On the far northwestern corner of the township of Xanadu (my home town), and bordering the lush greenery of Lemmington, there is a small valley (more properly, a glen) that has come to be known as "The Passage of Time."
Within this passage, there is a small river (more properly, a creek) that has been named "The Small Hadron" which cradles the most rustic laboratory I believe anyone could ever have seen. Our friend Doc-"Tick-Tock Doc" as he's often called-lives inside this rustic laboratory, of course.
Tick-Tock Doc is a Reddish Egret, a whimsical scientist, and was once a failed clock-maker. He is from the "old country" as he has told me, but no one seems to know where this is (we have no such township in Interterrestria), so we just imagine it is some tropical far-off place likely south of our mystical kingdom. Doc comes from at least three generations of highly skilled and successful clock-makers, two of them he has spoken of: his father, Berto, and his father's father, Isak.
As Doc tells it, he originally came to Interterrestria in the hopes of expanding his family's clock-making business, and stumbled on to the glen where he resides to this day. After settling into "The Passage Of Time" and building his laboratory, he soon became aware of a problem he could not have foreseen: namely, time and seasons are not observed, counted, or even believed in throughout the land of Interterrestria. One can imagine the great difficulty in selling clocks to a world in which the population doesn't keep time, nor believe in it.
Never one to be deterred, Doc, set out to work at a furious pace--but not making clocks, rather developing equations and experiments he would use to convince the population that time is real and that they would, therefore, have a need for clocks (which he could happily provide for them, of course!). To this day, he's failed to convince even one Interterrestrian inhabitant that time is real and must be observed. He has sold a few clocks (Casey the Cardinal from our sacred garden wears one of them round his neck when he ventures off to the sacred pub-my song "Gardenista Stomp" explains why this became necessary), mostly to kind critters that appreciated Doc's enthusiasm or found some sort of artistically pleasing quality about his clocks.
Eventually Doc settled on making mead in order to supplement his lack of clock-selling income, and to fund further research into the proving of the existence of time. His mead is stunningly fantabulous, I must add, and, in fact, how Doc became a friend of our sacred garden. You see, our garden is the only source of natural, organic honey in the known lands of Interterrestria.
I once journeyed out to Doc's laboratory in "The Passage of Time" to deliver him some honey, and was fortunate to catch him in a sociable moment: he was "testing" his latest batch of mead, and of course, I was obliged to "test" it with him. We stayed up the whole night discussing various absurdities, but some useful good did indeed come of it once I decided to mention his dream of selling clocks to Interterrestria.
"I'm at my wit's end," I recall Doc saying at one point; "I've done all the math, all the experiments-my equations are flawless...how can they still not believe in time?!"
I'm not sure how much mead we'd consumed at that point, but I recall suggesting to Doc boldly that he was taking the wrong approach to all this-that he'd never be able to convince Interterrestria of the existence of time.
"Whatever do you mean?" Doc asked, ever so slightly agitated.
I continued, "Well, I think instead of trying to convince everyone to change their way of thinking, it might be better to come up with a clock that better suits their current way of thinking-make a clock they can use, you know."
I had Doc quite intrigued at that point, and he refilled our flagons with the stunningly fantabulous mead. "Go on, tell me more," he said.
Pausing for a few seconds to enjoy all the deliciousness Doc's mead had to offer, I went on, "As you well know, around here we just sorta do things here when we do them, you know-when they occur to us. Everything being based upon perception and imagination, we have no real schedule-nor a need for one."
"Yes, you people are stubborn about your perceptions," Doc interjected, and increased the angle of his flagon's tilt. "Strange critters, indeed. You have any actual ideas to overcome this?"
"Well, how about this?: what if, instead of a clock that measured seconds, minutes, and hours, you made a clock that measured events--yes, that's it! An event clock!?"
I do believe I saw Doc's eyes glow a bit after my last statement, and for certain they were wide open. "Fascinating. Do tell me more."
I continued, "Well, instead of numbers to measure the hours, what if you had symbols or icons that would indicate an event or activity? You could make each clock custom-tailored to the individual-a special order sort of thing. What if someone gave you a list of activities they're likely to engage in-and maybe add a few of your own surprises-then build a clock just for them based on that?"
Tick-Tock Doc grinned, and I could tell the gears in his whimsical mind were turning furiously. "I do believe you're onto something here," he said. "But what about the order of events?"
"You see," I answered, "We don't really need an order of events here in Interterrestria, things just sort of happen when we want them to-it's all based on the individual's perception. You could even design an element of randomness in the clock so that sometimes it moves forward, sometimes backward, sometimes not at all...now that's the sort of thing critters here would love!"
In all sincerity, and almost heavy-hearted, Doc asked "So the critters here would love a clock that dictated a complete lack of order to them?"
"Yes," I said enthusiastically. "We love our mystical land because it's fun and senseless. A clock that told us what event to partake of at any given lack of time would be so fun...a clock that could do that would be certain to be a hit. Why, I'll bet if you made such a thing, you'd never be able to keep up with the orders!"
It took another flagon of stunningly fantabulous mead to completely convince Doc to pursue the idea, but he did eventually give in. And that, my friends, is the story of how event clocks came to be. One is hard-pressed to find a residence or business anywhere in the known regions of Interterrestria that doesn't have one these days. Most critters still refer to Doc as "Tick-Tock Doc," but it's now an honor rather than an insult to him. Indeed, his father Berto, and his father's father Isak would be so very proud!
