WATCHING THE CLOCK, part 5

last night was the last night that i could have watched christian marclay's "the clock" outside of the wexner center's regular hours, and today was the last day that i could see it at the wexner center at all. but the weather today was too nice not to picnic, and last night after my improvised, anticipatory tinto de verano i was just too lazy. a pass on the weekly paper and a pass on the quarterly review. some (improvised, anticipatory) passes at the boys. i've really just been watching the clock until the history channel airs its new travis fimmel underwear ad. his character's son has the coolest do. and now i'm doing it too. improvised, anticipatory cultural catabolism. and at that i remember that i'd almost forgotten about that demagogic leather bar film by the remarkably marketably closeted james franco that was playing this weekend at the cleveland international film festival -- and that, well, i really didn't make any effort to go.

WATCHING THE CLOCK, part 4

exotic latino grill hocks its exotic latino grilleries out of a cart in a parking lot on the north side of the block of east hudson between indianola and summit. the menu wasn't what i'd expected (or, rather, had decided that it should have been), and neither was the exotic latina who took my order (something of the beauty who i hope still slings plates at the cart on north vancouver and fremont in portland). i did, however, manage to get myself a burrito (although the burritos weren't at all highlighted on the menu, and perhaps i should have gotten something more typically exotic). it's back to bitter cold, so i ate my burrito in the passenger seat of the car. (the wrapping was pretty, but the beans were too concentrated at the bottom and made almost for a mess.) then i took advantage of our position to have us drive to the goodwill down the street. but i didn't feel too bad taking advantage, even though the driver had regretted having already eaten after he'd had a bite of my lunch, because he also had a box of old shoes in the trunk that had been waiting to find its way to a donation site. and then (and maybe it might not have been there if i hadn't been there with someone making a contribution), i actually found the frame that i was looking for. the first one i'd found at the volunteers of america store in merion village, and this one (although it didn't turn out to be -- not exactly) looked exactly identical. the certificate of authenticity says that the photos are five by seven, but they're actually five by seven and a little bit more, which is apparently a standard non-standard frame size too, but just as easy to find when you're trying to find a frame on the secondhand cheap. but they had one! and almost exactly identical to the one that i already had, so now i had frames for two of three of the alexander guerra photos that a friend had gifted me because they were too gay for her boyfriend to have in the house. score (times two). and so i was happy when we got to the gallery to keep watching "the clock." i picked it back up just after three. and we got in almost two hours. john cusack gets considerable face time. and that's on top of what he gets from one-thirty to three, because it's as a result of having watched the clock that hour and a half that the artist lent me "the grifters." (i haven't seen annette or angelica again at the wexner.) audrey hepburn doesn't see anything, because in the clips of her excerpted from three to five she's blind. audrey tautou finally shows up in "amelie." four o'clock is big. there's commotion. chomping at the bit (although he's asleep next to me on the sofa). then, at four-twenty, not at all what you might think, but everyone's watching the clock. second by second, they're closer to getting out. except that at four thirty-five sissy spacek, in "3 women," is fantasizing about clocking in. shelley duvall is somewhere else and at another time. she's being given a watch. next to me the driver is squeaking back awake, and i feel bad again about taking advantage, because he hasn't gotten any sleep, and i know how that feels. the punch cards get punched out en masse at five, and a couple of minutes later we leave. "the good, the bad and the ugly," he tells me. and he tells me that it was fun going in and out. it's its own experience letting the images confront you after you've been woken up by the confrontation of the images. okay. score (times three). but we were there until just past five. quitting time.

