William D. Waltz

from Time Being

Conduit’s thirtieth anniversary would be the perfect occasion to consider time and its passage, or that’s what I told myself while dreaming up the issue. But like a sub-zero blast, the enormity of the project almost immediately slapped me in the face. Contemplating the whole of time is like stuffing a pig into a sock or a muffin into a thimble. It can be done, but it’s not recommended. Where to start? The beginning? “Grant-free since 1993,” Conduit has persisted for three decades despite our collective commonsense. “Published when least expected,” another of our slogans, is a little incantation in which we give ourselves permission to take our time to get it right. It’s also a playful jab at schedules, and schedules are one of the clumsy ways we attempt to contain time like a bull in a corral. A bull may not be the best analogy to use to depict time because, frankly, bulls spend a good portion of their days standing still and time, well, does not.

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