From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 09/23/01-05:15:48 PM Z
On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Dave Rose wrote:
> This is an excellent idea. It is very appropriate, and your timing could
> not be better. I would love to participate. I have a beautiful photo of
> the World Trade Center, taken from Liberty State Park in Jersey City. This
> image is very special to me, and it would be suitable for inclusion in a
> travelling portfolio. In this time of terrible sorrow, grief, and anger,
> this kind of project is exactly what we need, as we move towards healing and
> understanding.
>
> If your idea is "offensive" to anyone on this list, shame on them! It's too
> bad that you'd be hesitant or have doubts in presenting this proposal, but I
> can guess why. After all, one list member could not even wait for the ashes
> to settle on 6,000+ dead/dying New Yorkers before launching an insensitive
> attack upon President Bush, the police, the World Trade Center towers,
> SUV's, oil companies, USA foreign policy, etc...... I strongly believe
> that this 'kick America while she's down' mentality is limited to a very,
> very small number of individuals. ...
> "God Bless America" is a great title. I have a few suggestions as well:
> "Unbroken Spirit", "United We Stand", "Glory of America", "A Cherished
> Nation".
Truthfully, Dave,I thought by now the "list minders" would have chided you
for personal attack. Since this hasn't happened , I feel called upon to
correct some misapprehensions -- and to suggest where your patriotism
might be better directed.
For one thing, you should e-mail the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com
and give them your schedule for when it's OK to mention which ideas and
information: their pages have been full of your *verboten* since Day Two.
For another, there's our local weekly, vilpaper@aol.com, which has
discussed the same issues -- amid the obits for our neighbors, and details
of the devastation to our fire companies. You might also want to curtail
your contributions to National Public Radio, which has beamed even MORE
disquieting facts and discussions to the nation since day 2 or 3, as would
surely give one with a sense of the fitness of things as acute as your own
apoplexy. They even quoted E.B. White saying the Twin Towers looked like
"cigar boxes upended" (so you might want to rip his books off your shelf).
As a lifelong reader of the Times, however, I declare this their finest
hour-- still a two kleenex affair (the Sunday issue bigger, more like 3
kleenex): a fine balance of feeling & news, sentiment and ugly fact. For
the latter, I recommend today's (Sunday's) article in section 4 by John
Kifner: "Forget the Past: It's a War Unlike Any Other." I think you,
Dave, need this more than any other: if you can't access it I'll copy &
send. (While reading it at the kitchen table, however, I had to shut the
window -- the stench of smoke, burning whatever, and ash suddenly
overpowering -- as it can be when the wind changes.)
In fact whoever can get a copy of today's Times really should -- among
other memorable reports, Vivian Gornick on the "story" of those "missing"
messages of which we have walls and walls, and which neighbors return to
again and again, also, in case you have tears left, a double spread of
missing fire fighters, all seemingly young and impossibly beautiful. I
didn't count, maybe it's 100 of the 350 or thereabouts.
Meanwhile, I confess I have relayed your sentiments far and wide, for
instance Friday at my gym, where the sharing of horror stories is typical
of almost every gathering of New Yorkers -- except these folks, from
Tribeca, Soho and the Village are/were closer than most to the scene of
devastation. Out of consideration for the list, I censor their comments,
but share their body English:
A. rolling of eyes or,
B. closing of eyes, shaking head slowly left, right, left right.
However, I fear that I myself have been at fault for not making my point
about the World Trade Center clearly enough, being still (and forever)
shaken and not my usual articulate self. Now is exactly the time to give
witness to origins and safety defects of WTC & their cause, while the
horror is still fresh and the future replacement still up for grabs... And
-- perhaps not according to your schedule either -- the jockeying has
already begun (as reported in paper last week & about which more below).
The 1993 bomb in WTC underground garage killed 6, and in boilerplate of
the papers "injured thousands." Those thousands were "injured" by smoke
inhalation, exiting by the stairs -- most were OK after a few whiffs of
oxygen, a couple of hundred were briefly hospitalized.... The reason for
those "injuries" as the Times explained on day 2 or 3 after that event
(perhaps also with unseemly haste) was that the Port Authority, a law unto
itself, had refused to follow NYC fire regs in the matter of pressurizing
stairways -- so the smoke poured in. PA did in time grudgingly upgrade in
that respect, but the basic design was still fatally flawed.
For instance, a woman interviewed on radio this past Friday told that when
the first plane hit, at her floor but other side of the building, the
doors to her office were locked from the outside. Someone came along & let
them out -- into the pitch black crumbling hall, with NO EMERGENCY LIGHT.
They held hands and, guided only by light of one man's cell phone, found a
stair & began the descent. After a few floors, the stairs ended at a
landing. There lights were on, but they faced two unmarked stairways.
Choosing one entirely at random they followed it all the way down,
stumbled into the air, and were told to RUN, without looking back. The
other stairway, they learned later, ended a few floors below, with no
ready connection to continued egress.... Does one have to be Nostradamus
to think that interior configuration contributed to fact that (so far as
is known) no one from top floors escaped?
Meetings now about "rebuilding" (also covered in the Times) point out
that-- surprise!-- the state wants a state "authority," that is, likes of
Port Authority, free from city or other oversight, again, answerable to no
one. City wants at least equal say. (The assumption that folks would take
offices in a rebuilt even HIGHER simulacrum is, to me, another sign of the
phenomenon of denial, of which you are poster child.)
Meanwhile, in case I didn't make perfectly clear (I have been gentler than
you deserve, for sake of the list) your dictats on how to be a patriot
from 2200 miles behind the lines are appreciated. But may I suggest you
put your money where your mouth is? Come to NYC and spend money. That's
what Mayor Giuliani is telling everyone who wants to "help." If crowds
don't return, we might as well be... (fill in your own blank).
And finally, ..... brace yourself !! I too have a wonderful photograph of
the WTC, better I bet than yours -- Nyah nyah! However, I'm not going to
send it to the travelling portfolio because I'm saving it for cover of
Post-Factory #7 (assuming I find it, last seen at my show in 1984). It's
taken from the east, probably City Hall Park. Title is "Sun Takes a Bite
Out of the World Trade Center": the setting sun, partly behind first
tower, seems to do just that. It was solarized, toned with plating toner
(as P-F #3, page 29) and very briefly blue toner.
For another world-class photo: Ig Mata has an emulsion on glass scene of
the skyline with twin towers she'll be selling at Grand Central gift show
at Christmas... it is exquisite (as are all her photographs on glass
objects) but now assumes more meaning than expected. There's been ample
disruption of services around here, so it's not yet on her website, but
you can get the general look & feel at www.igmata.com.
I won't mention that your words in favor of "healing and understanding"
seem not to compute in view of your other expressions. I'll just add my
plea that whoever is moved to send a flame or kvetch that my commentary is
"off topic" do so offlist.
Judy
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