Wednesday, September 11, 2002

New York, 9/11, and Those Images

Through the magic of computers and MP3 files, I’m recording this not at the Elkhart studios of WVPE, but in a studio about a mile away from Ground Zero in New York City. As I’m sure you can only too easily imagine, the air is very, very heavy with references to 9/11 here. Of course, today people are talking about it everywhere, so this day at least, Michianers have a great bond with New Yorkers in that people will talk and talk and talk about where they were that day, how they learned of the terrorist attacks, whether they know someone who died, what our government did right or wrong then and should now do, and so on. But of course, these conversations happen on a very visceral level here. Time and again, I’ve overheard snippets of conversations that begin about one thing--what the dinner special at a restaurant is, or what school a person’s child is applying to, or what someone is paying in rent--and then circle back to that hateful day and its effects. To give you but one example: I was in an East Village post office the other day and I asked a mail clerk how long something I was sending would take to arrive and she answered in the most pragmatic tone possible: “oh a day or two....unless it’s a 9/11 day and then all bets are off.” In some way people are simply trying to cope with the immensity of that day by using the good old fashioned talking cure--but it is a talking cure that seems to have been short-circuited.

One reason for this mental short circuit is that people have seen the horrific images of the planes hitting the World Trade Centers--and seen them so many times--that a certain numbness descends. How are we to memorialize events so grotesquely alien to the culture we have known that we are still unable to take them in, when those events have been replayed for us so many times as to be nearly banal? Instead of returning to the scene of the tragedy with fresh sorrow and a transformed perspective, we are in the grip of a perpetual loop, one that spawns ever-increasing fears about what the aftermath of these events will be. President Bush’s message to the American people was to go about our lives and hug our children. But our lives are haunted by a new unreality and a fear of what is to come and the hugs are fraught with a new awareness of the fragility of all things, including the world we promised them.

I realize this might sound a bit sacrilegious, but if I had my way, I’d like to put a moratorium of a year or so on tv stations from showing those terrible images. By all means we should be reading and reflecting about the day with a real fervor, but these moving images may have overwhelmed our ability to process the day in any rational way. In my darker moments, I wonder how much these images have done to narcotize us, the American people. Should we break down and cry? Or go out and turn the Middle East into a parking lot? We seem to be waiting for someone else to decide.

Happily, if one can even use such a word with reference to that day, I see that more and more artists have begun to comment on 9/11 in ways that are not filled with the dopey sound bites and political swagger favored by our politicians and pundits. We really need their perspective. I guess this is a plug for you to listen to Bruce Springsteen’s new album. The song “Empty Sky” can really pierce the numbness. And if the Borders and Barnes and Noble on Grape Road are anything like their compatriots here in New York, there are more books about that day than one could read in a lifetime. Please go out and get and read a couple of them. A final plea: come to this great, intense city. Just walking around here is the best experience one could ask for. It will make you high and it will, in a small way, show that Osama and his vision will not triumph. And only when you’ve done that, come to Ground Zero--it will suddenly become as real as reality itself.

Broadcast by Jonathan Nashel on September 11, 2002
9/11 • Peace & War • Permalink • Printer Friendly
Google
WWW Michiana Chronicles

A random selection from more than 300 Michiana Chronicles -- refresh the browser to see another set:

Joe Chaney -- More essays by Joe

Louise Collins -- More essays by Louise

April Lidinsky -- More essays by April

Jonathan Nashel -- New York, 9/11, and Those Images / More essays by Jonathan

Jeff Nixa -- More essays by Jeff

Ken Smith -- More essays by Ken

Jeanette Saddler Taylor -- More essays by Jeanette