WATCHING THE CLOCK; parts 2 and 3

the goal was to be there at four when the gallery started its free thursday hours and watch as much of "the clock" as we could before it closed at eight o'clock. but, unfortunately, our stylist couldn't get us in until exactly then, and, admittedly, the confusion at the salon the day before had been half our fault. (when i was in the chair she said she had a surprise for me and took out some waxing strips to do my neck, but i suspect that she did it more to save time than as a courtesy. apparently we were all watching the clock that afternoon. i should have said something to stop her after the rash i'd gotten from my last waxing but i didn't. in the interest of time, perhaps.) then, after the both of us were finished, it made more sense for us to go pick up our third on the south side instead of having her meet us at the wexner center -- and then we were all hungry. so we didn't sit down in the screening room at the gallery until six forty-five, which, all things considered, wasn't that bad. on screen, the storefront shutters were going down and the people were sitting down to eat. (it would have probably been excruciating if we hadn't taken the extra time to have something ourselves.) nicolas cage was waking up to have a cigarette...maybe, although that might actually have been part of part one. unfortunately, maybe, it all blends together when you spread the twenty-four hours of "the clock" across so many more. then the kindly security woman kicked us out -- over-promptly at seven fifty-six. fortunately, it turns out that my second has a membership to the gallery which gets him free admission for both himself and a guest. but "the clock" had just been part of the plan for thursday, and anyway, that day it had turned out that we were three. plus, we still had time. and on saturday we had all night at the gallery, but as it turned out we were caught up in the game until midnight. then i can't say what happened for the following two hours -- or maybe i just won't -- but we didn't get to the gallery until two fifteen. (two thirty?) we made sure to eat (although and where all this time was katherine hepburn? was she there that night, or was that another time? or, maybe it was all three of them. from two fifteen (or two thirty) until four in the morning, watching "the clock" is strange. a sleepless night on screen is sympathetically consolatory, even for the knowledge that the people you're watching must be going through the same desperate circles and awful inquietudes as you've experienced in those sleepless nights of your own. more or less alone in the dark, you appreciate that you're not alone. then you're just happy for a cab.

and then three days later you're awake, sleepless, watching the clock, because even though you should think of the night as an opportunity -- that it's nice, for better or for worse, that right now all you have is time, and it's yours to do with however you please -- instead all you can do is watch the clock. then you're just happy for a xanax, and you accept your giving in because you remember that, at least, the least you can do for yourself is remember that, appropriately shot and edited, what's happening right now could be art.

WATCHING THE CLOCK

way to go, wexner. no sooner is leibovitz gone (and almost forgotten) than they've put up something else with a special draw. and it isn't the more american photographs exhibition. that's what those are, to be sure, and we walked through them because he'd never seen the gallery and because everything's free to everyone on the first sunday of every month. you might as well. but no, we had gone specifically to watch the clock. and no, it's not like leibovitz or warhol. it isn't a first or an only. or at least not in any way big (its installation at the wexner center is, to be fair, its midwest debut). but christian marclay's twenty-four hour timepiece marathon of timepieces is definitely the stuff of legend -- and watching it on sunday while the rest of the city got ready to watch the super bowl meant that it was not only free but also blissfully accommodating. we had the afternoon -- and we had the front and center sofa -- so we sat down and watched. "the clock" is twenty-four hours long, and, to be fair, i should say that we only watched it for an hour and a half. (the front and center sofa affords a great viewing experience, but it does nothing for the neck.) still, even only watching it from one-thirty to three p.m. was enough to get a good sense of what it means to watch it. "the clock" is twenty-four hours long, and it's assembled from thousands of film clips "that are rationalized as kindred in that each of them contains within it a reference to a precise minute over the span of a day's twenty-four hours"* (and that precise minute is synched with the minute in which you're watching "the clock"). not only that, they're also organized by the progress of other visual themes, not to mention that some movies and television shows will recur as time has progressed (provided that time is of their essence). i'm not sure how some of the gallery goers on sunday were able to stay for only a few minutes. (maybe they were there to see the photographs.) it's not hard to appreciate how much research and planning it must have required to produce the work -- and we're given the metrics of time and assistants by the notes given by the gallery. but i also found it entertaining. it is, of course, clever, but it can also be funny or brooding, not to mention that its never ending span of twenty-four hours is also a mashup history of film and video. it plays, so to speak, with time. but for as much as it collects, it also keeps discarding and moving on. "the clock" is playful, but it's also daunting. before you can even think to find something to write on to record the time, the scene you didn't recognize but would have liked to remember is gone, and "the clock" marches on. then there's the other issue of time: "its duration qualifies it as an effectively 'impossible' task for a viewer to experience completely, i.e., to remain sensible and alert in its presence for its full rotation."* thankfully, the wexner center has lowered the threshold of impossibility for anyone who wants to watch as much of "the clock" as they can (even if they can't do it in succession). the gallery is scheduled to stay open all night for each of three more nights before the exhibition closes in april so that anyone who's interested can watch the hours of "the clock" that are impossible to see while the gallery is closed. plus, during those evening, nighttime and morning hours, the gallery reception desk won't be open to collect any entrance fees. there's also at least one more first sunday, not to mention that entrance to the gallery is free every thursday after four in the afternoon. it might not be an entire twenty-four, but that's more than enough incentive and opportunity for me to give "the clock" a few more hours of my own. plus, when you're inside you might have an overwhelming sense of being stuck in it, but you never have to check the time.

*bill horrigan, curator at large for the wexner center