History channel hokum: Lost Book of Nostradamus
10/26/07 02:15 PM
By ED BARK
Both laughably pretentious and irresponsibly alarmist, Lost Book of Nostradamus finds a prime berth Sunday night on cable's usually respectable History Channel.
The 16th century French seer returns like a bad penny -- or fraudulent franc -- in this two-hour plunge (8 p.m. central, Oct. 28th) into another apocalyptic end game. Better to trust the intuitive powers and putdowns of Johnny Carson's Karnak the Magnificent, who once said, "May the fleas of a thousand camels nest in your shorts."
It's going to be a bit worse than that, according to what one Nostradamus acolyte terms "the go-to guy for prophecy." According to a recently uncovered picture book -- which may or may not be the work of the old kill-joy -- Earth has until 2012 to shape up or implode on itself.
"We are rapidly descending down into the very, very, very bottom of the barrel," says Nostradamus researcher and author Jay Wiedner. He's one of a dozen or so true believers who have chosen to embrace Nostradamus and basically pronounce him infallible. Their suppositions mostly are based on far-fetched interpretations of his writings and drawings. It seems crystal clear to all of them, though, including "psychic and author" Ellie Crystal. Heed Nostradamus because the guy clearly could see nearly 500 years into the future.
The so-called Lost Book, "now lying quietly in a library in Rome," supposedly was "stumbled upon" in 1994 by Italian journalist Enza Massa. Researchers since have been poring over its pictures and trying to determine who drew them. No one apparently can say for sure whether it was Nostradamus or maybe Dr. Seuss. But that doesn't stop the History Channel from intoning, "If the lost book is indeed drafted by his (Nostradamus') pen, it is the find of the century."
That's a little hard to swallow, particularly when the program notes that an April 2007 lot of numerous authenticated Nostradamus books sold for $200 grand at a worldwide auction. That's a pittance compared to the $2.8 million purchase last month for a single little Honus Wagner baseball card. And the late Hall of Famer never was much for predictions.
History Channel spreads the doom and gloom thick, continually replaying the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers while Nostradamus-ites say that his -- or maybe not his -- drawing of a flaming castle tower clearly predicted this cataclysmic event.
Since that terrible day, "there are few moments in history when man has stood so close to the brink of creating and experiencing destruction on a massive scale," says the program's ever-ominous sounding narrator.
This should all be beneath The History Channel, but unfortunately isn't anymore. It's pretty much exhausted a seemingly endless supply of battleship documentaries and other world at war trademarks of its early existence. So viewers instead are strung along for nearly two hours with visions of a "lost" Nostradamus book "culminating in a prediction of mind-blowing magnitude."
As Karnak once said, "May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub."
Grade: D
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