Rives on 4 a.m.

By Kayla H.

Four in the morning... some people consider 3 a.m. to be the latest someone could stay up to, while to others 5 a.m. in the morning being the earliest someone would have to get up at during the day. So 4 a.m. being stuck in the middle; what really happens at that time? "Did you ever notice that four in the morning has become some sort of meme or shorthand? It means something like you are awake at the worst possible hour. A time for inconveniences, mishaps, yearnings..." that line really says it all, as to what Rives has noticed about the time four in the morning.

"I've crossed a lot of different media from a lot of big names. And it made me suspicious. I figured, surely some of the most creative artistic minds in the world, really, aren't all defaulting back to this one easy trope like they invented it, right? Could it be there is something more going on here? Something deliberate, something secret, and who got the four in the morning bad rap ball rolling anyway?" Rives states. But really, after he says this, it does make you wonder even more than before. How did the mentioning of 4 a.m. really begin? Rives says Alberto Giacometti, an artist known to have sculpted the famous piece, "The Palace at Four in the Morning" in 1932, which is found at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Although, this is not the earliest piece of evidence that he has found involving four in the morning, but he explains that this piece of evidence, to his knowledge, is believed to be the key to other artists' relations to four in the morning, and he has called it the "The Giacometti Code, a TED exclusive".

It works a little something like this: "This is a recent Google search for four in the morning. Results vary, of course. This is pretty typical. The top 10 results yield you four hits for Faron Young's song, "It's Four in the Morning," three hits for Judi Dench's film, "Four in the Morning," one hit for Wislawa Szymborska's poem, "Four in the Morning."" So what is the relation between a Polish poet, a British Dame, a country music hall of famer besides this totally excellent Google ranking? "Well, let's start with Faron Young -- who was born, incidentally, in 1932. In 1996, he shot himself in the head on December ninth -- which incidentally is Judi Dench's birthday. But he didn't die on Dench's birthday. He languished until the following afternoon when he finally succumbed to a supposedly self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 64 -- which, incidentally, is how old Alberto Giacometti was when he died. Where was Wislawa Szymborska during all this? She has the world's most absolutely watertight alibi. On that very day, December 10, 1996 while Mr. Four in the Morning, Faron Young, was giving up the ghost in Nashville, Tennessee, Ms. Four in the Morning -- or one of them anyway -- Wislawa Szymborska was in Stockholm, Sweden, accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature. 100 years to the day after the death of Alfred Nobel himself. Coincidence? No, it's creepy. Coincidence to me has a much simpler magic. That's like me telling you, 'Hey, you know the Nobel Prize was established in 1901, which coincidentally is the same year Alberto Giacometti was born?'" This connection that Rives has made can not be taken as a coincidence. At first maybe, but when he shows solid evidence of how these 3 people are connected in relation to four in the morning, it's hard to disagree.

Throughout the rest of his presentation, Rives continues to give evidence towards four in the morning. One of his examples being a clip from the Simpson's. The clip showed the Simpson's family at a resort, and Homer asks the guy who is showing them around "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait -- let me see if I got this straight. It is Christmas Day, 4 a.m. There's a rumble in my stomach." Rives stops the clip and says to the audience that "When Homer Simpson needs to imagine the most remote possible moment of not just the clock, but the whole freaking calendar, he comes up with 0400 on the birthday of the Baby Jesus. And no, I don't know how it works into the whole puzzling scheme of things, but obviously, I know a coded message when I see one." This clip shows even more evidence towards four in the morning.

Overall, Rives demonstrates a strong ability to present in front of an audience. He sounds confident in what he is talking about, especially when it came towards "The Giacometti Code". He shows numerous pieces of evidence, making the audience wonder more and more about four in the morning. "The Giacometti Code" for example, is not something that you could just stumble across and find a connection between with all 3 persons, all linking back to four in the morning. It would require a lot of research, and when he presented this code, I found that the evidence was hard not to believe. With evidence such as this being presented, Rives makes the audience give off a mix of emotions, myself included. Mostly in curiosity, but laughter as well, because you've got to admit, "The Giacometti Code" does sound a little strange, but Rives does make the audience understand after he presents. In summary, I found that this talk had solid evidence, and it made me wonder more about four in the morning as well. I can also agree that even before this talk, I thought four in the morning really did seem like an odd time to be up at. And now that I've watched this talk, with the evidence behind it, I can agree even more.