2023-03-06
22 分钟For a moment, I don't know how long all of the universe was in one place.
Then Ra initiated the Big Bang and time began moving forward, each minute dispersing the universe further and further in all directions in an attempt to keep track of time on Earth.
The first were shadow clocks, then water clocks, candle clocks, time sticks and hourglasses.
And Then around the 14th century, European monks invented mechanical clocks so they could remember to pray on time.
And that's when things got noisy.
Hello, I'm Joe Pera and I thought it'd be fun to do an episode on the history of clock chimes.
I know you love those bell tower classics.
The Whittington Chimes, the St.
Michael's Chimes, and of course the Westminster chimes.
But I realized that most of the sounds associated with time, even nice ones, are anxiety inducing.
And that's not what we're trying to do.
You've got to perform a complicated surgery tomorrow.
I appreciate you joining me in my basement again, where there is only one audible timepiece, a small wooden clock from my grandparents house.
When I brought it from Buffalo, I thought its digital version of the Westminster Chime would remind me of them, and it did.
But after a few nights of being woken up hourly, I removed the batteries and adjusted the hands to rest at a respectable time, 8:35.
However, I carried it down here and put the batteries back in so it could keep me company while I think the episode through.
Are there any clocks going in the room you're in or do you leave the TV on and know it's 7:30 when you hear the Jeopardy thing?
There's only one window down here, so if I don't have a watch, I can get a general sense of the time by how often the subway rumbles by a block away.
Other noises down here include the hum of my furnace and the whoosh through the pipes when my upstairs neighbors flush crap down the toilet.
But other than that, this basement is the quiet writing space I've dreamt of ever since I moved to New York in 1963.