There’s no need to call some 1-900 psychic to see into the future of the arts, not when the Arts & Entertainment staff is here to bring you tomorrow’s news today. What follows are 99 not entirely serious predictions for the next century — and the next millennium.
2000
— In the year 2000, Garth Brooks will auction off wigs, tights and unused movie footage to cut his losses for the “In the Life of Chris Gaines” project.
— In 2000, financing problems will prevent construction of the world’s tallest building at 7 S. Dearborn St. As a result, the digital TV antennas that were supposed to go atop the skyscraper instead are installed, like giant rabbit ears, atop City Hall.
— Fox will renew “The X-Files” in 2000, but without David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. Instead, the network steals away Debra Messing and Eric McCormack of NBC’s “Will & Grace,” retains the characters of straight Grace and gay Will, and changes the name of the show to “The Y-Files.”
— Meanwhile, CBS will expand on the success of its Monday night comedies “Ladies Man,” “The King of Queens” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” by ordering 10 new comedies for 2000 that feature average-looking guys married to fabulous babes.
2001
— After yet another ComEd power failure, Mayor Richard M. Daley will declare in 2001 that he can’t stand trees and order city workers to chop down all the saplings he’s planted in order to provide all 2.7 million Chicagoans with an adequate supply of firewood.
— In 2001, Pearl Jam will mount the first virtual-reality tour by a major rock band. They play free nightly concerts in a Seattle basement for a month and video-broadcast them around the world via the Internet. Ticketmaster sues the band for lost service fees. SFX’s Robert Sillerman, fearing the end of the concert industry he monopolizes, consults with his Wall Street advisers on how to buy the Internet.
— In 2001, homes will be able to mount art-framed video screens on their walls and download “art” from the collection of the Art Institute. A Grant Wood for every home.
— Worst classical CD gimmick of 2001: “Baby Needs Schoenberg.”
2002
— Thanks to the popularity of the new “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire” game show, TV execs in 2002 will revive a gender-neutral version of “Queen for a Day.” They then take reality-based programming a step further by having TV crews move in with the prizewinners a la MTV’s “Real World.”
— Following a fashion edict from Martha Stewart in 2002, Mayor Daley will order his black, wrought-iron fences torn down and replaced with white wooden fences that give Chicago a quaint New England look.
2003
— In a bold attempt to win back disaffected concertgoers, the American Symphony Orchestra League will merge in 2003 with the World Wrestling Foundation. Coming soon to a classical arena near you: “Hulk” Haitink vs. “Pulverizin’ Pierre” Boulez.
— In 2003, the first batch of compact discs ever made will begin to deteriorate. Embarrassed, the record industry slashes prices on all remaining CDs and allows stores to give some away, including 10 million unsold copies of Garth Brooks’ “In the Life of Chris Gaines.” The shelf space is used for suddenly valuable merchandise discovered in record-company warehouses: eight-track tapes of the Edgar Winter Group’s “They Only Come Out at Night” and vinyl copies of “Frampton Comes Alive” with the gatefold poster.
— Fast-food movie tie-ins will bite the dust in 2003 when a big burgermaker is burned by a billion-dollar lawsuit by a disgruntled moviegoer claiming the toy he got in his kid’s meal promised the movie would be fun and it wasn’t.
2004
— To try to win back the youth audience that abandoned him years ago, Woody Allen will write, direct and star in a 2004 comedy about an older man who develops an unhealthy infatuation with someone named Pikachu.
— In 2004, at the age of 85, J.D. Salinger will publish a tell-all book about his life. No one will care.
Jerry Seinfeld and wife Jessica Sklar will produce triplets in 2004, choosing his three former “Seinfeld” cast members as godparents. Jerry pens a book on parenting, launches a dad-as-parent Web site and eventually returns to TV in a remake of “My Three Sons.”
2005
— A new building will capture the world’s attention in 2005: the post-minimalist, post-structuralist, post-postmodern Post Office. The prince of design theory, New York City architect Peter Eisenman, will explain, in his usual impenetrable prose, how the building will improve Chicago’s desultory mail service.
