| nettime's oral history on Fri, 14 Sep 2001 23:02:36 +0200 (CEST) |
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Table of Contents:
wake up call in brooklyn
tarikh korula <[email protected]>
David Bennahum: Wednesday & Thursday in New York
"geert lovink" <[email protected]>
suspended on a line
Kathryn Aegis <[email protected]>
Mary-Lou Harding <[email protected]>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:36:03 -0500
From: tarikh korula <[email protected]>
Subject: wake up call in brooklyn
I had been up into the wee hours the morning of September 11th, putting
together an application for a small fellowship. It's both difficult and
exhilarating to take a long hard look at your work and to spin it into
some kind of narrative. As I finished writing I noticed how silent and
peaceful the city was at 4am. The dreadfully hot summer had passed. I was
released from my job assignment. I had no idea what the future would hold
for me. I went to bed content and set my alarm for 10.
By 10:30 the buzzer had been going off for half an hour and, half awake, I
enjoyed the patterns made by the cycles of alarm clock rings mixed with
police sirens. From the window over my pillow I could make out a
neighbor's conversation. She was explaining that she had just spoken to
her husband, he was being evacuated and she was sure he was fine. I
wondered if there was a fire somewhere, and I got out of bed and made some
tea.
When I was 4 my mom and I drove across country and eventually settled in
Manhattan. The twin towers held a certain awe for me as a child in the
70s, dominating the skyline, their dual symbolic columns being crawled on
by that giant Freudian ape. Class trips, the antenna, the story that you
could go out on the roof, the knowledge that they were the highest
buildings in the world then. Or just playing in the landfill that would
become battery park city--then just huge piles of sand.
As I've grown older, I've frequently wondered about the esthetic hubris of
planting two enormous trunks on the tip of Manhattan so large they looked
as if they should pitch the whole island into the air. I didn't think that
hubris would be outmatched by another, darker, hubris until 1993, when the
first bomb went off there. Did we grow complacent when the towers
recovered? Who could have predicted that two planes would crash into these
buildings and forever change our lives? Who? Two kids who forever changed
our lives, actually.
In a diary entry by Eric Harris, one part of the two person team behind
the Columbine massacre he writes that their dream is to complete their
bloodbath by hijacking a plane and crashing it into New York City. This
strange premonition of worse to come never struck anyone in law
enforcement as ominous, apparently. What does it mean when terrorists use
American planes filled with American civilians and American psychopath's
ideas to attack American buildings? Do you remember all the wild
speculation about foreign terrorists when Oklahoma City went up? Has
anyone yet grappled with the fact that a white, decorated, American war
veteran brought that violence? Do we have a real answer to the culture of
war, spectacle and sensationalism that we've created in which terror is
black, Americans are white and its our job to kick ass? Does anyone else
wonder if Americans cheered like Arabs when we nuked tens of thousands of
civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
Several bites into an english muffin I became fully aware of the waking
nightmare I had been dreamily sleeping through that morning. my inbox was
full of emails. Many from a student listserve with titles like, "re:
donating blood". I had a few from friends and relatives asking me to
respond. I had been waiting an eon for The New York Times site to come up
and was surprised to see all the advertising gone and a simple html husk
in place of the usual panoply of links and sections when it finally did.
There was a picture of the flaming twin towers. In the picture they were
still standing. It seems like so long ago now.
I pulled out my bike and headed for Fulton Ferry, a short ride from my
house and directly across the East River from the financial district.
There was both a sense of dread and a palpable excitement at verifying the
cyber truth with my own eyes. As soon as I got outside I was greeted by
the smell of burning tires all over the neighborhood. No smoke, just a
horrible smell. People were everywhere in the streets, well dressed and
slowly walking home, calm and even jovial. Many had dimestore masks
loosely hanging around their necks.
I think there's two things at work here, because even now, in Brooklyn,
there's a real sense of lightness in the air. People are laughing, walking
in groups and seemingly enjoying themselves as if we've all been given a
free holiday.
The first explanation is that we New Yorkers aren't nearly as horrible as
our reputations say we are. We're friendly, calm and helpful--especially
when the going gets tough. There haven't been riots. There hasn't been
looting, panic or pandemonium. As I biked further, some had opened their
homes or businesses for others needing restrooms or a glass of water. A
literal parade of people spilled out from the inlets to the Brooklyn
bridge where lines of cars were slowly entering a few hours before.
