Time in late modernity has conventionally been understood as a "function of speed",and many convincing histories of the emergence of speed as a dominating logic have been produced. Yet time as it is lived seems to defy this unitary logic. For example, Merleau-Ponty's account of present time seems to stand in a somewhat awkward relation to the idea of time as either fast or slow, rapid or languid, accelerating or decelerating.