In the year 2005, consolidation will reduce the music industry to a single label, named after its CEO: Madonna. She says her first act will be to track down Britney Spears and mount a comeback tour by the fallen teen idol. Spears is discovered at a halfway home for recovering lip-sync addicts, sharing a room and a tiny makeup stand with Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Beals from “Flashdance.” Madonna is so moved by the experience that she signs all five and immediately books them on the most popular prime-time talk show in the world: Ricky Martin’s “La Vida Loca Hour.”
2006
— In its annual fiscal announce-ment for anklinGothic-2006, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will trumpet box office revenues, soft-pedaling the fact that concert attendance is in the “high three figures.” Management concedes that charging $2,000 for lower-balcony seats “might be keeping a few people away.”
— Cindy Crawford will bear another son in 2006, a brother for first-born Presley. In a continuing fascination with rock ‘n’ roll monikers, she names him Ringo.
— In 2006, Ellen DeGeneres will executive produce and star in “Me and You,” a new comedy drama concerning two women who live and love together in laughter and in tears. It is canceled after only four episodes because it resembles seven other same-sex shows on the air.
2007
— In 2007, people will watch all movies at home on their computers but will go out to watch television on large screens in theater or bar settings.
— In 2007, responding to a worldwide plastics shortage, Microsoft will announce the use of live mice as computer navigational instruments. The so-called “mouse pads” become just that: small housing units. (Microsoft refuses comment about what outraged consumers refer to as the “droppings problem.”)
— Also in 2007, Michael Jackson will unveil plans for a remake of “Top Hat” in which he plays the Fred Astaire role. Unaccountably, Jackson looks good in a tuxedo and dances with Fred’s old assurance and aplomb. His career re-invigorated, Jackson spends the next 20 years remaking Fred Astaire movies.
2008
— In 2008, Paul McCartney will announce that he was the walrus.
— In 2008, two seemingly irreconcilable 20th Century schools of composition, 12-tone music and minimalism, will be successfully joined in a new and popular style, Two Tone.
— In 2008, Robin Williams will star in a remake of “Lassie Come Home” as the title character.
— In 2008, Brill’s Content will discover the identity of the last person on earth not to have a homepage on the World Wide Web. James Hogg, 104, a retired grain elevator operator in Utopia, Iowa, refuses to establish such a page, claiming that he has “no desire to share stuff with a bunch of nosy strangers.” Hogg is committed to a psychiatric institution.
2009
— British sculptor Anish Kapoor’s huge polished-metal piece in Millennium Park will, in the summer of anklinGothic-2009 — the hottest summer in North American history — be responsible for intensifying and reflecting sunlight onto two blocks of buildings along Michigan Avenue. This causes a massive conflagration, as if by Martian death ray, on the Chicago skyline.
— The newest crossover sensation — a blind, schizophrenic, winsome 13-year-old singer/pianist named Andrea Helfgott Church — will hold on to the No. 1 slot on the Billboard charts for an unprecedented 43 weeks in
— In 2009, the managers of Symphony Center will hold a news conference declaring the hall’s acoustical problems very nearly fixed. “The refurbishment of Orchestra Hall in the late 1990s has been a resounding success,” says one Symphony Center executive. “By spending just a few million dollars more, we’ll definitely get it right this time.”
— In 2009, Janeane Garofalo and Christina Ricci will make a blockbuster movie called “Smiles and Smiles to Go,” in which the two actresses just grin. In another departure for Garofalo, she wears white clothing.
2010
— In 2010, it will be revealed that the publishers Farrar, Straus and Giroux, HarperCollins, Harcourt Brace, Houghton Mifflin, St. Martin’s Press and Viacom are actually imprints of Random House.
— Pianist Glenn Gould’s prediction (uttered during the 1970s) that listening to recordings would replace attendance at live concerts will finally come true in 2010. Symphony Center is turned into a car wash, with piped-in Beethoven to accompany the hot waxing.
— In 2010, we will discover that members of the Backstreet Boys, `N Sync and 98 Degrees are not humans but the experimental products of an Orlando-based robot factory called Harmonizing Hotties. It is later found that the company is a ghost subsidiary of The Disney Corporation with investment connections to Stockholm.
2011
— In 2011, when all recorded music can be accessed only by downloading from a Web-based Central Musical Memory Bank, police will arrest a man in Muncie, Ind., when it is discovered he has been maintaining his own collection of records and CDs for years in a secret vault in his basement.
