15th anniversary of 9/11

Fifteen years ago, I was attending my second year at the University of Maine.  The old Student Union was still being used (it took forever to get the new one built).  I wound up there, later, watching along with scores of other students the unfolding events, but first there was breakfast.

I remember this so well: One of the dining hall workers came out and told us a plane had struck the World Trade Center.  I had no idea that this was going to become one of the defining moments of my life.  I figured, there had been an accident, and that was it.  They switched the radio to news.  They always played music.  I remember listening, on another morning, a stupid DJ explaining Uncle Cracker's hit song, and later realizing, after I'd seen the video, that they were just explaining what the video was.  That morning, though, the radio was tuned to something important.

Still, I reported to English class (Jennifer Moxley was always worth attending), but by the time French class came up, next, all I needed to know was that something definitely was happening, and I decided to skip the class (I never did figure out how to care about French class again), and head over to the Student Union, and there it was, the towers collapsing, New York City in chaos.

I went to my dorm room and wrote my parents an email.  Later, I realized how insensitive this was, because my mother had desperately wanted to hear from all her kids.  None of us knew what the scope of it was.  Later we'd know about the Pentagon and United 93.  The terrorists had actually flown through Maine.  My three oldest siblings were all out of state, and so was my youngest.  I was the only one still in Maine.  None of us were flying that day.  Still, anything could have become a target.

I started identifying myself as a poet, in the days and years after 9/11.  For a while, every year on the anniversary, I would write a new piece to commemorate it.  I took a poetry class in one of my final semesters, and already the gulf between what Americans think about 9/11 and the rest of the world, and I'm not talking about wars here, but the basic perception of the tragedy itself, was becoming evident.  There was a visiting poet from Chile who dared talk about the Pinochet years, and the other students in the class ridiculed the thought that her tragedy could even compare to ours.  I was outraged.  This is the sort of thing we don't talk about, and it's terrifying.  In a lot of ways, 9/11 made the United States horribly egocentric.  None of us wanted to get defensive, but that's what everyone did.  Since it was so self-contained, in some respects, 9/11 was easy to sweep under the rug.  We went back to work, and promptly started isolating ourselves as never before, or at least, not since the days of westward expansion.

We entered the age of social media.  This is ironic, coming from a blogger who started in 2002.  In those innocent days, I never cared whether someone else would read what I wrote.  Now the blogging community is obsessed with getting as many people to like it as possible.  It sells books, right?  But we're so busy promoting ourselves, our friends, we forget any kind of perspective.  Perspective is what died on 9/11.  In the days immediately following it, we were one big country, but then we splintered, and we've never looked back.  I just don't get it.

This is not about patriotism, but about perspective.  I'd heard about the Taliban, smashing Buddhist statues, before 9/11, and as someone who still mourns the long-ago destruction of the Library of Alexandria, it's because culture is very important to me.  I don't get these terrorists, as they've continued to exist over the years.  I think they're reactionaries.  I think they're scared that the world's passed them by, and hate the fact that anyone else can define culture.  I thought we might've gotten past that sort of thinking.  Wasn't that called the Middle Ages?  You know, the Dark Ages?  But I guess not.  But really, we're not much better.  Everyone has an agenda now.  We took what the '60s tried really hard to accomplish, and we've blown it up to ridiculous proportions.  Everyone's shouting for equal attention, and no one's paying attention anymore.  We chat about inane things, we argue politics, but we have no perspective. 

Sitting in that dining hall, fifteen years ago, I had no perspective.  I had no idea what was going on.  Then, like everyone else, I had no choice.  Then people started to choose otherwise.  I really wish we could get back to a place where we care about things again, and quit hiding.  Because you know what hiding does?  It makes you crazy enough to think up something like 9/11. 

9/11/14

thirteen years:

perhaps an 

       unlucky number;

but these are

       unlucky times,

although saying so now

makes me wonder

if there are

       lucky times

#744. Overheard May 2014

Count me among those who won't be going.  I'd been living in New York a month when the attacks happened and saw the whole thing from my company's Learning Center, located on the Queens side of the East River, right across from the UN.  My "Prints, Plates, and Diagrams" class was on a break, so along with the rest of my class, I was down on the Center's back deck drinking coffee, enjoying what would otherwise have been one of the nicest days I'd ever spent in New York.  

