The Beginning

Josh: I didn’t know what to expect when I started this task. I was mostly concerned with how to maintain my standard of living without the sweet sweet juice.

The challenges I identified were time, food, and communication.

Communication was established before the 24 hr blackout period. Cam and I agreed to meet up around ‘noonish’ and Amber would just show up at my place after her work day was done. A pair of cans with a string between them was proposed, but proved ineffective for distances greater then the length of string.



Cam: I knew that time would be my biggest problem, as it is when I do have access to electricity. I didn’t have access to any non-electric timepieces. Since I only had to be aware of noon, I sneakily invited Britt to join us, and had him show up at my house at noon.

Josh: Time was resolved with a two pronged attack, first I studied the astronomical tables, making many calculations regarding the circumference of the earth, carefully noting nearby celestial bodies and working out a rough estimate of the relationship between force and mass over distance. But apparently someone already worked this out.

With this in mind I devised a method of telling time based on the sun’s position relative to my position in the northern hemisphere, but again, it appears my work has been duplicated.

Also my roommate has a self winding mechanical watch, which I borrowed. It’s pretty cool, you can feel the winding mechanism work as you move your hand.

Food was purchased and placed into some coolers, just like camping!

Cam: I had no illusions about figuring out what time it was, since I didn’t have but one obligation. I just resolved to go with the flow and estimate.

I had to purchase a cooler, which I filled with ice, and the nessecary ingredients for lunch and dinner.

Oh, and beer.

Lots of beer.

Josh: Friday night I began to SHUT IT DOWN. I have a roommate, so unplugging everything in the house would not be copasetic to our relationship, I circumnavigated this by unplugging everything I could, and covering up the faces of all our clocks, alarm clocks and appliances that have a clock attached to them. What amazed me was that the living room and kitchen (practically one big room) contained 6 devices to tell you what time it is.

Unplugging my alarm clock was most satisfying.



Then we experimented with candle placement, getting everything ready, and took candle pictures.

At 11:45pm Friday night I found myself gyrating under disco dance lights with some good people. But I had to rush home before I turned into a pumpkin.

Cam: I spent the last hour of ‘lectric light by taping up all my clocks and key light switches around my house. I also have a roommate, who told me he would feel free to use the juice. I just vowed to close my eyes if he had to pass through a room with the lights on.

I arranged some candles and at the appointed hour lit them up. I brushed my teeth in the flickering light, and then learned how to hold a candle so that I didn’t put it out every time I moved.



Although I did not actually wear a cap and gown, I like the way the image seemed in my head. Such is the glory of analog image capturing.

On my way back from the bathroom, I stepped on something very sharp. I tore my sock off, and could only feel the tip of some horrible sliver in my foot. I hopped, one footed back to the bathroom, to get tweezers, but alas, I could not see them. So I hopped to my room, got a candle, and hopped back to the bathroom.

Tweezers in hand, I re-hopped to the bed (Hopping is very difficult while holding a flaming cylinder of wax. By candlelight, I had to extract the invading object which turned out to be a nearly centimeter long length of thin, stiff wire, almost entirely shove through my foot. How or why it was in my house, and how it perfectly was placed on end to stab me thusly is a mystery.



I also learned that reading by candlelight makes Russian horror-fantasy novels ten times more atmospheric.

Saturday Morning:

Josh: Regretfully my divorce from technology lasted only a few short hours, when someone’s alarm woke me up before dawn, accidentally, then again around nine, on purpose. So I decided to get up and get about my day. The mechanical watch had wound down, so I reset it using what time I new Amber’s alarm would go off, and a bit of dead reckoning, then I decided to set the watch 20 minutes ahead of that just to be safe. This was strange for me, not really knowing what time it was, but having a watch anyway. I realize just how dependant on time I am, even on a lazy Saturday morning? How was I supposed to know how much time I was pissing away drinking coffee?

I decided that time was irrelevant, and as such I was not constrained by it’s dictates. With this new found freedom I went out and got the Sunday paper. ON A SATURDAY!

Then I cooked a breakfast who’s main ingredient was bacon drippings, mmm-hmmm.

I had a hard time not touching the light switches, and had to tape them over.



Cam: I slept peaceably until my body’s natural circadian rhythms roused me. Since I haven’t done this in years, and have no idea what sort of fucked up clock my body is set too, I also had no clue what time it was… But damn… it was quiet.

I normally wake up to the radio, listen to the news in the shower, and then put on a record and start my computer.

With the lack of all these noises, I discovered a small humming noise. It took me a while to realize that it was a phantom hum. It was the absence of the myriad hums I was used to…

I had a small moment of panic in the shower when I was thanking god for a gas powered water heater. I picked up the soap, and realized – my god! This soap required electricity to be made! Have I failed already?



I took this to it’s logical conclusion, and decided I didn’t want to spend the day in the woods, naked. At least not yet.

I went about some chores in the eerie silence, and then sat down to play the ukulele. At this point, I was sure it was hours past noon. Britt arrived, and assured me I was wrong, but I refused to be told the real time. We packed up some beer and rum and food and headed to the meeting spot in the park, navigating of a satellite printout map.


Lunch:
Josh: Cleaned up the apartment a bit and hopped on the bike to meet Cam and Britt. I had to strip all the electrics off my ride. So I didn’t know how fast I was going. However my regard for traffic safety lights changed very little.



