Perception of time, and how it passes, is strictly a cultural thing. Ryszard Kapuściński wrote that the Africans, traditionally, don't really believe in time. Buses leave when they're full, village meetings start when everybody's there. A little further north, Lawrence Durrell noted that peasants in the Greek Islands judged distances in terms of how many cigarettes they would need to smoke before they got there, while for Orwell's Spaniards everything is going to be done mañana.My recent acquisition of a functioning bicycle and an i-Pod, however, has led me to a newer and rather more satisfying way of measuring time. I noticed when I cycled from home to the Due Forni pizzeria in Prenzlauer Berg that it took exactly three Bob Dylan songs, two from his Time Out of Mind record and one from Blonde On Blonde. Likewise, the distance from my front door to the dentist's surgery in Weissensee is precisely three of De La Soul's greatest hits, plus half of track from the Oscar Peterson Trio's Night Train.
Part of the attractiion of this manner of time-keeping is that it is fluid, ever-changing. It depends which tune you play off the record, as they are all of differing lengths (at least according to the old system, which we've just done away with).
But perhaps the best argument for this method can be found in the fear of death. When you look closer at most of the fundamental things in life, they ultimately boil down to the desire for some form of immortality. And by replacing linear time with music, we may just be on to something. After all, everybody knows that our days are numbered, but record collections are strictly alphabetised.
And it's taken me three of Bob Dylan's lifetimes to write my Russia blog, but it's on its way.