I don't mind saying that the memory still haunts me.  I have absolutely no desire to relive it.
By the time the weekend rolled around, Hoboken was plastered with "Have You Seen This Person?" fliers.  They were on ever vertical surface in the Mile Square.  One poor guy lost his beautiful blonde wife or girlfriend.  I don't know the story.  But he kept putting those posters up for months and months and months.  I bet I saw her particular "Have You Seen This Person?" flier for a solid eight months after the attacks.  I still feel bad for that guy.
Anyway, that was a long time ago.  

I worked the phones for the telethon they held right after the attacks, and for awhile I jumped every time I saw a bunch of police cars rushing down the street to get anywhere.  But New York is eight million people and probably a million buildings, and for the most part, the City barely skipped a beat.  The Stock Exchange was out of lights for maybe four days, and I remember distinctly that when the mayor asked folks to go out and shop on Black Friday that year to help the City's economy, my mom came up, and we literally shopped 'til we dropped.  That was a pretty good day. 

Eh.  It's fine that they have a museum, but I think it's mostly for the tourists.  Anyone who was there won't need to see it to remember what it was like.

That's Dan Head over at Dan & Sally's Digital Domain reacting to the opening of the 9/11 Museum.  I've known Dan since 2006.  We both wrote about comics at the defunct Paperback Reader, and also overlapped at Digital Webbing (which is probably where we originally overlapped, in the message boards), so it was nice to reconnect with him in the blogging sphere.  9/11 is a subject that remains relevant to me.  Every time there's a piece of news concerning it (last week I read in the paper about the current status of unidentified remains) I still want to clip it and save it (which is what I did for years).  But I'm not a New Yorker (although, in some respects we're all New Yorkers since then), certainly not back in 2001.  That morning I was in a college dining hall.  Dan's memories are so much more...real.  I was fascinated to read his perspective years after the fact.  They're almost mundane.  I never really imagined it like that, what it was like to live there days, weeks, months after the fact.  The rest of us really only heard about the rescue efforts, the cleanup.  But those who lived with it...Anyway, just thought I'd send you some perspective.

Speaking of which:

I finally took a breath and dove into The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt's doorstopper of a novel. It just won the Pulitzer Prize (like, a few days ago) and was also shortlisted for 2013's National Book Critics Circle Award, so go Donna! As with Chang-Rae Lee's novel, this was a coming-of-age story and chock full of adventure. Our hero, young Theo, goes through a delightfully Dickensian childhood full of misery and joy, hijinks and heartbreak ... just one damn thing after another. I adored the thrill ride, implausible as some of it was, but the ending was terrible. OK, so you know dramatic structure has five parts — exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement? It was all good until the denouement. When you get to that part, do yourself a favor and just stop reading. Because 90% of the book was excellent, I still recommend it. The ending doesn't kill the book, it's just boring.

...

I'm reading Goldfinch right now. I think the book lost the bulk of its momentum after Theo went to live with the Barbours. Tartt's best writing was easily her breathless opening sequence. So far she hasn't come close to recapturing it. And I don't much care for Boris, and I've gone ahead and saw that he comes back again. "Implausible" is a good way to describe the unnecessary sequence of histrionic events. Like a literary soap opera. 

...

I loved Boris! I really enjoyed the Barbours, too; and the bombing scene became almost unlistenable to me (possibly because it triggered some PTSD for me, but also because it was. so. incredibly. long.). We seem to have had opposite reactions to this book! :) But I agree that it is indeed a literary soap opera. 

That's from Stephanie over at Words Incorporated.  It's actually from the end of last month, one of several books she discussed for the Cephalopod Coffeehouse (yes, officially I'm no longer participating in that), then a response I made in the comments, and then her reply.  I finished reading it right around the end of that month, too.  Actually, "finished" isn't quite the word for it.  More like, "abandoned."  Because ultimately, I just never got back into it, once I realized I was no longer enjoying it.  The funny thing is, Goldfinch from Donna Tartt isn't really as random a topic to bring up along with 9/11 as you might think.  At the start of the book the main character finds himself in the midst of a terrorist attack in New York.  One of many things I would've changed about the book is that I would have just gone ahead and made it a 9/11 story.  It was all but one at that point anyway; I just didn't see the point in shying away, which is what I think Tartt did.  Instead it's just a random attack specifically on a museum, that's never really explained, just one of many inexplicable elements that the author uses to create unearned dramatic tumult.  Stephanie loved it, though, and as you can tell even a character who rubbed me the wrong way almost directly from his introduction, the wacky foreigner Boris.  But the thing is, she and I differ again, concerning the ending, and Boris is part of the reason I think Tartt managed to pull a late book redemption, because Boris actually finds some useful redemption as the story finally takes some shape after a lot of meandering through Theo Decker's life (which, as I said in my comment, was at its strongest in the opening sequence when Tartt's writing was at its sharpest and most focused).  But the contrasts between Stephanie's thoughts and mine, just serve to remind me that everyone's perspective is different.

