Daylight saving time

Daylight saving time is recorded in Andy Warhol’s diary through a small but precise correction: on Sunday, October 29, 1978, he wrote that he had woken at 10:30, then clarified that it was really 9:30. The moment gives the clock a visible place in a diary otherwise devoted to people, appointments, expenses, and the movements of daily life.

The October 1978 Entry

The note appears at the start of the October 29 entry, before Warhol recounts plans for a Sunday lunch. Its compact form matters: rather than explain the time change, he places it beside the morning’s waking time, treating the difference between the displayed hour and the corrected one as immediate practical information.

The passage establishes only this particular adjustment and its effect on Warhol’s account of the morning. It does not elaborate on the broader rules or experience of daylight saving time; its evidence is the one-hour discrepancy he records on that date.

Time in the Diary’s Routine

The correction sits within a diaristic practice attentive to time and daily sequence. Pat Hackett describes weekday morning telephone conversations in which Warhol recounted what he had done the previous day and night, along with the cash expenses involved. She usually called around 9 a.m., and the conversations could last one or two hours, even though Warhol called them a five-minutes-a-day job.

The diary’s schedule also had a weekly structure: it was recorded Monday through Friday, while Monday’s call covered Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Against that recurring routine, the October 29 note is a small instance of clock time being corrected within the account of a particular morning, not a separate discussion of timekeeping.

From Conversation to Page

The daily entries were made from spoken recollection and notes. Hackett took extensive notes on a legal pad during the calls and typed them soon after hanging up, while Warhol’s intonations were still fresh in her mind. Receipts for cabs and restaurants were attached to the typed pages, linking the narrative to specific reported expenses.

When either of them was away, the method varied: Warhol might call, read notes written on hotel stationery, or provide a cassette; Hackett might also call him from her travels. The stated aim was to leave no day without a diary record. The October time correction therefore survives in a form shaped by a larger process of speaking, noting, typing, and preserving daily accounts.

A Small Editorially Preserved Detail

The published diary was not a complete transcription of its original 20,000 pages. Hackett selected material, sometimes omitting whole days or weeks and often cutting parts of days, to create a single volume with narrative flow. The surviving daylight-saving-time note is consequently a brief detail within a selected account, rather than evidence of an extended meditation on the subject.

Its significance is modest but distinct: the diary records not only what Warhol did, but also how he located an ordinary morning in time. In this entry, the one-hour correction makes the clock adjustment legible without interrupting the day’s unfolding narrative.