KeV
oxox
Within this passage, there is a small river (more properly, a creek) that has been named "The Small Hadron" which cradles the most rustic laboratory I believe anyone could ever have seen. Our friend Doc-"Tick-Tock Doc" as he's often called-lives inside this rustic laboratory, of course.
Tick-Tock Doc is a Reddish Egret, a whimsical scientist, and was once a failed clock-maker. He is from the "old country" as he has told me, but no one seems to know where this is (we have no such township in Interterrestria), so we just imagine it is some tropical far-off place likely south of our mystical kingdom. Doc comes from at least three generations of highly skilled and successful clock-makers, two of them he has spoken of: his father, Berto, and his father's father, Isak.
As Doc tells it, he originally came to Interterrestria in the hopes of expanding his family's clock-making business, and stumbled on to the glen where he resides to this day. After settling into "The Passage Of Time" and building his laboratory, he soon became aware of a problem he could not have foreseen: namely, time and seasons are not observed, counted, or even believed in throughout the land of Interterrestria. One can imagine the great difficulty in selling clocks to a world in which the population doesn't keep time, nor believe in it.
Never one to be deterred, Doc, set out to work at a furious pace--but not making clocks, rather developing equations and experiments he would use to convince the population that time is real and that they would, therefore, have a need for clocks (which he could happily provide for them, of course!). To this day, he's failed to convince even one Interterrestrian inhabitant that time is real and must be observed. He has sold a few clocks (Casey the Cardinal from our sacred garden wears one of them round his neck when he ventures off to the sacred pub-my song "Gardenista Stomp" explains why this became necessary), mostly to kind critters that appreciated Doc's enthusiasm or found some sort of artistically pleasing quality about his clocks.
Eventually Doc settled on making mead in order to supplement his lack of clock-selling income, and to fund further research into the proving of the existence of time. His mead is stunningly fantabulous, I must add, and, in fact, how Doc became a friend of our sacred garden. You see, our garden is the only source of natural, organic honey in the known lands of Interterrestria.
I once journeyed out to Doc's laboratory in "The Passage of Time" to deliver him some honey, and was fortunate to catch him in a sociable moment: he was "testing" his latest batch of mead, and of course, I was obliged to "test" it with him. We stayed up the whole night discussing various absurdities, but some useful good did indeed come of it once I decided to mention his dream of selling clocks to Interterrestria.
"I'm at my wit's end," I recall Doc saying at one point; "I've done all the math, all the experiments-my equations are flawless...how can they still not believe in time?!"
I'm not sure how much mead we'd consumed at that point, but I recall suggesting to Doc boldly that he was taking the wrong approach to all this-that he'd never be able to convince Interterrestria of the existence of time.
"Whatever do you mean?" Doc asked, ever so slightly agitated.
I continued, "Well, I think instead of trying to convince everyone to change their way of thinking, it might be better to come up with a clock that better suits their current way of thinking-make a clock they can use, you know."
I had Doc quite intrigued at that point, and he refilled our flagons with the stunningly fantabulous mead. "Go on, tell me more," he said.
Pausing for a few seconds to enjoy all the deliciousness Doc's mead had to offer, I went on, "As you well know, around here we just sorta do things here when we do them, you know-when they occur to us. Everything being based upon perception and imagination, we have no real schedule-nor a need for one."
"Yes, you people are stubborn about your perceptions," Doc interjected, and increased the angle of his flagon's tilt. "Strange critters, indeed. You have any actual ideas to overcome this?"
"Well, how about this?: what if, instead of a clock that measured seconds, minutes, and hours, you made a clock that measured events--yes, that's it! An event clock!?"
I do believe I saw Doc's eyes glow a bit after my last statement, and for certain they were wide open. "Fascinating. Do tell me more."
I continued, "Well, instead of numbers to measure the hours, what if you had symbols or icons that would indicate an event or activity? You could make each clock custom-tailored to the individual-a special order sort of thing. What if someone gave you a list of activities they're likely to engage in-and maybe add a few of your own surprises-then build a clock just for them based on that?"
Tick-Tock Doc grinned, and I could tell the gears in his whimsical mind were turning furiously. "I do believe you're onto something here," he said. "But what about the order of events?"
"You see," I answered, "We don't really need an order of events here in Interterrestria, things just sort of happen when we want them to-it's all based on the individual's perception. You could even design an element of randomness in the clock so that sometimes it moves forward, sometimes backward, sometimes not at all...now that's the sort of thing critters here would love!"
In all sincerity, and almost heavy-hearted, Doc asked "So the critters here would love a clock that dictated a complete lack of order to them?"
"Yes," I said enthusiastically. "We love our mystical land because it's fun and senseless. A clock that told us what event to partake of at any given lack of time would be so fun...a clock that could do that would be certain to be a hit. Why, I'll bet if you made such a thing, you'd never be able to keep up with the orders!"
It took another flagon of stunningly fantabulous mead to completely convince Doc to pursue the idea, but he did eventually give in. And that, my friends, is the story of how event clocks came to be. One is hard-pressed to find a residence or business anywhere in the known regions of Interterrestria that doesn't have one these days. Most critters still refer to Doc as "Tick-Tock Doc," but it's now an honor rather than an insult to him. Indeed, his father Berto, and his father's father Isak would be so very proud!
KeV
oxox