A Moment in Time

 Time will tell. 

Or so it is said. But time is a surprising phenomenon.  One can go forward in time, or backward, or freeze in motion. Not with our physical bodies (at least not yet!) but with our minds, our imagination, and our creations. And, through the creation and history of civilization, we humans have found remarkable ways of captivating a moment in time in ways that can last, if not forever, at least as long as there is civilization to record, regard, and admire it. Even adore it.

And how many ways have moments in time been captivated? Let me count the ways: 

1. Through natural phenomena: 

The dinosaurs' demise took place in a relative instant of time when a giant meteor smashed into where is now the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago.

The wildlife of the Cretaceous Period, great and small, ceased to exist in the flash of a moment. But paleontologists today are able to determine, from the thousands--perhaps millions--of fossils preserved under mountains of dust and ash worldwide, what happened that day.

2. Our human forebears:

Humanoid species have been around for literally millions of years. The jawbone of a Homo Rudolfensis, found in Malawi in 1991, was between 2.5 and 2.3 million years old. Human bones, skulls, even skeletons have been found, from both natural and man-made gravesites.

The above skull discovered in Kenya in 1973 is almost 2 million years old. What message do these remnants of life pass on to us? What were these creatures and humanoids thinking, or wishing, or fearing, in their final moments? Science can provide some of this information, but it is mostly speculation. And one thing about speculation: every human being alive is capable of this. If only for brief moments. But when it is captured, and recorded--by whatever means--it is there forever. Or until the means of recording and storage are lost, for whatever reason.

3. Through art: 

In ancient Egypt, art was everywhere there. And much, if not most, was intended to capture a moment in time: a wish, a dream, a memory, all is there to be found, and seen by those who come afterwards.

But human creativity has taken on surprising forms. Recently an ancient Scythian shoe that had been preserved for 2,300 years was discovered in the Altai Mountains of Siberia. 

Is this shoe a work of art? How could it not be? It's hardly practical or functional, yet has remarkable, intricate detail. And takes us back to a moment in time when it was preserved, eons ago. 

4. Through architecture:

Architecture is an art form as well. Ancient Greece abounded with it, as was Rome, although little has survived, on the whole. We've all seen these images, of the Acropolis and Coliseum. And we have sought to recapture those moments with another form of art: cinema (granted, much of what is produced is rubbish, but art can also be found. 

5. Through painting:

Painting, as an art form, dates back to the cavemen. Archeologists have discovered a painting, of a wild pig, in a cave in Indonesia that is at least 45,500 years old. This image was captured in the mind of the hunter, perhaps, or a friend or relative, and recorded on the cave wall for posterity. 

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Michaelangelo and da Vinci brought art into the modern world (relatively speaking) with their Rennaissance, leaving us with their extraordinary artworks.

 

6. Technology:

As long as the technology exists to preserve it, time can be frozen. That image of Cary Grant being chased by a crop duster in South Dakota in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest? While it was staged for the camera, it really did happen (staged, of course, but it happened). And here, again, it is a moment frozen in time.

7. Music:

Music itself is frozen in time at the exact moment of its recording. And how about all those shouts of musicians to one another during performance and recording? They are communicating verbally as well as musically, or sometimes just expressing approval of a bandmate's solo riff.  

And then there are cries and shouts and screams of approval or otherwise from crowds at live performances: especially smaller venues such as bars and clubs. 

All of these moments are captured in time and recorded for posterity: basically for as long as the technology for playback and the Library of Congress exists, as well as other resources such as university libraries and even private collections.

Even public libraries have been found to be custodians and caretakers of important documents or recordings in various media.

8. Which leads us to writing, my own particular craft. Writing 

The Kish Tablet found at Tell al Ulaymir, Babil Governorate, Iraq is the oldest known piece of writing.

Year Written: c.3500 BCE
 Location:  Tell al-Uhaymir, Babil Governorate, Iraq
 Writing System:  proto-cuneiform

From History.com:

The Sumerian civilization first developed writing around 3400 B.C., when they began making markings on clay tablets in a script known as cuneiform.

Anyone who might read this blog undoubtedly reads books. And of course, books cover an immense spectrum, from non-fiction to fantasy fiction. Nonfiction runs from cookbooks to history to science (my eldest brother Robert Ayres's field) to memoirs to politics. 

Fiction has an equally broad span of genres, from historical to mystery and suspense (my fields), to science fiction to romance. 

One of my own favorite genres for intrigue and relaxation (always with real history mixed in), is historical fiction, exemplified by the works of Hillary Mantel and Ken Follett. One of my favorite historical fiction books is The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey, who only wrote one book, but it is terrific, in which a hospitalized police detective, bored to death, begins to question the truth behind the deposed, then vilified King Richard III, who, he begins to believe, was, in fact, a good king, whose murder by the usurping Henry Tudor--a distant cousin living in France--led to his demonization by history. History, it is said, is written by the victors.

Henry Tudor became Henry VII, who created the Star Chamber and judicial murder. His son Henry VIII was even a bigger charmer. We know of these things only because historians recorded these events. And it is up to historians to determine fact from fiction in the recording of history.

I have my own novel in the mystery genre that has just been published: A Tiger's Heart, questioning the demonization of another historical figure, Christopher Marlowe. 

Mystery/thrillers (which include the Tony Lowell Mysteries and my new investigative reporter series, The Jake Fleming Investigations) is a popular genre to be sure, going back to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books and which include a whole pantheon of terrific writers ranging from Agatha Christie to Dashiell Hammett, to Raymond Chandler, to Rex Stout, to Mary Higgins Clark--the list is long, and I am proud to be on it. 

How else might time be frozen and captured? The reader's suggestions are welcome, you may comment below.