— An unexplained proliferation of marginally dyslexic opera directors will give rise in 2011 to productions of “Nixon on the Beach” and “Einstein in China.”
— In 2011, a biography of Edmund Morris will be published. “Double Dutch” chronicles the life of the noted historian through the use of a fictional narrator who accompanied Morris through the years he researched and wrote a biography of former President Reagan. Morris files a lawsuit.
— But the bestseller in 2011 will be “Book,” a 365-page tome of completely blank pages. The author, an obscure English professor from Tallahassee, Fla., makes the usual rounds of TV, radio and newspaper appearances, but refuses to speak. It sells 2 million copies.
2013
— In 2013, “Book: the Movie” hits theaters, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise. Little remains of the original concept. Now a buddy flick, the story centers on attempts by Arnold and Tom to save an orphanage from the wrecker’s ball. At one point, though, a nun, played by Dennis Rodman, opens a Bible only to find that all the pages are blank.
— Musicologists in 2013 will discover a previously unknown score by Maurice Ravel, one of the musical giants of the previous century: “Concerto for Violin Left Hand.”
2014
— In the year 2014, the Rolling Stones will mount their 50th anniversary tour. Brian Jones is exhumed and propped up on stage each night to give the band a younger look. Fans unanimously agree that he’s in better shape than Keith Richards, whose Wild Turkey IV drip prevents him from playing the guitar.
2015
— In 2015, Lake Michigan will flood the South Side, turning the centerpiece of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’s design for the IIT campus center — a shimmering metal tube wrapped around the elevated tracks — into a giant drain pipe.
2016
— With electronic amplification a fact of everyday life in every American opera house, Lyric Opera will install “mega bass” buttons on armrests at the Ardis Krainik Theatre in 2016 to appease the pop crowd.
2017
— Local televison news will further tighten its format, a change WMAQ-Ch. 5 will acknowledge in 2017 by renaming its 10 p.m. broadcast “Health ‘n’ Weather Hut.” WGN-Ch. 9 will one-up Channel 5 by changing its newscast name to “News About the Shows You Just Saw.”
— 2017 by renaming its 10 p.m. broadcast “Health ‘n’ Weather Hut.” WGN-Ch. 9 will one-up Channel 5 by changing its newscast name to “News About the Shows You Just Saw.”
2019
— In a startling career move, jazz guitarist Pat Metheny will switch direction in 2019, taking up tin whistle. “Finally,” he says, “I have found an instrument that befits my music.”
2020
— When John Malkovich is unable to be on stage for a production in Steppenwolf’s 2019-2020 season, a virtual John M. will take his place.
— In the 2020s, after completing “Episode III” of the “Star Wars” saga, George Lucas will venture further back in time to write and direct another trilogy, “Episodes -III, -II, -I,” that show how Jar Jar Binks developed from a cute little beastie to an annoying blubberer.
In 2020, Britney Spears will admit her breast implants, have them removed and donate them to a worthy cause. She then blossoms into the artist of the century with a string of self-written and produced hits that prove the battle cry against social injustice and environmental de-gradation everywhere.
2021
— In 2021, aging Beatle and aspiring classical composer Paul McCartney will pen a sequel to his “Liverpool Oratorio” — the “Liverspot Oratorio.’
2022
— Entertainer Barbra Streisand sings what she promises will be her final farewell concert, in 2022, at age 80. Tickets for the show, in Las Vegas, are $12,000 each, but Streisand groupies snap tham up in just months. Though Streisand’s voice sounds wobblier and screechier than ever, the critics gush, calling Babs “a belter with plenty potential.”
2025
— By 2025, the ever-shrinking Chicago Jazz Festival will be whittled down to a single afternoon set in front of Buckingham Fountain, where a lone saxophonist incessantly wails “Take Five.” Nevertheless, the afternoon’s emcee proclaims it “the best Chicago Jazz Festival yet!”
— By 2025, the ever-shrinking Chicago Jazz Festival will be whittled down to a single afternoon set in front of Buckingham Fountain, where a lone saxophonist incessantly wails “Take Five.” Nevertheless, the afternoon’s emcee proclaims it “the best Chicago Jazz Festival yet!”
— By 2025, the tear-down housing phenomenon in the suburbs will be supplanted by a new trend: Tear-down shopping malls. Bye-bye Woodfield!
