"For the foreseeable future, I expect--like most of us--to be running late."--James Greer, Discover magazine.
Changing our clocks last weekend was just a start. Daylight Saving Time is dial-up. We need Future Saving Time. If we're going to keep pace with the light-speed nature of the book business, we have to sync with the future and move the clocks forward every week, every day, every hour, every minute.
Future Saving Time is not so much a proposal as an acceptance of reality. In recent years, many of us have participated in conference and trade show panels that addressed the "future" of the book, of publishing and of bookselling. We will continue to do so, but what we're really discussing isn't the future anymore. It's the present or at least the "immediate" future.
Time,--present, past and future--caught up with me last week. Maybe it
happened while I was madly following Twitter updates from the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Tex., through hashtags #sxswi and #futurebooks.
Publishing apparently edged a wee bit closer to the future at this year's event. In an L.A. Times Jacket Copy blog post shortly after SWSXi, Peter Miller wrote: "Flying back to New York from Texas, it dawned on me that devotees of SXSWi never hated publishing or wanted us to roll over and die: They just wanted us to repurpose. This past weekend several publishing experts suggested how that repurposing might look. While last year's future of publishing panel met with hostility, this year the response was generally civil--a major improvement."
Or perhaps the time flux hit me while I stared at rain-delayed Metro North train schedules in New York's Grand Central Terminal Saturday morning. Trains are all about the future, except when they're not. I observed the future slow and then stop for a while.
Or maybe it snuck up on me Saturday night when I had to decide which of my household clocks should be physically changed (stove, radio) and which ones would take care of themselves (computers, iPod, BlackBerry).
Probably it was all of the above. I kept thinking how archaic the word future seems to be and wondered if I'll soon be writing about conference panels on "The Present of the Book," "The Future of the Book Now" or "The Future of the Book Next Week."
"We are moving from a society desirous of instant gratification to a society of instant anticipation," wrote James Greer in that prescient (in that it was written two years ago, which now qualifies as the distant past) Discover piece quoted above. "We no longer want things that can be delivered immediately; we want to move the future forward, toward us, so that the future is no longer a frame of reference for measuring time but a kind of extended present.
"The very notion of 'on time' has been replaced by the notion of 'in sync.' Everyone, everywhere, seems to be ceaselessly scanning RSS feeds or TiVoing their favorite programs so as not to be left behind, or iSyncing their iCalendar with everyone in their iCompany so that everyone always knows where iYou are, sometimes before you do."
The future is so yesterday.
Fortunately, I was rescued from my temporary time crisis by an e-newsletter from Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, Ariz. Gayle Shanks wrote that there are "just too many books, too many loads of laundry, too many e-mails to answer, and not enough time in the day. You all experience this every day as well. Our lives have sped up to what sometimes feels like an unlivable pace. That said, I have taken time to notice that the days are lengthening, that my late ripening oranges are perfect for eating now, that the rains in the past few months have greened the deserts and the sunrises and sunsets that I have managed to see have been spectacular. Oh, to be able to slow down and see the sun each day as it sets and the moon as it rises; to feel like I have time for long conversations with friends. But, I am going to have these things in my life. I am. I am...."
Taking time. Sunup, sundown. That's another concept of the future worth considering.
We are in a process. Despite my suggestion at the beginning of this column, I haven't found the secret to Future Saving Time. I suspect that for most of us the answer lies somewhere between SXSWi Twitter feeds and Gayle's orange trees, even if the clock is ticking.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)