Why Time Travel Films So Fascinate Us

Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox make time travel
look easy. All you need is a tricked out DeLorean.

What do 12 Monkeys, Back to the Future, Terminator, Peggy Sue Got Married and Midnight in Paris all have in common? The title of this blog post is your revealer. Each is a Hollywood film that involves time travel. Three involve people in the present being transported to the past. Two (12 Monkeys and Terminator) involve intrusions from the future.

Time travel isn't just a Hollywood thing. H.G. Wells took readers for a ride in The Time Machine, Mark Twain transported us in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Arthur C. Clarke, in a short story titled Time's Arrow, carried readers back to the era of dinosaurs. Oh, and Stephen King used a time portal to see if his character Jake Epping might somehow stop the Kennedy assassination.

The stories are imaginative and vary widely, yet delve into fascinating philosophical conundrums. In both Back to the Future and Clarke's sci-fi story, characters discover the law of unintended consequences and the dangers of tampering with the past. 

In Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) falls in love with an idealized past--Paris during the period of Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dali, etc.--only meet a woman there whose discontentment with her present makes her yearn for a more exciting, earlier time. The solution to our disillusionment with present circumstances cannot be found by embracing nostalgic fantasies. The film is witty and fun while effectively making its point. 

The Terminator films are also wildly inventive but terrifying, a cautionary tale about unchecked technology, the future of robots and AI. Despite their efforts, the past is left unchanged. 12 Monkeys and King's 11/22/63, both propose that the past can't be altered. We can wish it, these stories suggest, but altering or revamping history is not something mere mortals have the power to accomplish.

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When it comes to imaginative philosophical stories, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)  is one of my favorites. He, too, has a variation on the time travel theme. In his rendition, a short story called "The Other," Borges sits down on a park bench in New England and becomes aware that a younger man seated further down is his younger self. He finds the encounter exceedingly disturbing. It's written as if it really happened, and is quite a compelling read. It begins like this:

The incident occurred in February 1969, in Cambridge, north of Boston. I didn't write about it then because my foremost objective at the time was to put it out of my mind, so as not to go insane. Now, in 1972, it strikes me that if I do write about what happened, people will read it as a story and in time I, too, may be able to see it as one.

You can read the rest of the story here.

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Time travel stories are also an excellent way to explore "what if" scenarios. My own story "An Unremembered History of the World," is an exploration of this sort. What if there had never been any wars these past 250 years? How could that have happened? How would things have been different? (You can find this story in my first collection of stories titled Unremembered Histories.)

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For more:

"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1889) and "The Time Machine" (1895) by H.G. Wells

 

Karen Anderson Opening, Magnolia Salon Kickoff and a Plug for Julie Deters

Painting by Karen Anderson. 

It's already February, so don't be alarmed by the weather. Spring is in sight. No matter that temps this past week hit 22 below on our thermometers.

This afternoon from 1:00 to 3:00 is the opening reception at Lakeside Gallery for Karen Anderson, featured artist for February. Karen's work is collectively called Winter Woods and features vibrant winter landscapes. “My efforts to observe and express our Northland winter’s enchantment inevitably stirs a reverence for it’s Creator," she explains. "I try to capture the soft warm glow of the winter sun and the bold calligraphy of the shadows on the snow. There is an abiding stillness in winter woods.”

Indeed there's something dramatic about the play of light and shadows on winter snow. The other night our brilliant full moon cast a remarkable midnight glow over our freshly blanketed landscape, more like a white sheet than a quilt.

The Report from Magnolia Salon

Emily (L) and Glenn (R) acknowledging Yvette's contributions
toward making the Magnolia Salon a reality.

Earlier this week we wrote about the upcoming launch of the Magnolia Salon not really knowing what to really expect. The vision had been outlined, but it wasn't till we arrived would we see whether this was something would get up and go.

Sure enough, one could readily surmise by the cars lining the street that something was up. Good heavens, we were lucky to have a seat. When we entered the Oldenburg House we were met by a roomful of people enthusiastically chattering away. The positive vibe was palpable. At a certain point in time Glenn and Emily, our Oldenburg House hosts, welcomed us and then introduced Yvette, an entrepreneur who this past year opened the Magnolia Cafe in Carlton. Magnolia Salon was spun from discussions and dream-weaving by Emily and Yvette, in part stimulated by the scene from Midnight In Paris where Gil goes back in time and finds himself in the company of Gertrude Stein and her own Paris salon, a meeting place for the like of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso and other notable figures.

Yvette expressed appreciation for our having stepped out to be part of the opening, stating that their vision was for Magnolia Salon to be "a way to bring people together, to gather, to meet, to talk and build community."

Since this was the first night, there was open discussion about the best way to make this work. Some expressed that the current format might make it hard for people to mix and a number of ideas were shared on how to make it easier to interact with others. One of the overarching aims of the Salon is to find ways to spark creativity in daily life.

In addition to building community, the Magnolia Salon features soup and sandwiches, libations and sweets. I liked what Emily said a lot, though, that they were desirous to discover "what this old house wants to happen here."

Upcoming weeks (this will be a weekly event on Thursdays through the end of May) will include music and a variety of speakers with the aim of taking a deeper dive into things we've all thought about in our isolated ways.

There were quite a few people involved with music and teaching. Next Thursday they're slated to devote the evening to an inside look at what takes place in preparation for a jazz performance. Next Friday they will be Cookin' at the O. Thursday, the team will be tuning up, working out intros, outros and all the rest. Check in at 6:00 p.m. Thursday next week and make yourself at home.

Julie Deters Fun(d) Raiser
March 3 there will be a Fun(d) Raiser for cancer-survivor Julie Deters, whom we met at the Magnolia Salon last night. This special event has a surprise twist. Instead of seeking assistance with medical bills she is seeking to raise funds to get certification as a Registered Yoga Teacher so she can give back to the community. The event is March 3 at Peace Church. Her aim is to gain more skills to help people who have experienced trauma in their lives.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Get into it.