Thursday, February 05, 2009

"I Told You So"

Time will say nothing but I told you so . . .
(W. H. Auden 1907-1973)
IT DOES, AND IT DID!

In the midst of a crazy-busy time I got crazy and didn't back-up the work on my thesis - approximately 24 hours worth of writing from the weekend. On Monday my 15-month old computer (JUST past warranty) died. I wish I could travel back in time and back up, but since time travel is not yet possible, as far as I've been told (unless the government is holding out on me :-), all that is happening is that, as in Auden's poem, time is saying, "I told you so!"

In my forced "down-time" yesterday during which I could not work on my thesis (not knowing what could and could not be retrieved from my hard drive) I went to see the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. If you like movies that cause you to reflect, I highly recommend it. If you haven't heard of it, it is about a baby born old who grows younger as years pass. There is a lot here to think about in terms of time and life and death and love and loss and acceptance (both of others and of our own lot) - and at a lighter level, it tickles my brain to think about what it would mean to start out old and grow younger - sounds good, right? Or . . . ???

We call Time a dimension, so why can't we move in more than one direction in it?
Do you have any favorite time travel stories? I'll start the list with some of mine. I'll add whatever comments I get.

FICTION:

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Timeline by Michael Crichton

NON-FICTION:

Time Travel in Einstein's Universe: The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time by J. Richard Gott

MOVIES:

Back to the Future (Michael J. Fox)
Somewhere in Time (Jane Seymour, Christopher Reeve)

POEMS:

(I know of a limerick, but it's too raunchy to put here.)

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