woke up in the suburbs this morning surrounded by the sounds of birds, squirrels scratching, and sputtering sprinklers. a gorgeous morning and yet the date, now america’s dark anti-holiday, cast a long shadow. looking around the neighborhood i thought, “it must have been exactly like this 4 years ago as the towers were coming down.” birds and squirrels and sprinklers. so much has been said about september 11th already, so much of it disingenuous, self serving, and revolting that i’d rather not say anything more. i would, however, in recognition of the date like to share a few of the photos i took that day. if you’d rather not have the familiar images drilled yet again into your skull, just pass this post by.

my first real visit to nyc was in june 2001, almost the last ‘normal’ moment in the city. my daughter and i went to a discover magazine inventors’ awards show across the street from madison sq garden (the mag offered free tix to readers on a first-come-first-served basis, and i buttonholed marvin minsky at the event with an idea i had for a suit of artificial muscles, and another one about using nanotech robots to control invasive species). fell in love with the city, yo.
i was at work (the post office) on 9/11 and the first radio reports were incoherent. so a plane hit the tower? i knew that had happened before in nyc, a b-25 hit the empire state building in fog in 1945. but the moment i heard about the second plane, i burned with anger. i knew exactly what had been done, and how it had been done. if only the passengers knew, it wouldn’t have succeeded. oh, and rumsfeld had, in june, changed the standing orders on intercepting off-course aircraft; before, it was automatic (intercepting is not the same as shooting down! when payne stewart’s learjet lost cabin pressure and flew halfway across the country full of dead people, it was intercepted by fighter jets and followed after only about twenty minutes.)
I was there a few weeks after 9/11, and near city hall you could still smell the smoke.

dude i totally hit macy’s 9/11 day white sale that shit was off tha hook dawg, i got these terrycloth turkish towels for like %35 off im gonna go shopping for a car next year!

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.