Spring Ahead. Fall Back.
She was my first call every daylight savings day. AT&T has announced it will pull the plug on the time lady.
Effective September 2007, Time of Day information service will be discontinued." L.A. times
Over the years I have always wondered where this voice came from. I picture a giant room-sized UNIVAC computer in a dark single bulb lit room. Its tubes glowing dimly behind colander vents.
She was the one truth in a world of lies. You could call her and get the right answer every time. In the 70's I would call her and marvel at the mysterious voices you could here in between her voice. Faint voices talking underneath her hypnotic message. A party-line that would reveal a word or two of an anonymous conversation. Alone on new years eve I have called her to hear her voice tell me when the moment the year has died and reincarnated. Honestly this is sad news for me. Yet another constant in the universe has gone.
One of the women who provided the voice of the time lady in Southern California passed away on July 18th 2003. Her name was Jane Barbe. To see what she really looked like and to read about the voice heard 'round the world Click Here
Jane was replaced by Joanne Daniels.
Joanne Daniels, the woman whose familiar voice for the last 25 years read the exact time every ten seconds and then urged us to “please make a note of it,” said the initial recording sessions were quite lengthy.
“I had to record every single possibility with different inflections,” she said.
Daniels’ voice also delivered the temperature in some states, and even a wake up service offered in Manhattan. Before retiring, she also worked as an actress and voice-over artist.
To listen to an interview with Joanne Click Here
Good-bye my robot friend.
I will miss that ageless voice.
7 comments:
Even worse, was that they talked about replacing the clock above the toll plaza of the Golden Gate Bridge. If that happened, I would have packed up for Fargo in a flash. You had to really be speedy to make a note of that time announcement, didn't you?
Honestly in So cal she does not say that. I'm pretty sure we are working off the old audiocron drum system and listening to Jane's voice.
What the hell would they replace the clock with? A jumbotron of commercials to help pay for jump barrier?
Fortunately there was an outcry, and we kept the old one. It's one of my favorite landmarks in the city.
If you go to my post about this you can hear exactly what our time lady says.
Wow! Me too! To whom will I assign the phoney phone call that threatens my child with potential punishment from various sources? Huh? That means I would call the time and pretend it was some authority...like the teacher, dad, etc...if Sam didn't comply immediately. Start dialing...366*4242 ...brrrring.... Instant compliance.
A lot of people are going to be late for work. Also disoriented for human beings rely on technology to know what time it is, while birds always know (though they don't have to meet blind dates at coffee shops).
The clock tower- oh important cultural landmarks are always being destoryed in San Francisco par example the 60 x 40 foot "17 Reasons Why?" sign atop Thrift Town on **17th** street. It was the headquarters for MJB Coffee and there were 17 Reasons to drink the coffee though they never said what they were. Now the sign promotes Miller Genuie Draft. One no longer sees the individual letters held by their steel brace siloutted against the sky.
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