Bryce Goebel – “what lies behind the notion of progress”

“Shorter of breath,” never seeming to find the time, we haven’t changed much: thought, expression, identity, compassion, and communication are the lies behind the notion of progress. Maybe a light regress in Pink Floyd’s “Time” is what we should seek.

13 October 2006: (political) progress… a dark side that guides

I was downtown Toronto today and I was almost choked by the exhaustion people wore on their faces. I don’t know if you’ve ever spent time sitting and watching corporeal movements of people downtown, especially at certain moments of the day. Well, I have. The sight is stunning and revolting simultaneously – I want to capture such images in words and yet I want to vomit everything within me, or what I’ve been told to believe, leaving it on the concrete or pavement in protest to the sight, the site. Picture yourself standing or sitting on King St., just west of Bay St., facing eastward around five in the afternoon on a weekday… the weather is irrelevant… it really is irrelevant… and the streetlights on the north and south sides of Bay are about to change (the red hand is flashing on the southeast corner of King). The moon ascends. What do you see?

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

People crowd the corner: the first few hogs set the tone for where the mass will stand, almost as if they lift up their legs, peeing to designate the territorial borderlines; then, directly, immediately, as if someone actually gave orders, several agents congregate strongly behind the front runners; after, stragglers, those not in the two previous groups, those always slightly late or less aggressive or less persuasive or they’re indeterminate, indifferent, ignorant, weak as societal designations often proclaim, slowly join the herd in singles (but they wish, they have always wished, to be part of the group). All faces are tired. The tension is high at this moment; a force pulls, controls – the moon guides waves. The herd (congregation) senses the red hand blinking faster, harder, penetrating (a bell tolls), anxieties escalate, beating… beating, the group, they, almost collectively will the oppositional green light to change to amber, to red. Anticipation weighs heavy. Then the light changes… finally. You can hear the communal sigh, pants and other pieces of clothing rubbing, rubbing each other as movement again takes flight – they are safe, comforted once more by being able to move, not having to think, not having to do anything other than progress… together. This moment is what I wait for, when I want to write, when I wish to vomit the offering: to experience a vast number of people running together as one giant herd progressing across the street is breathtaking, blinding; and, yet, within that same breath and its taking, its progress, it is probably the most repulsive thing in the world to witness – a complete absence of thought, of expression, of identity, of compassion, of communication (are these the lies behind the notion of progress?).

Without sound, without sight, idle, we cannot escape walking in funeral processions; we are the herd mentality: self-involved, callous, insatiable… together – the dark side that guides waves. A hog, an agent, or a straggler, we wait for “someone or something to show us the way,” missing our starting guns.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

3 November 2006: a light regress in “Time” towards the sun

Flashback: hands blink, clocks tick, lights change, people run. Pink Floyd’s “Time” (1973), the third track on the monumental The Dark Side of the Moon album, evolving from the wake of “On the Run,” opens with what sounds like thunder in the distance, or clouds gathering and breaking, almost racing, followed by a series of clocks ticking – eerily reminiscent of rain drops waving on rooftops. The ticking clocks grow progressively in volume until several alarms rupture the cadence. Hands break loose from faces. A strong bass electric pulse materialises alongside the clocks, the alarms, serving up time until David Gilmour’s voice begins “Ticking away….” The alarms sever us, the listeners, from our depressing soundtracks. We realise the pulse may be our simulations running, displaying for us our mechanised ways. There may be other pulses, beats, rhythms, different from the hog, the agent or the straggler, if only we could hear our thoughts, if only we could see our reflections… if only we could experience the lightness in all of us. “Time” is magnetic, addictive, and timely; it was, like the album, ahead of its time, seeking to arouse emotion in its listeners… its audience. Let us lean into the song where it plays in real time.

Right now, in-between the second and third verses, David Gilmour’s guitar solo attempts to transcend the character of “Time”. The solo fails, however, and the listener returns to words, to a predicament all too familiar guided by the moon – darkness. As listeners, we are captive with the character in the song, in our lives, in our cycles, again on the run.

And you run and run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

The angry and frustrated narrator of “Time” depicts an anxious character without direction, without time and yet, possibly, with too much (idle) time. This character seems misplaced, measuring far too late his or her waste – always behind, always attempting to catch up with life (the light, the sun) but only closing in on death (darkness, the moon). The red hand is flashing. Is the character at the corner, the intersection, waiting? Are we at the intersection? Are we the character in “Time”?

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

Caught within much larger cycles – a day, an album, a lifetime – the character wavers. Repressed anxiety is the “English way.” Even the narrator hesitates, contemplating himself, looking up at his writing, staring at “half a page of scribbled lines.” This is a brilliant moment of compassionate reflection, of a writer attempting to make a connection with the listener, of a band attempting to communicate with its audience, of a demonstration of the political in a base form: humans interacting meaningfully, trying to understand, reflecting each other , living, listening together, negotiating a signal towards the sun – lightness – and not the moon – darkness. But wait. “Time” is not over; one verse remains. There may be some support for the character, for the narrator, for the listener, beyond connection – a reprieve within a reprise:

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells

A moment of relief – being at home, among comforting elements, a safe place – shatters quickly for the character with “the tolling of the iron bell” – a symbol for death. What ensues is an expression concerning the unlikely and unsettling possibility of resurrection through faith (magic spells). For the narrator, “Time” is not religious: the light is our ability to transcend our dark natures (self-involved, callous, insatiable). Religion is not a light direction – its spells are always dark (nothing save misspelled magic).

The narrator attempts to connect with you, the listener, by transcending tendencies, classifications (the hog, the agent, and the straggler) in this time and compose a movement towards the light: interacting, expressing, thinking, identifying, listening in meaningful, compassionate rays. The dawn breaks.

11 November 2006: progress and regress (“Time”)…

Remembering. In a fairly recent interview, Roger Waters explains the genesis of “Time” as developing from revisiting his youth: “childhood, adolescence, everything was about preparing for life that is going to start later [education, job, family].” While writing “Time,” Waters – who was 29 years old in 1972 – informs the interviewer of his revelation: “life wasn’t going to start later. It starts at dot [x] and happens all the time. At any point you grasp the reigns and start guiding your own destiny.” Simple words from “Time[’s]” narrator.

Waters’ (Pink Floyd’s) “Time” is relevant today. “Shorter of breath,” never seeming to find the time, we haven’t changed much: thought, expression, identity, compassion, and communication are the lies behind the notion of progress. Maybe a light regress in “Time” is what we should seek. The herd lies in place (the hog, the agent, the straggler)… idle, possibly not unlike the scribbled lines above.

Further links

Time – Pink Floyd: Video

Dark side of the moon: 30th anniversary

Special issue: recent articles, time/governance
Tags: bryce goebel, non-linearity, pink floyd