date stamp: gmt 1 p.m., march 13, 2009

Friday the 13th.

The 24h World Project chose this date for our second date stamp installment as a sort of social experiment: What was happening, the world over, on a day when superstitions supposedly run their highest, when sidewalk cracks and ladders are dutifully avoided, umbrellas opened out of doors, and black cats shunned?

In short, everything and nothing.

As you'll read from the following observations and see in some breathtaking imagery, life around the world went on as usual.

Children were reprimanded in China as trash was left on the streets of Manhattan.

In Manchester, traffic chugged and circulated and belted exhaust, while in Singapore, Irish expats chugged pints of Guiness at an early St. Patrick's Day celebration.

Stacks of water bottles waited to be distributed to thirsty servicemen in the parched, arid Middle East, as rain sprinkled an industrial complex in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Spring blushed in Louisville, Kentucky, while east and west of there, one blogger left the dark confines of a film festival theatre to mark the moment in Scotland, and this writer awoke in the dark in California to do the same.

And criss-crossing the world once again, in a city of over 700,000 citizens, an 800-year-old monument to a beloved wife was noted for its beauty by an appreciative Londoner even as the sun prepared its descent in the evening sky in a lonely place on Earth called Antarctica.

Just another ordinary day in an extraordinary world. Following are some of the images and observations from artists who stopped the clock at 1 p.m. GMT on March 13, 2009 to notice and take notes.

A webcam image of Abbey Road in London kicks things off:

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London, England
United Kingdom
GMT
(1 p.m. local time)

I was only going to make a few, but then I kept seeing reports on the work Comic Relief is doing in Africa, and... well let's just say my cupboard got emptied out!

— Pearl Howie
Screenwriter, Filmmaker

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London, England
United Kingdom
GMT
(1 p.m. local time)

Well, not wanting to tempt fate on this traditionally inauspicious date, I decided not to stray too far from my front door.

This is an Eleanor Cross, one of a series of monuments built by King Edward I in memory of his first wife, Eleanor of Castile who died in 1290.

Seven hundred years' worth of wind and rain played havoc with poor Eleanor's carved features, so the current trio of statues are fibreglass replicas from the 1970s. For a time, the originals were housed in the public library. I only wish I'd been old enough to handle a camera back then. Having a medieval queen, of Amazonian proportions, in triplicate, standing guard over the reference section was quite a sight.

— Kathryn Radmall

Screenwriter





I love this image, and couldn't resist isolating some of the details. You could lose yourself in London over little things such as these.

— P.S.

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Manchester, England
United Kingdom
GMT
(1 p.m. local time)

— Peter Spencer
Screenwriter

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Edinburgh, Scotland
United Kingdom
GMT +1
(2 p.m. local time)

I nipped out of a dark screening of experimental short films to take this, and was instantly dazzled by the light and colour of the real world. After taking the photo I had a choice to make: go back to into the blackness or stay in the sunlight. Sunlight - and a strong coffee - won!

— Laura Anderson
Freelance Writer and Filmmaker

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Toronto, Ontario
Canada
GMT -5
(8 a.m. local time)

Like a science experiment gone awry, an ice crystal seems to be growing out of the Royal Ontario Museum. A beautiful, yet constant reminder that winter is either here, or on its way. Not to worry though, this crystal won't melt on this -10 celsius morning.

— Svet Rouskov
Screenwriter

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New York, New York
United States
GMT - 5
(8 a.m. local time)

I got up, went out and took a couple of pictures in my neighborhood and was set to write about how diverse my neighborhood is and how wonderfully different this is from where I grew up. But on my way back to my apartment, at roughly 8:15, I walked past this pile of trash. Now, I have walked past many piles of trash in New York and seen a wide variety of things being thrown away, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen a pair of crutches being thrown, and I had to take a picture. Not just because it was the first time I'd seen a pair of crutches lying on a trash pile, but because I thought that this is a wonderful illustration of the type of minutiae that can inspire an idea and blossom into a story. So much of what writers do comes from this - a snatch of conversation, an image, a name, a place. Those crutches struck me as being the end of the story. Or perhaps the beginning.

