People’s relationship to time and its effect on their work has become a buzz-topic for everyone from Malcolm Gladwell advocating for the 10,000 hours to Frank Partnoy exploring the art and science of delay to Tim Kreider in his hugely popular story in the New York Times about people’s obsession with how “busy” they are.
After the time-sucking marathon of writing and completing our book, we didn’t take a vacation. Instead we’ve been working on what we’ve been told most authors ought to be working on— a social media version of all that we’ve absorbed.
Like most 21st century worker bees it’s unlike us to take time out in the middle of the day for cultural activities. But because Josh’s mother was coming up from Philadelphia to see The Clock—Christian Marclay’s genius 24-hour video art installation about time, cinema history and life in general playing at Lincoln Center—we accompanied her and Josh’s sister Annie even though we knew the wait alone could take up to TWO HOURS!
Waiting on line for The Clock we were approached by a roving reporter for the New Yorker who was writing a piece about people waiting on line for The Clock.
What great timing?! Although we had committed the cardinal sin of taking time off in the middle of the day, we ended up being written about in a Talk of the Town story Tick-Tock by Nick Paumgarten in this week’s issue of the New Yorker—a milestone that arguably many New Yorkers may have fantasized about from time to time.