An encouraging word for the new year

So it's official: the world will not end in 2012 as previously suggested (by Hollywood, mostly). It's all an unfortunate misunderstanding arising from the unique method of ancient Mayan timekeeping which involved three different and concurrent systems for keeping track of the days. The confusion was amplified by their use of a base-20 number system, notated with a system of lines and dots that look as though the I Ching mated with the Morse code. It makes your head hurt just to think of it! Long story short, the whole apocalypse thing is just a big mistake. The world will not, I repeat, not, end in 2012. 

Unless it does, in which case it will end on my birthday.

This is just some of the useful information gleaned from the Royal Ontario Museum's current exhibit, Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World, which was a source of great happiness to me last week.

Other people might be captivated by the Mayan systems of farming, employing elaborate terraces to maximize use of agricultural land, or perhaps their incredible architecture. Teenaged boys will doubtless be drawn to accounts of human sacrifice to a blood-thirsty god.

Myself, I immediately gravitated towards the ear spools. These are massive and ornate objects worn like earrings, only so large that the earlobe had to be gradually expanded over the course of a lifetime to accommodate them. One of the lesser humiliations visited upon captured enemies was replacing their ear spools with strips of paper. The greater humiliations you maybe don't want to know about, unless you are the aforementioned teenaged boy. In which case -- why are you reading this?

One small quibble: the show has been mounted with way too much audio, all of it loud and not sequestered, so that when you walk though the exhibit there can be as many as three audible competing voices. Add the voice of a docent shouting over it all and you have what is in my universe a recipe for Mulled Hell. If this is an issue for you too, I suggest getting hold of some noise-cancelling headphones before viewing the ear spools of the ancient Maya.

The Mayan exhibit will run until April 9th, but ending tomorrow is the wonderful exhibit of David Hockney iPad drawings, Fresh Flowers, on the 4th floor of the ROM Crystal. I wish I had visited it earlier and frequently. It is totally amazing and can still be viewed on January 1st. 

Resolution for the new year: at least mention the accordion occasionally.

Happy New Year!