The Last Word On Nothing

This piece initially ran exactly a year ago, and it’s no coincidence that the Canadian Broadcasting System had me on air again today. This time, though, it was a program called Good Question, Saskatchewan! which addressed the issue of why that province (mostly) dodged the hassle of daylight savings time. If you would like to hear more on this question, here’s the podcast of it. I’m pleased to report our bi-annual ritual of self-sabotage continues to unite us in hatred and annoyance.

Twice a year, for more than a decade, now, I have addressed the nation.

Today, I do so again. At 6am it’s Ottawa, then I’m swiftly on to Thunder Bay at 6:10. My voice will echo through the kitchens of Saint John at 6:20 and rustle the lace curtains in the Anne of Green Gables parlours of Charlottetown at 6:40. Cape Breton, Moncton, Winnipeg, Yellowknife, Regina, Prince George, Kelowna, Fredericton, Kitchener-Waterloo. And what that voice will be saying – what it has always been saying – is that daylight savings time is stupid. Again and again, to 14 separate cities, year after year.

And it’s been working. During the time I have been regularly interviewed on the CBC syndication desk about daylight savings, by dint of a professional focus on circadian rhythms, some questions have remained the same. We’ve talked about how the lost hour during our spring forward leads to population-level effects on heart attacks and traffic accidents. We’ve talked about its origins as a satirical proposal and the fact that its energy-saving theory has never panned out in practice.

This post first appeared in March 2021. My longing for more spontaneous museum visits continues.

A little over a year ago I made an unplanned trip to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. I had driven to the city to run errands but then decided to go look at art instead, a moment of pre-pandemic spontaneity that felt indulgent then, and now, I imagine, would feel like intense catharsis. It was a rainy Sunday; I remember stepping over crushed magnolia blossoms on the wet pavement. I paid my admission and declined the headset tour, bought a cup of coffee in the museum cafe and drank it in the light-filled glass atrium, a relatively recent expansion of the oldest public art museum west of the Mississippi River.

I enjoyed all of the exhibits, more or less, but one installation made such an impression on me that I still think about it: A collection of 1st-6th century Roman glass jars, flasks, juglets and perfume bottles called amphoriskos. The placard by the case was succinct, noting only a few physical details like “turquoise twin handles, spiral and zig-zag trailing,” and “globular sprinkler with pinecone.” It didn’t say anything about how the glass was made, where it was found, or how the donor, a local painter, acquired it. I left the museum without asking, not realizing it would be the last time I’d visit.

My 4-year-old has developed a borderline unhealthy obsession with Star Wars over the past month or so. Yesterday, as I was reading from our latest purchase, 5-minute Star Wars Stories, I fell asleep. I was in the middle of a chapter about Ewoks. I’ll give you the gist: Heroes end up on a planet with furry little people called Ewoks, Ewoks don’t trust them (except Leia), Ewoks believe golden robot C-3PO is some kind of supernatural being?, C-3PO convinces them to trust the heroes, they all go to blow up some bunker in order to destroy the Death Star’s shield. (Ok, everything I’ve learned about Star Wars, I’ve learned from 5-minute Star Wars Stories, but this doesn’t make any sense. Why is equipment key to the Death Star’s shield housed in a bunker on the surface of a planet? How does that even work? Why won’t the Ewoks believe Leia that the rest of the heroes are good guys, but they’ll believe C-3PO? Why does one of the Ewoks try to hug Han, and why was that exchange important enough to include in the 5-minute version of the story?)

Anyway, I digress. As I was reading, I fell asleep. Yet I kept on talking. It was a key moment in the story: The heroes are about to storm the bunker, and they’re confronted by Storm Troopers. In the actual story, the heroes disarm the Storm Troopers and enter the bunker. In my version, they confront the Storm Troopers and say “who made all this mess?” That line woke me up, because . . . what? My son and I laughed and laughed. It reminded me of this post, which originally ran in June 2020.