January 15, 2018
TRAINS NEVER DISAPPOINT:
I watched a 17-hour broadcast of a train crossing Australia. It didn't disappoint (Naaman Zhou, 14 Jan 2018, The Guardian)
In the three-hour version, my favourite bits were the historical facts which pop up above the scenery, telling the story of Indigenous history and early European and Asian immigration. How Australia's first mosque was built in the 1860s, by the tracks in Maree, for Muslim cameleers from Pakistan, India and Iran. Or Port Pirie's short-lived Mussolini-inspired fascist group, founded by Italian residents in the 1920s.But in the longer version, the rate of facts is slowed, coming maybe twice an hour. I feel bereft. For some reason, the train driver appears about 10 times in one hour. I have decided he is the villain of the piece. He does nothing, and does not seem to move, even as the landscape does. I did not sign up for this.
After an hour though, my laments have given way to a slow sense of creeping beauty and small changes. I see the hated ovals slowly turn to redder dirt, and buildings I don't recognise, which are small joys.Time really does seem to pass quickly. At two hours, I decide to take a nap, but when I go to turn off the TV I realise we are passing some kind of farm - an arrangement of small, mysterious fruit-bearing shrubs in a perfect and monotony-breaking pattern. The ground looks different. I immediately turn it back on to watch a little more. This is how it gets you.Viewed occasionally as something to pop in and out of, slow TV is relaxing, inoffensive. Viewed intensely, it becomes a journey of highs and lows, more stark the closer you zoom in. If you engage with it, it pushes back. As the timeframe approaches infinity, the odds of something becoming interesting becomes certain.I decide to go to sleep, which has the sensation of stepping off a treadmill. Everything seems to keep gliding forwards for a little while.After five hours, I wake up to Port Augusta. The sky is a beautiful dark bruised purple - the land too, like milled jacaranda flowers. It matches my sunrise. The show is in sync with my circadian rhythms. It is unlike anything I have seen, or will see for the next 12 hours. At the very least, the beauty of slow TV is that I could fall asleep for three hours and still not miss the moment.
One of the best Alexa skills is you can fall asleep to train sounds.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 15, 2018 6:18 AM