Hung around the park with other characters who weren’t using much electricity. I briefly wondered if anyone was trying to call me. Cam and Britt showed up, we had a lovely little lunch and met a nice dog who at the gross pepperoni stick Cam brought. Then Cam played a ukulele a little bit until the Internet, in the form of Google Calendar, reached out through the ether and reminded Britt to call his sister. This technology frightened Cam and I and we scampered off in to the bushes to screech and piss on things, Britt was able to coax us out with some grapes and trail mix. I drank a beer, and then it was time to get to rehearsal. As was leaving, Cam and Britt were taking sips of rum from Cam’s camping flask, I looked on wistfully.



Cam: Lunch was a lovely primal mix of bread, cheese and preserved meat. And beer. And rum.

This would be the pattern for the day.

Britt and I hung out on the hill for a while, chatting about books and science and philosophy, while the drum circle raged on. After a few hours, the drum circle slowly died. After it’s constant pounding, it was unsettling to hear it stop. I unconsciously looked around for some unseen predator.



We gathered up our trash and began a long, lazy walk back to my house. I didn’t realize I was intoxicated until I tried to walk sideways and ended up sprawling flat on the concrete. I had to pay a little more attention to my sloppy stride after that.

We stopped in a small tapioca drink stall, and ordered a taro drink. I refused to look at the demon cash register. The woman kept pointing at the total, but I just locked eyes and repeatedly asked: “How much?”. She rolled her eyes and finally told me.

Candy and sweet drinks in hand, we climbed the steps to my darkening apartment.

Josh: Rehersal was boredom as usual, I have a small non-speaking, non-singing part in an upcoming production of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” I was roped into this volunteering with the promise of some fun stage combat, unfortunately the fun ends abruptly when I get killed, and then the opera singers stand around me and sing for about 20 minutes.



After that I rode my bike home and hung out for a bit. I realized most of my entertainment was electronic in nature and without the charge my options were very limited.



I read, I drew sketches, and when the sun dipped below twin peaks I lit the candles and prepared to cook dinner.

Dinner

Josh: Cooking by candlelight proved to be more difficult then imagined, but the benefit was I couldn’t really see what a mess I was making. I have a gas stove, and merely used a lighter to ignite the burners.

While cooking and waiting, I was amazed at how quiet the apartment was. No music, no whirr of the of the computer fan, all was quiet and I could hear the gate outside my apartment creeking open and shut.

Dinner was all ready, but where was my dinner date?



Amber was late, and I assumed it was work keeping here there, but being without a cell phone to call and confirm, all I could do was wait, and spin awful scenarios about what could be happening to her.

Fortunately she appeared around eight-ish. And just as we were sitting down to a lovely candle light dinner of fish tacos and rice, there was a knock at the door, or rather, a loud clattering noise in my hallway outside.



IT WAS THE CHUPACABRA!! My roommate was in full party mode, he came storming into the living room in a voice soaked in beer and a sinus cavity full of coke.



“It’s party time Josh, Rosa is here with her Bolivian marching powder and we are going to turn on all the electricity and play loud music and laugh and dance and sing and your nice dinner is ruined! Ruined!”

“Uh, Phil, do you fucking see what you’ve walked into here?” I hate having to deal with my roommate when he’s like this.

“Well fucking deal with it bitch because it’s Saturday night and the Rosa is here and we are going to FUCK IT UP!”

“I told you I was having a nice dinner tonight WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?” My plan was to stab him in the heart with a fork and sink the body into the bay.



“Oh JoOOosh.”

“What?”

“Just Kidding”



Eventually I calmed down, we shared a hug and my roommate / man-devil grabbed a change of clothes and went on his way. Amber was much amused, I was less so, but the dinner was lovely even if the show was a bit gosh for my taste.

Cam: Britt and I settled down into my bar/rec-room, and switched to whisky. Lots of whisky.

I started to realize that pre-radio, pre-movies, pre-games, pre-electricity, people must have drank a lot. I sure did.

We busted out some board games, and played a quick round of Nexus Ops in the fading light, which soon had to be supplemented by candle.



We expected Orion and Sara to swing by, but unbeknownst to us, Orion was stuck late at work. We had no way of knowing this, but it was obvious he wasn’t coming.

I began cooking a large vegetable stew on my gas stove, by candlelight. With the reduced light and reduced co-ordination, I’m surprised I still have ten fingers.

My roommate returned home, and lit up his room with some sort of black magic, and watched some sort of glass box that showed pictures. I refused to look for fear of my mortal soul, but he treated me to a long monologue about some shitty new TV show. I pretended he was a shaman, telling me a local myth.

The soup turned out as good as I could have hoped, and I set out some candles and some bowls and a loaf of bread.

Without Orion and Sara, the whole meal became unintentionally romantic.



I demanded that my roommate come join us as we ate, to break the awkward spell.

Evening:

Josh: After dinner, there were lots of fun things I was prohibited from doing. Cool concerts to see, parties, apparently Cam was hosting some kind of hillbilly gut-bucket band practice. I did none of these things, actually, I was really tired. I don’t know if it’s cause my apartment was so dark or because I didn’t sleep well the night before, but I was in bed by around 11pm.

Cam: The gut bucket band never happened, as I was the only one with an instrument. I continued drinking, until an epiphany struck.

Drinking all day is hard work, and I was fucking tired.

Britt agreed, and I realized I was not going to make it to midnight. I think I was asleep by 11pm.

Which is a shame, because I planned a whole funny series of photographs to show the lights going back on. It would have looked something like this.






Conclusion:

Josh: ELECTRICTY IS AWESOME!!!



Cam: I think I’m much more aware of how automatic my use of the power is. I reached for light switches all evening, despite holding a candle. I reached for the record player three times. I like these deprivation tasks because they really make you understand your daily routines, and how little thought you give them.

Also, Electricity is totally awesome.