⏳🌀
This may sound like some stoner shit, but bear with me here. People like to talk about “constructs,” whether gender or the indica/sativa binary. Yes, sure, that’s all accurate. But to me, TIME is the biggest construct of them all. Lots of people in New York sometimes get wrapped up in “hustle culture,” blocking out our calendars with hour-by-hour tasks, and late capitalism/globalization/etc. We tend to forget time is an abstract thing we’ve all embraced. It may be a dimension, but its societal function is still made up! Time rules my brain and my OCD stuff is deeply entrenched in things pertaining to seconds, minutes, hours. So it’s a huge relief to remind myself that this organizing principle of human life can be bent and molded. My buddy Dan and I have this ongoing project that documents instances of traditional EST time being warped. Years back, he worked at a salmon cannery in Alaska. He claims that one day he went into his boss’s office and saw either a 60- or 100-hour clock because the workers would have something like 60 hours on the clock, 40 hours off. It supposedly had a psychological effect that made shifts feel shorter, or prevented employees from losing their marbles and killing the foreman with one of those big serrated knives they use to gut fish. Over the years, we’ve found lots of instances of time being messed with, from this Wikipedia page on calendar reform ideas, this odd clock, and this 28-hour watch, to Val Kilmer flat-out saying he doesn’t subscribe to the idea of time. I also think about this drug delivery service I once copped from in Mexico. You have to plan your day around making an order because the dealer is “not true to time,” as my connect warned. But that makes sense, since it’s considered a “polychronic” country and dealers don’t operate within a 9-5 work structure. Anyway, there are definitely like-minded time benders out there.Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the Norwegian “Island of No Time,” which declared itself a “time-free zone” because Sommarøy doesn’t have sundown for something like three-month stretches. The townspeople said they wanted to opt out of the global clock because locals “cut the lawn at 4AM” anyway. The whole thing was mostly a publicity stunt to attract more tourism, but one day I intend to visit the Island of No Time and make some sort of project about all this stuff I’m describing. I will prove that time flies when you’re having fun!!!
Sep 8, 2022
Related Recs
⭐
not in a scientific sense. how does time perception change cultures, how do we pass down knowledge via generations, why does making someone wait signal power and why do we get pissed off when someone waits six days to respond to our text messages? eventually i'm going to write a paper on this but way too busy as of right now. highly recommend
Jan 30, 2025
🕰
The collective participation in daylight savings time is a good reminder that we live under a “time regime”. It’s a helpful academic phrase (like ”climate grief”) to better describe your feelings and answer questions, like why is music performed at night? why are songs so short? what time is it? etc.
1d ago
I haven’t moved for a couple hours now, but I’m alright. Who doesn’t love to look at the clock and exclaim “Gee, look at the time!!”
Sep 19, 2024
Top Recs from @zach-sokol
🚬
A few years ago, my friend Sara gave me this big Ziploc that was full to the brim with lighters, which a pothead like me can never have enough of. There was also a ceramic cigarette snuffer in the bag. In case you’re not familiar, you place these tchotchkes in the middle of your ashtray. They’re made of porcelain, ceramic, or resin, and have a hole in the center that you put your cigarette or joint inside of when you want to extinguish it without snubbing it out for good.I chainsmoke. Marlboro 27s or Amsterdam Shag during the day, non-stop spliffs after sundown (I’m a vampire stoner). It’s a nasty habit, but smoking alleviates my OCD symptoms and prevents me from, like, counting in my head or doing other magical thinking rigmaroles. Before my cigarette snuffers, I would rip through smokes and waste a good 50% of each. Now, I can take a couple drags or have a lil cheeky toke and then put the bastard out. This has probably saved me ounces and ounces of weed over the years. A couple times a year, I’ll buy a new pack of snuffers on eBay — like this clown one, or these translucent skull guys. They make smoking a more efficient and less ashy process. Plus, I use these Santa Fe incense (the Hickory-scented ones) which fit neatly on the snuffers, and help cover the smell of smoke.
Sep 8, 2022
🍄
One of my best friends, Julia, lives in Berlin. She used to send me a selfie on Sunday evenings after she had returned home from a Berghain bender and taken a shower. Her pupils would always be gigantic, but she’d look so fresh, clean, and downright happy after washing away the sins from The Big House. Over the years, I took a note from her playbook, and would always make it a part of the party process to take a shower after a night consuming drugs and shuffling the feet on a sticky dance floor. That said, this is a tricky line to walk that can easily lead to a broken neck or bad trip. And no one wants their bloated corpse to be discovered in a cramped Brooklyn bathroom with the water still running (RIP Brittany Murphy). So I have a few tips for ensuring that your drug shower will be a rejuvenating success, regardless of what substance(s) you’re on:
Sep 8, 2022
📚
I don’t personally know Alissa Bennett, but I think she is a brilliant and funny person who has clearly lived a vibrant life. A friend of mine once said about himself, “I’m not a journalist; I just live this shit.” I think this mantra (with the tweak, “I’m just really interested in this shit”) applies to Bennett’s writing and various projects — from her burner IG @regret_counter and podcast, to the next-level zines she publishes. Those zines though, wow! The writing is so intimate, confident, and, well, perfectly imperfect (sorry, sorry…).I like that every other paragraph has a typo, that she will frequently and flagrantly use cap-locks, and that she essentially unpacks the indiscretions of fringe tabloid figures in order to exhume her own demons and make sense of her past and present. It’s got a very “warts and all” vibe, and I respect that she’s willing to air her own dirty laundry in service of establishing a spiritual connection to the subjects of her texts. That’s not to say she goes easy on them, but it all feels empathetic instead of exploitative or solipsistic. Rarely do I audibly laugh while reading, but Bennett’s work consistently makes me LOL. Generally, I prefer when people write the way they talk. Her essays feel like the coolest girl at the bar is whispering (and occasionally shouting) a very good story directly in your ear, but she also doesn’t really care whether you like the story or not. She already knows it’s good.Start with “Bad Behavior,” which is a series of essays/love letters to various semi-public figures who engaged in specific, scandalous acts. Then hit “Pretend You’re Actually Alive.” Most of the zines are sold out, but I’m sure she’d send you a PDF if you ask nicely. There’s also a new one on the way.
Sep 8, 2022