{"id":1108,"date":"2006-09-11T07:19:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-11T12:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/here-we-are\/"},"modified":"2006-09-11T07:19:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-11T12:19:00","slug":"here-we-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/here-we-are","title":{"rendered":"Here we are"},"content":{"rendered":"

We visited Ground Zero on Saturday, so we could see Jon Hyman’s photo exhibition: 9\/11 and the American Landscape<\/a>. We took the ferry over from NJ, then a subway down to the site. It was the first time I’d ever taken the subway to that area. The station is inside the pit, so we saw Ground Zero from a different perspective as we headed for the street.<\/p>\n

This morning, I dreamed I was arranging a trip to Australia to see an Underworld concert. <\/p>\n

I got my tattoo the Sunday after 9\/11. While I was in the booth\/studio\/parlor (?), the girl at the front desk came in to ask if it was okay if a guy came in to watch. He was planning to get a 9\/11 tattoo and wanted to see what we were doing.<\/p>\n

I assented, and a burly guy walked in. He told us that he worked in WTC #7, and then related the story of Tuesday morning. After the first plane hit, his building went into lockdown. They didn’t want people running around in a panic while the first responders were getting into action.<\/p>\n

When the second plane hit, the #7 workers revolted and started streaming out of the building as fast as they could. I don’t remember what he told me about the buildings’ collapse. I hadn’t slept much that week, and some details are lost. Others come back when I least expect them.<\/p>\n

The exhibition had some wonderful photos, but it focused more on murals and graffiti, with only a half-dozen examples of 9\/11 tattoos. It did, however, include The Big One, a tattoo covering the entirety of firefighter Tiernach “T.C.” Cassidy’s back, including sky-blue ink for the background<\/em>. Jon showed me that one when we were going through his portfolio. I can’t find his picture of Cassidy online, but here’s another photo of him: <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ll try to scan it from my exhibition program, but if you’re in the area, you really should go to the exhibition to see Jon’s pictures.<\/p>\n

Amy & I had lunch at the World Financial Center after the exhibition and we talked about our memories from those days, intercutting world history with personal anecdotes, criscrossing apocalypses, affairs, paralyses, sightsoundsmells: The American Landscape.<\/p>\n

I thought about the incalculable permutations of our lives, about all the things that had to go right for us to meet and fall in love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We visited Ground Zero on Saturday, so we could see Jon Hyman’s photo exhibition: 9\/11 and the American Landscape. We took the ferry over from NJ, then a subway down to the site. It was the first time I’d ever taken the subway to that area. The station is inside the pit, so we saw … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Here we are”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-hS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2150,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-aug-1-2008","url_meta":{"origin":1108,"position":0},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Aug. 1, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"August 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm recovering from the Bruce show last night. You guys make with the Unrequired Reading. The New York Times: Less Than Zero? * * * I'm a better husband than these guys, even if I don't have as entertaining a wardrobe. * * * I was in a cafe \/\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10407,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-224-graham-chaffee","url_meta":{"origin":1108,"position":1},"title":"Episode 224 – Graham Chaffee","author":"Gil","date":"June 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 224: Graham Chaffee \"What I've learned about storytelling is that you don't know what the story's about until you're halfway through it. You might have your plot, but plot's just the vehicle.\" Master tattooist and comics artist Graham Chaffee joins the show to talk about his new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/instachaff-620x620.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/instachaff-620x620.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/instachaff-620x620.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2147,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-july-25-2008","url_meta":{"origin":1108,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: July 25, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"July 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"That's the sound of the men, working on the link gang. . . I wasn't sure if this qualifies for another installment of F*** You, You Whining F***, because I think she's actually right. Still, a 20-year-old complaining that \"I'm leaving the NYC literary scene for Paris\" borders on Whining\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":434,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/secret-identity","url_meta":{"origin":1108,"position":3},"title":"Secret Identity","author":"Gil","date":"December 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"At the conference on Wednesday, I passed by a small group of attendees from the Ukraine. We all have our nationalities listed on our name badges. Even if they don't get our names right (my press badge read \"Mrs G Roth\"), they always get our countries right.There were two men\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brussels"","block_context":{"text":"Brussels","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/brussels"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1102,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/written-in-flesh","url_meta":{"origin":1108,"position":4},"title":"Written in flesh","author":"Gil","date":"September 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"You may or may not know that I have a 9\/11 tattoo on my right arm. I got it the Sunday after the attacks. It's not particularly exciting, as tattoos go. In fact, my artist was a little bummed that I wanted a dull, blocky font, rather than the flourishing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Urban issues"","block_context":{"text":"Urban issues","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/urban-issues"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":229,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hows-that-for-serendipity","url_meta":{"origin":1108,"position":5},"title":"How’s THAT for serendipity?","author":"Gil","date":"May 17, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night, I started reading Underground, Haruki Murakami's collection of interviews of survivors of the sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995.Today, we find out that there was sarin nerve gas in an roadside bomb\/unexploded shell in Iraq.Just plain weird, is what I'm saying.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}