of course, you know what would be
really
cool..." 

Coffee is tied to the US like tea is tied to the British, the former rulers of the world, and of course that fact is illustrated in who in the world drinks tea and who drinks coffee. Tea gets the nod in places like India, China (who, of course, got there first, but even so) and all those other places where the British empire oh so kindly shouldered its white man's burden, until the natives asked, if it was quite all right, old chap, if they could kindly have their own countries back. Coffee is everywhere else, except Russia, where the role of coffee is played by vodka. 

You could even say that what you drink is what you are, at least when it comes to tea and coffee. Tea is refined; coffee, for all its success, is
vulgar
. Tea is old money going back to the 13th century or so; coffee earned its money selling tires, or collecting trash, or making television shows about babes fighting crime. Tea doesn't soil its hands; coffee is elbow-deep in motor oil and transmission fluid. Tea is in a cup; coffee is in a mug. Tea is
aristocratic
; coffee is egalitarian (why do you think they call it "joe"?). At one point everyone who drank coffee aspired to be the sort of person to drink tea; nowadays, of course, these people realize that they don't actually
like
people who drink tea. People who drink tea don't
do
anything.

The bad news is that coffee is
becoming
tea. Tea has its Earl Greys and Orange Pekoes; coffee has lattes and half-caf double mochas. Used to be that these unholy brews were confined to the dark recesses of college town
coffee shops
, to be sucked down by scraggly-bearded graduate students who were reading yet another book on to bolster their thesis that Abelard and Heloise were precursors to the gender politics typified on the Jerry Springer show (or something), i.e., people who weren't doing anything. Now you can't throw a rock without hitting some overbred stock-option jockey with Starbucks coffee in one hand and a cellular phone in the other (try it. Throw hard). 

Coffee
qua
coffee, the bitter engine of progress, is being tamed into a polite, froo-froo brew. Meanwhile, the coders and geeks who are constructing the framework of the 21st century are sucking down their Surges and Mountain Dews and that old carbonated friend, Cola-Cola (no serious coder drinks Pepsi).
Caffeine
will survive into the next millennium, but it's unclear if coffee will.

But you can do your part. Ditch the Starbucks 90% foam latte, go to the supermarket, and buy a can of, oh, Chock Full O' Nuts coffee. Go to the thrift store and buy a percolator. Put the coffee in and brew a pot. Then put some more coffee in and double brew it. Get a mug that's taller than it is wide, pour it in, and slam it down. As the bitter liquid sears your esophagus, swelling it to the size of a honeydew melon in your throat, you will undoubtedly be seized by the need to build the world's longest suspension bridge, or the highest clock tower, or the fastest
personal
computer with the most bitchin' graphic cards. Go do it. That's what coffee's all about.