Millennium '73 was a free three-day festival held in November 1973 at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas by the Divine Light Mission. It featured Prem Rawat, then known as Guru Maharaj Ji, a 15-year-old guru and the leader of a fast-growing Western religious movement. Organizers billed the festival as the most significant event in human history which would usher in a thousand years of peace. The festival's official schedule described the three evening addresses by Guru Maharaj Ji as the highlights of the event. Big-band music, rock bands, religious songs, choral works, a dance performance and speeches by other DLM leaders filled the program from noon to 10 pm. Media events included press conferences and an impromptu debate. Millennium '73 received wide publicity. Rennie Davis, a prominent anti-war activist and member of the Chicago Seven, helped draw attention to the event as a spokesman for the DLM. Notable journalists attended, some of them acquaintances of Davis from the New Left. It was later described by scholars and journalists as among the major events of 1973 and the 1970s, the high point of Guru Maharaj Ji's popularity, and the most important development in the American DLM's history. Attendance was estimated from 10,000 to 35,000, compared to the projected 100,000. Scholars and journalists generally depicted the event as a disappointment. That, along with other factors including a large debt, led to changes in the DLM's structure, management and message. The following year the movement split into branches headed by Maharaj Ji in the West, and his mother and brother Bal Bhagwan Ji in India. (more...)

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Grim Fandango is a personal computer game in the graphic adventure genre released by LucasArts in 1998 and primarily written by Tim Schafer. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered 2D backgrounds. As with other LucasArts adventure games, the player must converse with other characters and examine, collect, and use objects correctly to solve puzzles in order to progress. Grim Fandango's world combines elements of Aztec beliefs of afterlife with style aspects of film noir, including The Maltese Falcon, On the Waterfront and Casablanca, to create the Land of the Dead, which recently departed souls, represented in the game as calaca-like figures, must travel through before they reach their final destination, the Ninth Underworld. The story follows travel agent Manuel "Manny" Calavera as he attempts to save Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, a newly arrived but virtuous soul, during her long journey. The game received positive reviews, praising its artistic design and overall game direction in particular. Grim Fandango was selected for several gaming awards at the time of release, and is often listed in publishers' lists of top games of all time. However, the game has been considered a commercial failure, which partially led LucasArts to terminate their adventure game development, contributing to the decline of the adventure game genre. (more...)

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