Shut Up And Listen 51 Tick Tock I've been thinking about time a lot lately. I've always been fascinated by it, but lately it's been popping up in my life more than ever. Synchronistic occurrences of time. Like I said, I've always been fascinated by the human concept of time and the reality of time. I have a friend; let's call him Troy. He lives in the past by two hours. I have another friend, Drew, who along with Ian and Dan live an hour behind me. Chris lives three hour in the past. Karl, Andy, Jonny, and Lorcan all live five hours in the future. And we can't forget about Craig who lives 14 hours ahead, so right now, it's tomorrow where he is. But we all exist simultaneously. I can talk to them. Somehow the past, present and future all intersect in the Here And Now. I find that rather interesting. All of us in different times and yet we are in the same one, really, and all because we said so. Revolutionary time system indeed. And then today I was thinking about time more because of drama. Well, actually I should go back a week or two to our last project, which was interpreting one of Salvador Dali's paintings on stage. My group got "The Persistence Of Memory" aka the melting clocks. We did a nice theme of time trapping us all and in the end it fucks us up real nice. I was time. I had to walk around, looking creepy, in a cloak and mask, and then bang a gong. In fact, when the idea of a person walking around, looking creepy came up, for some reason everyone in my group turned and looked at me. And then yesterday and today, we had to take a "script" (really a combination of song and strange prose) that I remember using in grade nine for choral speaking and then do it on stage using four characteristics of Theatre of the Absurd. The piece talked about how our preconceptions of time control us. There is a man who is rushed around all the time by his schedule and when he throws away his watch, he loses his job, and all that. Time is money indeed. He is forever haunted by the idea of time and is sentenced to life imprisonment for his crime. It was pretty cool. My life is dictated by time and if I deviate, I could get fucked over. I mean, right now, I'm killing time until nine thirty and South Park is on the Comedy Network. About forty minutes. (And I love that phrase: "killing time." I'm always killing that bastard and he never quite stays dead. I kill him and he returns. It's like time is from comic books or something.) Last night, I went to bed at ten so I could wake up at twenty-to-six without being too tired. Why did I have to get up at twenty-to-six? Because my sisters commandeer the bathroom from six to seven and if I want to shower, I've got to be in there early. And why do they need it from six to seven? Because we all have to leave for our buses at quarter after seven. And why do we have to catch our buses so early? Because school starts at eight. And why does school start at eight? Because elementary schools start at a little after nine and there are so many buses, so they have to double-up. And why do elementary schools start at that time? So parents can help their kids get ready and then leave at approximately the same time. And why do adults have to go to work at that time? Because we've dictated that the time between breakfast and supper to be for working, and those hours just happen to fit the nine to five time slot the best. And why does our society dictate that as the working hours? Because back before electricity, work could pretty much only be done in the day, because of the light. Do you see how far back it goes? I had to go to bed at ten because people didn't have electricity. Oh, where was Ben Franklin a few thousand years before his actual birth? The rest of my day is dictated by time. It's not unusual for me to think things like Only twenty minutes until spare or Only ten minutes until lunch or Only fifteen minutes until drama or Only half an hour until spare or Only forty minutes until I get to go home and so on. Everything I do revolves around our concept of time. Even this column—this weekly column—is dictated by time. Hell, the term week is arbitrary. I could start calling a week a column. I mean, one week is the same as one column, right? But since I do two columns, a column could refer to either two days or three days, depending on the time between the columns. But I could call a week a Shut Up And Listen or call it a Let Me Tell You. Technically, they mean the same thing, right? You could do that for anything. A year is a birthday or a Christmas. Four years is an election. A day is a Seinfeld rerun or a Friends rerun or a Frasier rerun or a (insert title here) rerun. Speaking of TV and time, the North American Eastern Standard Time zone is superior to all when it comes to TV. Most North American time zones (all except for the Pacific Time zone) follow our times. Troy (again, two hours in the past) watches shows at the same time of existence, but not at the same territorial dictated time. No, when I'm watching The Simpsons at eight on Sunday, he's watching it at six. This is really just an advantage for shows like Politically Incorrect and Conan O'Brien, which are on where he is at five after ten and ten thirty-five respectfully. The people in Pacific Time get shows at the same territorial dictated time, but three hours in the past in the same time of existence thing. And Britain, I am told gets the shows we see now, around three weeks later (if I'm wrong, blame Andy). I could go on for longer, but I think I'll stop before you think I'm too crazy. But time is fascinating and is worthy of some study. Not time itself, but our concepts of it. (Oh, yes, and while that above column section may seem to read as one section, it was written over a span of 24 hours. In fact, at the line "Last night, I went to bed at ten so I could wake up" I was interrupted to go buy alcohol for friends and then attended their little shing-dig and did not get home until quarter to one in the morning. I never did get to see South Park.) Recommended Reading Short list of some cool books I've read recently that you should give a look: How To Be Good by Nick (High Fidelity, About A Boy, Fever Pitch) Hornby. Read it in two days and it was great. A good look at how to be a good person and whether or not you really are one. Not a self-help or philosophical-by-nature book, it is a novel. The Rum Diary, Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72, and Fear And Loathing In America by Hunter Thompson. The first one is a semi-autobiographical tale about a young journalist in San Juan in 1959 and is pretty good. The second is the best book on politics that I've ever read. And the third is a collection of letters to and from Thompson from 1968 to 1976 (I think, I could be wrong). All worth a read. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. Starts out slow, but about halfway through it you get totally hooked and can't put it down. Some parts are written phonetically and can be hard to read, but you'll get used to it. By the middle, I didn't even notice when it was written in proper english or not. The Tetherballs Of Bougainville by Mark Leyner. Half prose, half screenplay and all funny. It contradicts itself by bending the laws of time and space (he writes a review for a movie he never made about events that happen months after the present, but the present events he describes in the review he could not have known when he wrote is so long ago [like his father's execution not working and him being on the New Jersey State Discretionary Execution list]). Great shit though. The Anniversary Next week, in between columns 52 and 53, I've be showcasing the best six columns of Shut Up And Listen for the first year, at a pace of one a day. I'll select my favourite six and then write some commentary on the column (why I like it, what I meant to say, how I've changed my views, etc . . .). Other updates should happen around then, too (interview archive, a few more things I've written posted, fixed links, deletion of some things). So, tune in and celebrate with me. Hopefully things will work right and I'll be able to put an audio recording or me ranting or something. If not, who cares, eh?