The second explanation for the lightness is that I don't think many of us
who have been isolated here in Brooklyn have really come to terms with
what's happened just yet. First of all, it's been difficult until very
recently to see what's happened to the skyline, as the space once occupied
by the twin towers had been shrouded with a continuous cloud of smoke. Now
that the bloody smoke is clearing it's apparent that the once glamorous,
cosmopolitan face of New York City's skyline has had its two front teeth
knocked out.
Excitement turned to pure dread as I navigated my bike near the BQE and
the sky darkened from the thick plumes of acrid smoke blotting out the
sun. it's impossible to describe these moments.
Your mind goes to weird places. Thinking of all the New York city post
cards immediately rendered collector's items, late night talk show intros
that will need to be remade, television station logos redesigned, movies
instantly dated. Or new buildings, holidays, memorials. Books that
explain, dramatizations that propagandize, trials that punish,
speculations that lead, and bloody retaliation. And then my heart began to
sink. The dread wore off into real concern for the people out there across
the water.
Here in Brooklyn I've felt powerless and isolated. Powerless to stop this
horror, powerless to help and powerless to prevent future destruction in
retaliations for retaliations. My phones didn't work. I couldn't cross the
bridge. The red cross was overcrowded. There's been nothing for me to do
but sit here and watch or go home and try and forget about it. I haven't
yet been able to forget about it.
After hopelessly watching the blaze from afar, I returned home. I was
still in shock. I tried to call people and sent a few emails to family and
concerned friends and then went over to my neighbor's house. They were
drinking beer and making ironic comments about the disaster as CNN
sensationalized the spectacle by playing the same four clips at various
speeds over and over again. I started feeling ill. I understood my
friends' need to address the absurdity of the situation, but I was in a
different place. I desperately wanted to do something with all the pent up
energy. I had nowhere to release it. In my backyard a single, singed sheet
of paper fell from Manhattan. It must have belonged to an attorney. It had
legal words with definitions on it, one of them was "security". I grabbed
a press pass, gas mask, notebook, recorder and camera and headed out on my
bike again, determined to somehow get into Manhattan. But by this time the
police had cut off all access into Manhattan to keep well meaning and
useless bystanders like myself out of the mix. The emails from the list
had said the blood banks all had too much blood and I just felt like there
was nothing I could do. So I went back to Fulton Ferry and watched. It was
quiet, peaceful. A beautiful day aside from the black cloud.
I came home that evening and I started taking pictures of websites. I
started with CNN and The New York Times and moved onto Amazon, eBay,
Yahoo, Disney, American Airlines. I don't know why, but for some reason I
wanted to see the impact of the explosion on cyberspace. It seemed
strangely appropriate given how I had learned about the tragedy unfolding
outside my window that morning.
Midnight and my phones still didn't work, my neighbors had gone to bed and
my friends had left my place. My roommates still hadn't come home. New
York's familiar isolation crept in. I couldn't bring myself to write
anything or listen to the radio anymore. I bought a bottle of beer and
biked down to Fulton Ferry for the third time that day. I wanted
desperately to help and I was trapped in Brooklyn. If I couldn't help I
wanted to document. Instead I had to sit and feel this weight on my heart.
I had a huge sense of sorrow and nowhere to direct it. I sat alone with a
handful of others still out there. I drank my beer and stared at the smoke
that continued to pour out of Manhattan's mouth and into the night sky.
The silence was occasionally cut by sirens of emergency vehicles speeding
up or down the FDR drive. I watched emergency lights flash in the
powerless buildings of lower manhattan. I felt tremendous pain for those
still alive and infinitely more alone than myself, trapped in tons of
rubble. Thinking of their families. The firefighters killed in crumbling
walls and all their replacements desperately trying to save everyone and
coming up woefully short. I sat there in the dark for at least an hour
before slowly biking home on the silent streets. I woke up at 5am drenched
in sweat.
It's another beautiful night in Brooklyn. Clear, dark sky. No humidity,
temperatures in the high sixties. Silence. Seeming calm. Just another
incongruity in a sea of incongruities. Like the way I feel and the way the
press is telling me to feel. Or the way I feel and the way the president
is responding. I don't want to see the spectacle of the crumbling towers
in slow motion anymore. I don't want to hear the wanton speculation of
uninformed idiots. I want this "War" to end and the period of truth to
begin. I want the press to start looking into the first question I asked
myself 40 hours ago--why?
