THE TIME AND THE TEMPERATURE

i was walking in the rain from a bus on high to the library on front, and it must have been a while since i'd been been down that stretch of broad street on foot (if it's dry i bike, and i won't take broad), because i saw something there that i hadn't seen before, although it's apparently been there since the end of january. and what's there now near the corner of east broad and south lazelle is a sign, and the sign reads "tehran, iran" at the top, plastic part of it, below which (in real time) a scrolling display gives the time and the temperature in the city named by the sign. not so surprisingly, "the time and the temperature" -- as the sign is called -- is a part of "finding time" (columbus' bicentennial public art project)...although our being well into 2013 might (jocularly) call the timeliness of the piece into question (and even after we acknowledge that we weren't quite so far into the year when the sign first went up). pittsburgh artist jon rubin created the the piece to be "pro-conversation." i haven't heard much on the street so far, but maybe people just need, er...time. but now people on the street in columbus (or on east broad street, anyway) will be reminded of the time (and the temperature) in tehran, a city of over twelve million people, which makes it the fifth largest city by city proper population in the world.