Which is also what Dan's post made me realize.  But then, we all know that already, don't we?  I think we tend to forget that.  So this is a new feature where I will try and explore that, highlighting not just interesting things I've read, but thoughts that have made me think.  Because that's about as relevant as communal blogging is for me.

#601. Road Tripping

(Before we begin, I should acknowledge that the road trip couldn't have happened without a very long prelude.  Things happened, items were consolidated, other journeys came to an end, and I ate some cake that was technically meant for someone else's going away party but pretended it was meant for me.)

Then we came to the beginning.

Day 1 (8/30/13, a Friday)

This was the day I left Colorado Springs behind.  I originally arrived there on 10/31/07, arriving on Jet Boo, I mean Jet Blue (Boo is the name of the Best Cat in the World, but the airline had jokingly renamed itself for Halloween that year, or perhaps every year?).  This time it was a departure in a car, my sister's Etta, I mean Jetta (the "j" fell off at some point), following her husband's convoy of truck-pulling-5th-wheel-pulling-small-trailer.

It did not take long, surprisingly, to leave the Rocky Mountains behind.  I used to call them the Ladies (a twist on one of the early Dave Barry touches in the Starcatchers books).  Some days I thought I appreciated them enough, others I took them for granted.  They were a fantastic backdrop.

We reached Kansas soon enough (we left somewhere around 10:30, and were there by the afternoon).  For years I heard incredulous tales of Flat Kansas.  I wrote a whole poem about Flat Kansas in the early days of this blog because of this.  But the truth is, it's not so flat.  More like Wavy Kansas.  But it's really not much more boring than anything else we saw on the trip.  It may be that we managed to see all the most generic gigantic open...tracks of land in America (but I don't want that!).  I don't know.

We saw plenty of oil derricks (but very few Oil Derek Lowes, much less Oil Can Boyds) on this stretch.  Saw a few dust devils, the last of them the most spectacular.  I saw buffalo.  And cows!  Lots of cows!  (And signs repeatedly advertising the freakish five-legged steer of someone's dubious livestock collection!)

(By the way, Dubious Livestock would make a great name for a rock band.)

And corn.  And windmills!  I explained to my sister the nerdy significance windmills have for me.  To her, they're boring, especially as they become more ubiquitous in this particular region.  They occupy whole windmill fields.  They're like a mechanical plague!  Beware the windmill apocalypse!

She also said how impressive they are when you see them in pieces.  Not because my sister revels in blowing them up.  It's because you don't appreciate how big they are until you see their component parts up-close.  And it's true.  One blade looks like a whale's fin.  Ahoy!  Avast!  There be blubber in Kansas!

Day 2 (8/31/13, a Saturday)

We arrived at our first destination, the home of my sister's in-laws, her husband's folks.  This was in Stoutland, in Camden County (Earl was nowhere to be found, alas), just outside Lebanon, Kansas.

Before this, however, we drove through one of the few signs of active civilization on the drive, Lawrence, KS, home of Kansas University.  We were too early for a lot of college babes, alas.

We started counting FedEx double trailers (the highest count came Day 7, I believe, some 90 of them).  You can go crazy on a road trip.

We passed the Lake of the Ozarks.

And we arrived in Stoutland.  Here I was introduced to the goats George and Ginger, and for expediency's sake (and not much exaggeration) we'll say that this was my primary amusement for Days 3 and 4, which were all spent there.

Goats are awesome!

Day 5 (9/3/13, a Tuesday)

We passed the Mark Twain National Forest.  I had no idea he was so closely associated with dry land.  (And dry enough that at least in my late home territory of Colorado Springs the summer was once again festooned with news of raging fires in just such a setting, but with far fewer iconic writers associated with it, apart from myself.)

We also passed the Mississippi River, which for some reason is not known as the Mark Twain River.

