Oh My! Look At The Time!
Well, this is just inexcusable! All of a sudden it's been more than a week since I've added anything to this blog. Not, of course, that I've noticed a crowd outside the doors, clamoring for more or anything. And, well, I have been busy. Waaaay busy. But that's no excuse for this lapse. So to jump start today, James Lileks from today's Bleat, and his comparison of analog and digital clocks... doesn't this just speak to you? Here it is:
DADDY! LOOK AT THE TIME! Gnat in the doorway. I checked the clock: hallelujah. She’d been up late last night and slept in as well. I installed a screen saver on her computer that tells time in digital format – looks just like the old digital clocks that flipped a card over every minute, and so now she reads time, more or less.
I prefer analog clocks, myself. I was a kid when the digitals came out, and of course everyone had to have one – the Panasonic in the parent’s bedroom that gave a tiny tick! Every time the card turned over, the digital watch the size of a Big Little Book, the kitchen model with glowing red LEDs. The future! And how charmless it was, really. Yes, it was precise, and while there was a certain thrill in knowing it was 10:17, not a little past a quarter after, that sort of information ruins my life to this day. I’m one of those people who is always on time, and abhors lateness. You tell me to be there at noon, my hand is poised to knock at 11:59:59. Digital clocks make it possible for me to be punctual, but they also tell me how late I’m going to be. Digital clocks make the hour a pack of slick cards, and every day is an endless deal; analogues make the hour a soft stick of butter, carved up in pliant pats. No one looks at an analog clock that reads 2:17 and thinks 2:17 right away; you think a quarter after melts into 2:20. If you grow up in a school that had a big clock over the door, the bottom of the hour has a certain power – when the minute hand begins its climb up from the basement of the Six, the hour is practically over. At least if you don’t look at the clock for a while.
Read it all...
DADDY! LOOK AT THE TIME! Gnat in the doorway. I checked the clock: hallelujah. She’d been up late last night and slept in as well. I installed a screen saver on her computer that tells time in digital format – looks just like the old digital clocks that flipped a card over every minute, and so now she reads time, more or less.
I prefer analog clocks, myself. I was a kid when the digitals came out, and of course everyone had to have one – the Panasonic in the parent’s bedroom that gave a tiny tick! Every time the card turned over, the digital watch the size of a Big Little Book, the kitchen model with glowing red LEDs. The future! And how charmless it was, really. Yes, it was precise, and while there was a certain thrill in knowing it was 10:17, not a little past a quarter after, that sort of information ruins my life to this day. I’m one of those people who is always on time, and abhors lateness. You tell me to be there at noon, my hand is poised to knock at 11:59:59. Digital clocks make it possible for me to be punctual, but they also tell me how late I’m going to be. Digital clocks make the hour a pack of slick cards, and every day is an endless deal; analogues make the hour a soft stick of butter, carved up in pliant pats. No one looks at an analog clock that reads 2:17 and thinks 2:17 right away; you think a quarter after melts into 2:20. If you grow up in a school that had a big clock over the door, the bottom of the hour has a certain power – when the minute hand begins its climb up from the basement of the Six, the hour is practically over. At least if you don’t look at the clock for a while.
Read it all...
posted by Steve @ 5/03/2005 04:29:00 AM
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