Twenty-ten* !

One of those years is actually here! I mean, one of those years that used to make you think of something else, when you said the words. In this case, it's one of my favorite sci-fi movies, 2010. (Turner Classic movies lets you watch the trailer here, which really made me want to see it again, badly!)

The last time this happened was in 1984, in one of many coincidences—see below—the year 2010 came out. This date had always had a very sinister connotation. Before January 1, 1984 dawned, I wondered what it would feel like actually to live in that iconic year. (The environment of which, thankfully, wasn't much like that in the book.)

As it turned out, what happened wasn't anything mystical or life-changing (at least, not anything to do with the date). It became just another year and the syllables that make up the words nineteen eighty-four sort of lost their original power. I suspect that will happen pretty soon with the syllables that make up twenty-ten, too.

However, something very special did happen in 1984, and it's actually related to the movie 2010, which is, of course, related to today. Bear with me a minute.

My daughter was born that year, and all the previous years that I'd spent dreading the coming of 1984 (ever since I read the book, which was probably in high school) melted away in the joy of adding her to our family. Now 1984 just became the year I entered as her birth year on all the school forms to come.

The connection with 2010 comes from her name. Everybody knows the computer in the original 2001, HAL. You might not remember that there's another computer appearing briefly in 2010, whose name is SAL. (The review I wrote for the movie, since this was back in my movie-reviewing days, was even written from her viewpoint.)

Now, HAL's name in 2001 was, according to some scifi geeks, a little joke on IBM (just move back one letter). But our son's nickname was chosen for its Shakespearean connotations, not to call to mind psychotic computers, as a way of distinguishing him from his father and grandfather, for whom he was named. Our Sally was named that because we liked the name and there are other Sallies in the family. How funny to find out later that year that we'd named our kids after two of Arthur C. Clarke's computers!

My SAL and HAL visiting me in London last year

I wish that the hopeful message of 2010 will infuse our new year in reality, in spite of the fact that we're a ways behind the movie, space travel- and home decorating-wise. And I hope it's a happy one for all my kind readers.

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*I don't think there's much of a contest between saying two-thousand-ten and twenty-ten, as was discussed in a recent NPR segment. I just don't have enough excess energy to spend some of it putting an extra syllable into the date every time I say it. Now, if I can just remember to write 2010 on those first few checks of the year....