- -tarikh
Some friends and I will be webcasting a special edition of our weekly
radio show this Thursday 9/13 from our studio at New York City's
Independent Media Center. Coverage should start sometime after noon and
pick up in the evening with interviews, call-ins and people talking about
their experiences.
For more info check out:
http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/audio/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 13:05:23 +1000
From: "geert lovink" <[email protected]>
Subject: David Bennahum: Wednesday & Thursday in New York
From: "David S. Bennahum" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 12:53 PM
Subject: Wednesday & Thursday in New York
Dear friends,
This the third day since the attack on the World Trade Center has been a
time of reflection and thinking, at least for me. Last night I went to a
memorial service at my synagogue, Central Synagogue, on 55th street. It
was humbling and devastating to hear members of my congregation stand up
and describe, in their own words, how they fled with their lives from the
WTC. One man described how he found himself trapped, debris coming towards
him, until quick wits and luck led him to a service door leading to the
kitchen of a take-out restaurant, where he hid while the first tower
collapsed. He then ran to safety just before the second came down.
Another told of finding his missing daughter, who was now safe, and
sitting next to him. A third told of going downtown to a meeting, only to
emerge from the city hall subway station to find thousands of people
running towards him. He stayed and directed traffic, so emergency
vehicles could get through the crowds and further south. Then the second
tower collapsed and he ran for his life. So it came to the man who
described fleeing from the Trade Center, down the stairs, "And we passed
these firemen coming up, coming to save us" he said. "Brave strong boys,
and some middle aged, and we clapped, as we could, while we ran," the
man's voice broke. "And where are they now?" he asked. "Where are they
now?"
We hear these terrible numbers--some 300 or more firemen dead. Perhaps
100 police as well. While we weep for all that perished on Tuesday, these
emergency workers hold a special place in all of our hearts. I, for one,
will never look at our firemen and police the same way knowing how
selflessly they gave of themselves for strangers. Theirs is the true
heroism, greater than that of any warrior, because they came in peace, and
gave their lives for no other reason than to save the lives of others.
They, in this conflagration, are the antithesis of the men who gave their
lives for death. They are our true heroes; if there are to be any martyrs
here, it is them, for theirs was the justest cause of all.
Our city is forever changed. And not just all for the worse. I was
struck yesterday, as the magnitude of our collective loss settled in, by
how New York has grown in some subtle, yet beautiful ways.
As a native New Yorker, born and raised, I've always held myself as a New
Yorker first, and an American second. And in some ways, that's how
America sees New York--as a place apart, different. While foreigners
might look at pictures of New York, and think this is the quintessential
American city, the embodiment of America and its values, native-born
Americans often have a different perspective. To many of them, New York
is a strange and foreign place. A suspicious place. New York is where
the "other" Americans live--the Jewish ones, the Hindu ones, the Catholic
ones, the Muslim ones, the Asians, blacks, Latinos. Now, for the first
time, you have people in places like Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, people who
normally might look askance at New York and its ways, embracing our city.
As a New Yorker, it's so utterly weird to sense, in some distant fashion,
that for the first time the whole rest of America actually loves us.
They do. I can sense the love from the emails I am getting, from the
calls, from the way people in other states are responding to what has
happened here. One gift from this horror might, in fact, be a feeling of
connectedness between us like never before.
And that connectedness is strong here in New York, between each of us.
Things got real here, and the usual narcissistic conversations about
ourselves have dissipated, replaced by conversations about each other.
We're more interested in other people, than we are in our own personal
problems. By taking our attention away from ourselves, and placing it on
other people, we've become greater in the process. Where once the image
of a New Yorker was the inward looking, narcissistic neurotic, it's now
evolved beyond that-tough, compassionate, communal.
There are, however, some darker forces now at work. I've been thinking a
lot about how America will ultimately react to Tuesday's devastation, and
I am worried. I've been looking to history for guidance. What follows is
just a sketch of an idea, but one I feel compelled to share nonetheless.
On the 28th of June, 1914, the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand visited
Sarajevo, which was then under Austrian rule, and was assassinated by
Serbian nationalists. His death is seen as the trigger that led to the
First World War, a horrendous conflagration that killed tens of millions.
