» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

Time and Again

jelewis8 — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 23:14:58 +0000

I’m always doubly and triply astonished at the manic pace of time for me these days. There’s simply no hint of moderation or even sad but useless regret–it’s just gone without a whisper, without a trace of its former glory or presence. Time just isn’t what it used to be. Thankfully, I still have more clip-on wings for the clock. They don’t last forever, but most of us are born with a good supply in the stock closet, and whenever one pair of feathery dusters wears out, we just pin the new ones on. We manage for a few years to find the best and brilliant wings, the ones with the brightest plumage, but we begin to realize the simple fact that after a while the dull, utilitarian ones are all we have left in the closet. They serve their purpose admirably, and in fact are more swift than their glamorized brethren. But they don’t make the splash like the ones that came before.
What is it about time that gets people to thinking? According to most physicists, time isn’t even really that great of a concept because it is only the flat representation of what is really a fully-featured dimension, with its own characteristics and qualities as yet unseen and unmeasured by humankind. We know it isn’t constant. Linear chronomic motion begins to slow in close proximity with an object of massive gravitational pull. It also slows the faster you go. But that’s not really what counts, is it? Because it’s our perception of time that is really at stake. And our perception is, as it happens, highly limiting.
We can’t, for example, see beyond the next bend in the river, so to speak. Think of time like a flowing body of water, almost more like a lake than a river, but with bends and bows, and it goes on and on and on, stretching beyond any point of comprehension. And imagine that we are in a boat on this wide, vast, endlessly curving river. This boat permits us to dangle our feet over and into the stream, and we can see ahead and behind…but only so far. Our sight is limited, and this river, as wide as it is, bends to the point of excruciation. Beyond the bend or our occular limits is the unknown future or the hidden past, long gone and irretrievable except in limited scope.
Why is our perception of time so different from what actually exists? Most people say that as the years advance they feel the days slipping by with increasing momentum, the years descending like a marble dropped upon a step. As gravity pulls us forward through time, we perceive an increase in our acceleration. And time seems so much faster then, our days shorter, our years swifter.

The Return

jelewis8 — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 07:01:16 +0000

Ineffably, the mountain rose skyward, lifted by tens of thousands of sparrows, all single-minded in the task. Their wings beat warbling cadences, shifting the air with a whistling not heard since the expulsion of angels from heaven. On the mountain, lost cherub looked down, wishing for freedom, fearing another Fall.

An Excess Of Machine Deaths

jelewis8 — Tue, 23 May 2006 00:01:36 +0000

If you’re like me, you are surrounded by a battery of technology and mechanical hardware that, in typical 21st century fashion, goes belly up at the worst possible moment. And like plant pheromones signalling others of its kind, there seems to have been a broadcast transmitted to all my creature comforts, causing them to fail in a kind of chain of destruction, akin to a butterfly flapping its wings in Peking causing earthquakes in California and hailstorms in New York City. My car died last Sunday. Yesterday, a hard drive failed in the middle of editing, which is one of the scariest events for an editor to live through, second only to coming to on your apartment floor, your clothes bloody, and your favourite steak knife embedded in the chest of a famous Hollywood director (why this auteur would be in your home is a mystery the detectives solve many months later, after your swift and publically brutal trial and execution). I mean, waking up to that would be quite frightening. What happened? Did I stab this visionary (yet curiously selfish) director in the chest because of something he said to me? Have I been framed? Can I get OJ’s defense team for my trial? Next to that, a failed hard drive seems rather an inconvenience, inevitable, yet able to be overcome, if only by brute stubborn resolve to see the project through no matter what the problems.
Then I went to edit the Grounds Zero title animation. Just a few tweaks, easily done. Except the file refuses to open. I try it again. Nothing. Not only that, but After Effects gives me an error. Something about a corrupt file. Oh. No. Not again.
Unfortunately, this is the file that houses all the animation and artwork for the title sequence. For some reason, it is the only one of all the project files that won’t open. I check the file header, and it appears there’s nothing in it. The ghost in the machine has struck again, leaving me in shambles. By 1:30am I’m exhausted trying to recover the file, even going so far as to call the local diocese to see if they perform exorcisms on home computers. The bishop hung up on me. Even knowing it was a lost cause and there was nothing to be done about it, I still teared up in frustration. This has not been a good week for me and my technology.
But we struggle on, don’t we? The human history of experience is fraught with failures and faultlines, marked in pain and sadness at the mountains nearly conquered, the battles almost won, the successes faintly tasted. The truest hero is not one who wins because he is good, but who doesn’t quite win because he is flawed, and yet rises again the following day to hope for the best. I’m not saying I’m a hero. I am saying I got up this morning and emailed my contact about the situation, ending with the ever ambiguous “oh well.” Like the Chinese character combo for crisis, “oh well” conveys the duality of disaster. One may find in it equally the reason for dismay (oh) and potential for opportunity (well). In this case, it cut short what might have been a long running series of “improvements” to an already completed title sequence. Perhaps I have won out after all.
The weekend was good. I’m well on my way to putting up a portfolio site, which will render my meager skills in such a way as to highlight the least flawed moments of a highly suspect career. May many employers find it compelling and hire-worthy. That’s all for today, as I’m scrambling to get Floyd updates ready for the server and finish up some other work before I leave for Texas on Wednesday.
See ya tomorrow, if my monitor doesn’t die first. And if it does…oh well.