— Mrinalini Kamath
Playwright, Filmmaker

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Raleigh, North Carolina
United States
GMT - 5
(8 a.m. local time)

No one works in their cubbies any more — they all seem to be away at meetings — day long meetings. Seems people have meetings just to plan other meetings — it’s a way of life, a new culture.

It’s rainy and cold outside and I wish I was home curled up with a book – on the sofa – anxiously waiting for the heaviness of sleep take over my eyes. Unfortunately — or fortunately based on today’s economy — I’m stuck at work.

And even though it is Friday the 13th, it is Friday, and that means the weekend is here and I will be able to write. I work for the weekends – I work to write.

— Michael Scherer
Screenwriter

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Louisville, Kentucky
United States
GMT - 5
(8 a.m. local time)

One sign that all will be well is spring! The season that surprises us a bit, jolts us out of our cold gloom. If the trees can smile, so can I. Hope may recede for a season, but it comes around!

— Jeanne Hammond
Screenwriter

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Westlake Village, California
United States
GMT - 8
(5 a.m. local time)

Another date stamp in the pitch of night. Even with the clocks moving forward this week, you're still in darkness.

The nightstand is an easy subject (at least this time you're not trudging around in the frosty front yard for a photo).

It's the last thing you see when you close your eyes, and the first thing you encounter the next morning. On nights when ideas override the shut-off valve, and your mind is racing, it's also where your gaze falls most frequently until sleep slips in again. What better place, then, to leave a reminder of something you have been working for for most of your adult life, to see it realized in a tangible way, until it actually does become real?

A jacket cover for Music from a Scorched Earth, your first work of long-form fiction, sits on the nightstand, waiting to see the light of day.

— Pamela Schott
Author, Screenwriter

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Shanghai
China
GMT + 8
(9 p.m. local time)

GROWING PAIN: Our son really tested his limits this week — to the point of being irresponsible. Pushing boundaries is how we grow as people. Certainly, our family's move to Shanghai from Louisville, Kentucky, nearly eight months ago, has taken us out of our comfort zone. I just wonder if the transition has hastened our eldest child's impulse to see exactly how much he can get away with. Or, is this not such unusual behavior for a ten-year-old boy in fifth grade? It wasn't typical of our son — until the last couple of weeks anyway. We've already taken privileges away, seemingly to no avail. Now, at bedtime on a Friday night, Dad tells him that he's losing something that's not easily won back — our trust.

— Ginley Regencia

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Royal Ville
Singapore
GMT + 8
(9 p.m. local time)

Here I am sitting in a posh ballroom, celebrating St. Pat's with my Irish husband and the Singapore chapter of the St. Patrick's Society. Everyone's all dressed to the nines, we've dined on amazing 5-star gourmet cuisine, the Irish dancers have brilliantly strutted their stuff and a good few have put in their bids in the silent auction for assorted art pieces, memorabilia and Persian carpets. So... recession? What recession? Well, I suppose we can all forget that for now thanks to St. Pat. Ah Guinness! How did I come to love thee? Oh never mind! Slainte!

— Sonia Marzuki

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Tikrit
Iraq
GMT + 3
(4 p.m. local time)

I find great irony with this — water collecting dust. Partially because I’m in Iraq, and partially because there’s a drought on.

— Art La Flamme
Blogger/Army Serviceman

Elsewhere in the world:

Panama Canal, Panama
United States
GMT - 8
(5 a.m. local time)

Australian Station,
Antarctica
GMT + 4
(5 p.m. local time)

Venice Grand Canal
Italy
GMT +1
(2 p.m. local time)

Paris
France
GMT + 1
(2 p.m. local time)