Forget September 11. What happened after the attack is more important than the attack. How one responds to a crisis is what counts. I responded by buying a new sketchbook on September 12 to replace the one I left in 5 World Trade Center. I am scanning and posting the sketchbook I kept for about four months after the attack. I published my post-911 sketchbook before onlline in different forms. I think this is the right way to do it. This isn't about September 11 as much as it is about responding to the events and atmosphere after the attack -- disaster kitsch, PTSD, Patriot Act, perpetual war, Anthrax, homeland propaganda, clash of fundamentalisms, and so on. It is an assortment of cartoons, poems, jokes, and commentary in the form of a diary. I have no idea if anyone will be interested in following this and commenting on it. I would like readers to share their own memories, dreams and reflections.
I walked to a deserted public library and used a computer for the first time. And strangely, I felt vaguely to blame for these new USA super-horrors, I can almost recall a public conversation in the nineties about hating the way the grotesque World Trade Center ruined the NYC skyline, and wishing out loud that the Twin Towers be demolished.
ReplyDeleteJust idle talk in coffee shops, discussion of the bomber that crashed into the Empire State Building in the forties, and speculation about weaponized passenger jets. Not sure if this is delusional or accurate.