We reached Tennessee!  We saw lots of corn!

We passed signs denoting many historical attractions (either in TN or elsewhere, including landmarks for dead presidents like Eisenhower and Truman, because apparently the years following WWII were a good time to have been born in this part of the country and having the hope to attain the highest seat of office).  Anyway, there was also Shiloh, famous for the site of a famous battle in the Civil War.  There was the Tennessee River.  And Nashville.  (Now with more glow-in-the-dark pyramid action!)

Day 6 (9/4/13, a Wednesday)

We reached another Lebanon.  But still not the actual Lebanon.  (Although it's always funny to see places named after more famous destinations that are clearly not in that geographic location.  Think Pluto [Not a Planet Anymore], but located somewhere that has banjo music.)

Anyway, we reached Virginia, our target state!  The Appalachian Mountains!  Tobacco fields!  Apparently, the Misty Mountain (nowhere near Middle Earth).  We visited a Wilco (not the band), which featured Stuckey's (but not Stuckeybowl, much less featuring a practicing lawyer named Ed [but not the talking horse]).  (The day before we stopped at a Casey's and enjoyed a much-ballyhooed fried steak sandwich, which was good, especially with my trademark toppings of banana peppers and honey mustard dressing.)

Day 7 (9/5/13, a Thursday)

We passed through Crozet, Virginia, one of several area locations famous in the Rita Mae Brown cat mystery books.  This pleased my sister's mother-in-law to no end.

Everyone obsessed over the view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And we arrived in Williamsburg, our initial destination in VA.  Williamsburg is part of the Historic Triangle tourist trap in the area, which also boasts Jamestown and Yorktown (and now Bootown).  You should know plenty about Jamestown (John Smith, Pocahontas, Colin Farrell).  Yorktown is the site of the end of the American Revolution (besides the tailgate in Hamilton's backyard).  Williamsburg is...really old.

Day 8 (9/6/13, a Friday)

We reached our temporary permanent destination in the Anvil campground.  I would have made more references to Jim Neidhart, Bret Hart's tag team partner in the Hart Foundation, but sometimes a joke only you get isn't really worth it.  But I kept thinking it the whole time we were there anyway.

Day 9 (9/7/13, a Saturday)

I took my first independent excursion of the trip, to a used bookstore, where I found Peter Ackroyd's The Fall of Troy and a Jerome Charyn mystery featuring Isaac Sidel (the latter of which is nearly impossible to do in an actual bookstore).  I was sorely tempted to buy both of them, but I'm just coming off a period where I eliminated a considerable percentage of my things, including many books.  It's hard to jump into buying more.  But I really wanted to.  Ackroyd is a favorite.  He's the measuring stick I hold to judge every bookstore.  If he's in it, it's a good bookstore.  Charyn, he's another favorite, and he's even more scarce.  And as I've suggested, the Isaac Sidel books are especially scarce.  And I have yet to read any of them.  I really should have gotten them both.  (And readers of this blog with some memory know how I also obsess over Troy.  Seems like the whole of 2011 was devoted to it.)

Day 10 (9/8/13, a Sunday)

My birthday.  We hit spots in Jamestown and Yorktown, but avoided being too touristy.

Day 11 (9/9/13, a Monday)

Reached actual final destination at Langley FamCamp.  (The whole point of the road trip was to relocate my sister from the Air Force Academy to Langley AFB; I piggybacked for a relocation of my own.)  I took my second independent excursion of the trip, running across a graveyard and memorial to the Battle of Big Bethel, which was apparently the first fight of the Civil War.  And I dangled my feet at the end of a small dock.

Day 12 (9/10/13, a Tuesday)

This was the end for me.  Two fairly brief plane rides finally landed me in Maine, which is where I am and will be for the foreseeable future.  Yay!

And yesterday was 9/11.  For the first half dozen years or so after it, I wrote a poem in commemoration.  After I lost some of them to a computer crash, I guess I kind of fell out of the habit, or at least the original fervor.  But here goes, for the day after:

When the World Came Tumbling In

we will never forget
a day like none other,
when the world came tumbling in

mad scrambling
and recriminations,
when the world came tumbling in

the heroes and the villains
and the flags waving,
when the world came tumbling in

it's hard to remember
except in images,
when the world came tumbling in

what do we say
except that it happened,
when the world came tumbling in?