2026
— In 2026, Robin Williams will star in a remake of “Harvey” as the bunny.
2027
— In 2027, Daniel Barenboim will celebrate the 70th anniversary of his first appearance as a pianist with an American symphony orchestra by playing Wilhelm Furtwangler’s Second Piano Concerto under the baton of a hologram of his idol, the late composer-conductor. Lifelike in every detail, the hologram is programmed with Furtwangler’s legendary jealousy, which Barenboim fuels by playing, as he did at his debut, an unannounced solo encore.
2028
— By 2028, Chris Rock’s son, Plymouth, will become as popular as his father in standup comedy. Unfortunately, because he is a prop comic like Carrot Top, he is shunned by his father.
2030
— In the 2030s, descendants of the five most prominent art dealers of the 1980s will team with artists and scientists on the 50th anniversary of the boom in contemporary art to implant exclusive images of the hottest new artworks in the brains of the highest bidders. After a strong initial reponse, interest wanes; art acquisition continues to prove less desirable when ownership cannot be demonstrated to others.
2031
— In December 2031, it will announced on Henry Fogel’s radio station (formerly WFMT) that Henry Fogel has been named emperor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Photographer Joel Meyerowitz is hired to create a virtual replica, featuring Henry Fogel, of Jacques-Louis David’s painting of the coronation of Napoleon. It is displayed with other, more allegorical treatments in a room adjoining the Hall of Mirrors at Henry Fogel Symphony Center, 220 S. Henry Fogel Way.
2032
— By 2032, thanks to advancements in plastic surgery, stars will no longer age; their faces just will become increasingly immobile.
2035
— After running out of famous figures to biographize, in 2035 the popular Penguin Lives series will break down and devote a volume to its eponymous hero, the Penguin from the “Batman” series.
2039
— The first “in the sky” house, patterned after “The Jetsons,” will be built in Los Angeles in 2039. An earthquake promptly knocks the structure down. No one is hurt, but plans for a “Jetsons Corners” gated community are scrapped.
2041
— An art auction held in 2041 contains three objects described by the catalog as “paintings in the shape of cows.” One is purchased by Oscar Mayer VI. Each of the other pieces is “bought-in” by the auction house when it fails to meet the minimum reserve bid of $29.95.
2042
— The collection of Jean Dubuffet’s museum of outsider art in Lausanne, Switzerland, will be destroyed by a pyromaniac from the asylum next door in 2042. Chicago thus becomes the world capital for untutored creations. The North Side apartment of outsider artist Henry Darger is visited as a religious shrine, and septuagenarian director James Cameron begins filming “Henry II.”
2046
— In 2046, “Bio-Dome” will be rereleased in a 50th anniversary “special edition” featuring restored footage of Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin eating each other’s toenails.
2047
— In the year 2047, the CSO’s Henry Fogel will congratulate Daniel Barenboim, 106, on his 19th contract extension as music director. Barenboim celebrates by conducting another Bruckner cycle.
2050
— Beginning in 2050, television sets will be able to deliver a 3-D picture, hover in place on the wall, and put themselves away in a closet when not wanted. Despite technological advances, you still will be able to go into a Best Buy and not find one clerk who knows anything more about them than their price.
— At age 83, in 2050, Harry Connick Jr. will release his final recording, “Frank Sinatra Sure Knew How to Sing.”
2051
— In 2051 Robin Williams will star in a remake of “Oh God.”
2059
— In 2059, on the 100th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro will finally step down, admitting what has long been rumored — that he has been played by 14 different actors in a long, elaborate performance piece involving a cast of millions manipulating the hallucinogenic effects of the Bermuda Triangle. The U.S. finally lifts the embargo and Los Van Van, led by Juan Formell’s great-grandson, play without incident in Miami.
— Due to its ever-growing length, the Academy Awards show in 2059 will be turned into a miniseries spread over three nights.
2060
— In 2060, aliens seeking to make contact with Earthlings will descend upon three buildings in Chicago: Frank Gehry’s Grant Park bandshell, with its futuristic ribbons of steel; Dirk Lohan’s flying saucer-like wedge of glass that forms an addition to the Adler Planetarium, and Helmut Jahn’s spaceship-like James R. Thompson Center.
2065
— In 2065, SNL Films will release “Weekend Update: The Movie.”
