For a moment, I don't know how long, all of the universe was in one place.

Then Ra initiated the big bang and time began, moving forward, each minute dispersing

the universe further and further in all directions.

In an attempt to keep track of time on Earth, the first were shadow clocks, then water clocks,

candle clocks, time sticks, and hour glasses.

And then, around the 14th century, European monks invented mechanical clocks so they

could remember the prey on time and that's when things got noisy.

Hello, I'm Joe Pere, and I thought it'd be fun to do an episode on the history of

Clock Chimes, I know you love those bell tower classes, the wedding tin chimes, the St. Michael's Chimes,

and of course the Westminster Chimes. But I realized that most of the sounds associated with time,

even nice ones are anxiety inducing and that's not what we're trying to do.

You've got to perform a complicated surgery tomorrow.

I appreciate you joining me in my basement again, where there is only one audible timepiece.

The small wooden clock from my grandparents house. When I brought it from Buffalo, I thought

its digital version of the Westminster Chime would remind me of them and it didn't. But after a

few nights of being woken up hourly, I removed the batteries and adjusted the hands to rest at a

respectable time, 835. However, I carried it down here and put the batteries back in so it could

keep me company while I think the episode through. Are there any clocks going in the room urine?

Or they leave the TV on and know it's 730 when you hear the jeopardy thing.

There's only one window down here, so if I don't have a watch, I can get a general sense of the

time by how often the subway rumbles by a block away. Other noises down here include the hum of my

ferns and the woosh through the pipes when my upstairs neighbors flush crap down the toilet.

...