Up close, the Chronophage is even more frightening than before. Last night, I found myself before him once again, this time with a friend around whom I'm more comfortable taking my time for a better shot, and we waited the ten minutes before he reached 9:00--simply so that we could see him claim the remnants of the 8 o'clock hour. The longer we stood there, the more it seemed to me that this gift was a dubious one to have given to a college populated mostly by undergraduates; while it is indeed true that time is always being eaten out from under us, I wonder what the effect would be of seeing such a representation of that fact day in and day out. It strikes me as one of those rare objects--in one place's everyday life, anyway--that combines ingenuity and genuine, painstaken artistry and something like uncompromising ferocity, one that doesn't resolve easily (if at all) into beauty, much less comfort. Staring at the Chronophage, I realize that I'm staring at an image of sheer relentlessness, and the more of its details I notice, the more in its thrall I find myself. Were I to stare at his gold-veined eyes or his icepick teeth for too long, I might come to carry them before me everywhere.