Phil W. Bayles

Or: How I Learned To Love A Ticking Clock

If you’ve never watched Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I don’t blame you.

In the career of its creator, Aaron Sorkin, the show is definitely something of a blip. Between penning one of the greatest political dramas ever made and (arguably) the defining movie of the 21st century, Sorkin wrote a series about the workings of a fictional comedy show in the vein of Saturday Night Live that was cancelled after one season.

It was an odd duck. When it was about the politics of running a TV show – trying to create something while navigating the whims of studio executives and guest stars and backstage mishaps – it was great. But it also wanted to be a romcom, and a serious drama, and sometimes even another season of The West Wing, and when it was doing all of that stuff it wasn’t so great. But when Sorkin is on, there’s nobody like him. Go watch the pilot episode, you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, there’s an episode where Matt Albie – the head writer of the fictional show-within-the-show, and an obvious stand-in for Sorkin himself, played by Matthew Perry – finds a giant LED clock hanging on the wall of his office. It has a Groucho Marx quote written along it, and he turns it on to find it’s counting down to the exact moment on Friday night that the show goes on the air.

“How does it know?” he asks. “It was off. Does it always know?”

“Don’t endow the thing with special powers,” another character tells him. “It’s a clock.”

Over the course of the episode we see all the trials and tribulations as Matt struggles to write his very first episode of the show. In the end, though, he triumphs. The show’s cold open, an homage to Gilbert and Sullivan (long story), is a huge hit. The audience starts to cheer, Matt smiles to himself – and there’s that damn clock, sitting in the corner, reminding him that he’s got just 6 days and 23 hours to do it all again.

Matt looks at the clock and wonders if it’ll drive him crazy. Writing this in 2020, I feel like it’s the only thing keeping me sane.

I know I’m not the only person who feels time has gone limp this past year, like a piece of elastic stretched so far that it can no longer retain its shape. I also know that many, many people have it far, far worse. I think I contracted the virus back in the spring (though without an antibody test I’ll never know for certain), but while it was undeniably awful I don’t seem to have been left with the long-term symptoms that have plagued so many others. I’ve also been lucky enough to remain in full-time work throughout the pandemic, while people I know and love have struggled with the uncertainty of furlough schemes and freelance work. 

I do still have long-term ambitions. My wife and I are saving money so that we can hopefully buy a house and start to raise a family. I dream of returning to Paris, or finally making it to Cannes for the film festival (if they finally reopen).  I’m writing a short story, which I’m going to try to get published. But trying to think about these things for too long, or in too close detail, is like trying to catch fog. 

Luckily, I have some clocks of my own ticking away. 

Every Monday evening we sit and have a video call with some friends from London. We talk about work, and our lives, and what we watched on telly that week, and as the call ends I know there are only 6 days and 23 hours til the next one.

Every Friday I call my Mum. We swap what little gossip there is to share; I tell her about work; she inevitably tells me I look like I lost weight even though it’s objectively a lie. And as the call ends, I know there are only 6 days and 23 hours til I get to call her again. 

Every Sunday, I take part in a virtual tabletop role-playing game with a merry band of adventurers. We go on quests and slay monsters and uncover ancient evils, and as the game wraps up I know there are only 6 days and 23 hours til we get to do it all again. 

Frankly, I’m not sure I would be writing so much if I didn’t have so much present on my hands, and so little future. I would have given up on this newsletter a long time ago, but right now I’m not worrying about whether I’ll still be writing this in a year’s time. I’m just writing the next one.

Please don’t take this as some kind of self-help message, encouraging everyone get creative or any of that nonsense. I have very little time for the “Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine” crowd; if Will had had a stable internet connection things would have turned our very differently.

This omnipresent present isn’t fun, and if the thing that gets you through it is binge-watching Friends for the millionth time, then more power to you. All I’m saying is that I find infinity is a lot easier to swallow if you take it seven days at a time. And if this particular week isn’t going so well, then you’ve only got 6 days and 23 hours left to endure before the next one begins.   

Are you ready? Start the clock.