2070
— In 2070, The New York Times will declare the death of installation art.
2073
— In 2073, Robin Williams and Roberto Benigni will star in a remake of “Grumpy Old Men.”
2075
— By 2075, television, computers, radios and telephones will merge into one, all-purpose information appliance. Strangely, it will be called the “toaster,” a name that became available after the 2023 discovery that bread baked to a crisp causes cancer.
2081
— “Cats,” the “now and forever” musical, will celebrate its 100th anniversary on May 11, 2081, with a gala performance at the New London Theatre, highlighted by a daylong marathon of taped performances by every leading lady who ever sang its hit song “Memory.” Several audience members fall into a comatose state midway through the presentation.
— In response to critics’ complaints that the series has grown stale, the new James Bond movie of 2081 will open with a spectacular action sequence, boast a theme song performed by a popular recording artist, feature two voluptuous “Bond girls” and will pit 007 against a madman intent on world domination.
2088
— In 2088, Richard S. Daley will announce a plan to revitalize the century-old North Loop theater district with the aid of tax increment financing, a funding technique he learned from his great-grandfather, Richard M. Daley.
2090
— By 2090, audio books will be implanted in the cochleas of frequent commuters.
2095
— By 2095, the average hold time during a customer call to a cable tele-vision provider will have decreased from 14 minutes to 13 minutes, 32 seconds.
2099
— In 2099, a Chicago architect actually will be hired to design a major building in Chicago.
— As the 21st Century wanes, L. Ron Hubbard will continue to publish from the beyond.
— By the end of the 21st Century, Earth will be run by “Dateline NBC” because humankind in the late 20th Century ignored all the obvious signs of the newsmagazine’s plans for world domination.
2109
— By 2109, not only will ads before movies run as long as the features themselves, but when a food product appears in the movie, viewers will be able to push a button in their armrests to have an usher deliver it to their seats.
2143
— In 2143, Time magazine will declare the 22nd Century the “Century of the Latino.”
2144
— In 2144, Time will be renamed Tiempo.
2199
— In 2199, Robin Williams will be voted the century’s most beloved star, his career prolonged by digital imaging that allows filmmakers to program him right into scenes.
2235
— In 2235, The New York Times will declare the death of installation art again.
2273
— A scientific probe landing on a temperate planet in an adjacent galaxy in the year 2273 willdisover thatthere is tele-vision onAlphaGamma 4,and it, too,uses laugh tracks.
2300
— In a damning interview, Mike Wallace, existing solely as a brain attached to a computer, will force Bill Gates IX to admit that Windows 2300 is “kind of buggy.”
2301
— In 2301, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” will be remade, and critics will dismiss it as just another period costume drama.
2357
— In 2357, The New York Times — the last gasp of print journalism (except for the Tribune of course) — will finally die, concluding that while news may still be fit to broadcast in every imag-inable sense, it is no longer fit to print.
2435
— In 2435, Chilean-Japanese avant garde artist Gregoria Takana will create the first extraterrestial installation piece, re-creating different aspects of Earth on Jupiter moons.
2525
— In the year 2525, if man is still alive, if woman can survive, they will be excited about watching that new fall series in which Bill Cosby does a lot of mugging for the camera.
2557
— In 2557, the Interplanetary Times, a telepathic news service, will deconstruct the fallacy of Takana’s seminal work and conclude that installation art is dead.
2600
— By 2600, the concept of news will die. Everyone is informed all the time, naturally.
2792
— In 2792, a young Otlustikian named Belmond Lifshitz Lopez will pick up a bristle-topped instrument, dip it into some brightly colored goo and paint! The rage takes Earth by storm, creating a brief renaissance for this long neglected, naive art.
2847
— In 2847, archaeologists will unearth a flexible rectangular object from a dig just outside Cambridge, Mass. Laboratory analysis seems to indicate that the object is a “book,” an information-transmission device that was popular in the latter half of the second millennium. The book, historians said, was discarded because of its obvious flaws: vulnerability to fire and mold, and its non-downloadable components. The object is displayed in the Field Virtual Museum.
2999
— In 2999, “Titanic” director James Cameron — kept alive thanks to cryogenics and never-ending home rentals — finally will be named King of the World. Inexplicably, the world ends.