That assassination reminds me of September 11, 2001, in the sense that no
one back then could have predicted what it would lead to, and how badly
things would ultimately go for everyone. Back in 1914, Europe had enjoyed
100 years of relative stability, under a form of diplomacy established
after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. That way of dealing with conflict,
through "spheres of influence" fell apart in 1914, in part because the
technology of war had evolved far beyond that of the 19th century: the
machine gun, airplane, infantry, along with telegraph and telephone, had
industrialized war into a killing machine. So the Europeans applied a
19th century political solution, and wound up in a 20th century war. The
result was the horrendous trench warfare in the fields of France, leading
to an entire generation of French, English, and German boys to literally
disappear. They were known as the "hollow men" because so many of them
were gone. T.S. Eliot wrote a poem titled "The Hollow Men," describing
the futility and loss of that time. Here's an excerpt:
. IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
and avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
So now we face a new enemy, one willing to take jetliners full of people,
and crash them into buildings in suicide missions that kill thousands.
Our political system is ill-equipped for this sort of war, much as the
Europeans were ill equipped in the First World War. I hear talk of
attacking Afghanistan, of staging US troops in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and
Persian Gulf states to wage a war on terrorism. And I fear that this
war--I heard the word "crusade" used by an American government official on
TV tonight--could easily slip out of control, into a new sphere of combat
and suffering. In a world of chemical weapons, hijacked jets, and dense
cities, where getting anywhere takes just 24 hours or less, I worry that
our political coalitions will be ill equipped to combat these new weapons
of war. I worry that we may, inadvertently, suffer far more than we may
understand over the coming years.
Meanwhile, back at my home, I'm coping with a new world. The mayor says
he'll reopen Manhattan south of 14th street, down to Canal street. There
are bomb scares now--last night my building was evacuated, along with my
immediate neighborhood, because the police thought there might be a bomb
in the Empire State building. And the filthy soot from the World Trade
Center has been blowing uptown for a while. I couldn't sleep at home last
night, and when I came back, everything was covered in a light dust. As I
rubbed the powder between my fingers, I thought of those that had died
innocently, both Tuesday and in wars of the past, their bodies immolated,
carried away by the wind.
I just hope that somehow the sense of love that has emerged between us in
this city, this country, and with so many other kindhearted people around
the world, can outlast and overcome the hate that was unleashed on
Tuesday. I don't want to see any more death or destruction again.
David
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 03:08:36
From: Kathryn Aegis <[email protected]>
Subject: suspended on a line
So much depends on a thin wire tonight the arc of a phone line under a
pile of debris the hopeless beep of cell tones not connecting and loved
ones either on one side of the wire or not three days and no connections
>From the world, we expected sympathy. We got compassion, outpourings of
grief, real grief unsimulated. It means so much, you don't know how much
it means. It connects us in a way that wires never could.
A hell of an introduction to nettime, but there will be no other topic for
a long time.
Yours,
Kathryn Aegis
Washington, DC
- --------------
http://www.mindspring.com/~k_aegis/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:33:40 +0100
From: Mary-Lou Harding <[email protected]>
I thought nettimers may be interested to read the personal mail I received
from my 21 year old sister who is an officer cadet in the (UK) Merchant
Navy. She was on an oil tanker in Iraqi waters when the US was attacked,
she sent this message (extract) on Tuesday night. I have not heard from
her since. m-l
Hello,
I thought I would be getting a message from you in the light of what has
just happened. We were finishing loading when we heard the news, we left
early and are on our way out of the Gulf. We are sure the Gulf will be
closed off to all ships within the next 12 hours so we are going full
speed trying to get out. We don't want to be stuck here when it does
close. It's a bit scary at this end, there are a lot of U.S Navy war ships
around and they are all going a little bit nuts pulling ships over left
right and centre wanting to know who we are where we are going and what we
are carrying, some ships have been boarded by U.S Navy people carrying
guns. I don't think they will board us but we do have a couple of check
points to go through as yet. I reckon when we get to India we will stay
there for quite along time, there will be no way that they we will go back
to the Gulf, if we do it will be considered a war zone and we will have to
be payed danger money. I will let you know when I know what the movements
of the ship is. end of extract
mary-louise harding, assistant editor,
Music Business International (MBI)
Music Week Group
CMP Information
Ludgate House, 245 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 9UR
T: 44 (0)20 7579 4738
F 44 (0)20 7579 4011
[email protected]
------------------------------
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