Happy six-month anniversary, my love.
Don’thitme
Here we are
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 Ground Zero from a different perspective as we headed for the street.
This morning, I dreamed I was arranging a trip to Australia to see an Underworld concert.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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:
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.
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.
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.
WTC memorial
I’m working on a writeup of yesterday’s visit Jon Hyman’s 9/11 photography exhibition. Meanwhile, here’s a link to my pictures from the trip.
This week in Unrequired Reading
Stories that have been sitting in my RSS feed this week:
Tim Cavanaugh of Reason magazine muses on the 40th anniversary of Star Trek:
And finally, [Star Trek is] a story of a powerful belief in what the franchise represents: the right of individuals, through machinery, weaponry, or barehanded intelligence, to live, be free, and pursue happiness, no matter how horrific the results (and we can all agree that Robert Wise’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture was as slow and agonizing as any torture devised on that evil Enterprise from the “Mirror, Mirror†episode in which Spock has a beard). Put all these ingredients together and it’s clear: Star Trek is the story of America.
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Tom Spurgeon interviews Sammy Harkham, the only “young” cartoonist whose work I’ve started to follow. I have an unfinished post from earlier this summer, about the MoCCA comics festival in NYC. The post was all about my realization that I’ve become a boring old fart, because I couldn’t think of any cartoonists whose work I discovered in the last five to eight years. Fortunately, I picked up one of Sammy’s comics then, and found a small book of his a few weeks later that impressed me.
Sammy edits an anthology called Kramer’s Ergot, and the interview discusses the process of putting the most recent edition together. As ever, I find this stuff fascinating, but you may not.
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George Will reviews a 9/11 novel that doesn’t sound very interesting to me, but that’s because the 9/11 novel I published tanked:
Messud’s Manhattan story revolves around two women and a gay man who met as classmates at Brown University and who, as they turn 30 in 2001, vaguely yearn to do something “important” and “serious.” Vagueness — lack of definition — is their defining characteristic. Which may be because — or perhaps why — all three are in the media. All are earnest auditors and aspiring improvers of the nation’s sensibility.
Uh, yeah.
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BLDGBLOG interviews author Jeff VanderMeer about the intersection of architecture and the novel.
As a novelist who is uninterested in replicating “reality” but who is interested in plausibility and verisimilitude, I look for the organizing principles of real cities and for the kinds of bizarre juxtapositions that occur within them. Then I take what I need to be consistent with whatever fantastical city I’m creating. For example, there is a layering effect in many great cities. You don’t just see one style or period of architecture. You might also see planning in one section of a city and utter chaos in another. The lesson behind seeing a modern skyscraper next to a 17th-century cathedral is one that many fabulists do not internalize and, as a result, their settings are too homogenous.
Of course, that kind of layering will work for some readers — and other readers will want continuity. Even if they live in a place like that — a baroque, layered, very busy, confused place — even if, say, they’re holding the novel as they walk down the street in London [laughter] — they just don’t get it.
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Times UK restaurant reviewer Giles Coren visited Croatia for a column:
The language is called Croatian these days, except in Serbia, where it is called Serbian, and it hasn’t got any easier. Chapter two of my Teach Yourself Croatian book was about counting to ten, and gently explained as follows: “The number one behaves like an adjective and its ending changes according to the word which follows. The number two has different forms when it refers to masculine and neuter nouns than when it refers to feminine nouns, and is followed always by words in the genitive singular, as are the words for ‘three’ and ‘four’. The numbers 5-20, however, are followed by words in the genitive plural. . .”
This is why you never see Croatians in groups of more than one or less than five in a bar. Because it isn’t actually possible to order the right number of beers.
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Official VM buddy Jecca reviews the second issue of Martha Stewart’s Blueprint (which, as I type it, sounds like something she came up with while she was in the joint, a la that Prison Break show).
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Gorgeous pictures of the world’s greatest libraries. There’s a book about it.
What’s an interweb?
Big off-site sales meeting today, to discuss online sales strategies for the company. I’m not in sales, but they brought me in (along with our VP/editorial director) to give some perspective on how the editors can contribute good web-based content.
It was a critical meeting, in which we hammered out much of the plans for how we’re going to move this publishing company into the 21st century. People gave presentations on our digitial editions, webinars, and push e-mail systems, while discussing how to integrate online and print advertising packages. Thanks to the strategies we developed today, our salespeople are ready to go out and increase our online revenue fivefold in 2007.
Except maybe this guy:
Besides this moment, my favorite part of the meeting was when the sales consultant asked us, “How many of you go to YouTube.com?”
I raised my hand, as did our IT guy and our e-mail manager. That was it. I blurted out, “What the heck do you people do online all day?!”
Unsafe at Any Speed
Keeping with last post’s high school fixation, I bring up the fact that my first serious girlfriend (in my first way-too-boringly-serious relationship) drove a Chevy Corvair, that car Ralph Nader springboarded his career by denouncing.
I bring this up because of a gentleman in Iowa who takes issue with Nader in a way that the state’s DoT really doesn’t approve of:
State highway officials are setting up a roadblock of sorts for John Miller, a Boone man whose sporty 1966 Chevrolet Corvair has personalized plates that say, “F NADER.”
The Iowa Department of Transportation plans to send a letter to Miller advising him the license plates will be revoked within 10 days because of the objectionable combination of letters, said Andrew Lewis, the DOT’s assistant director of vehicle services.
This is Your Hometown
I live in my hometown. I’ve been here for about 25 of my 35 years, even though I moved away when I was 17. Most of my neighbors are my parents’ age, which makes for a quiet street. Except for those punk kids who live down the hill, but that’s another story.
I refute the Grosse Point Blank mindset pretty well. Even though I was a hyperliterate misfit in my formative years (as opposed to, y’know, now), I have a fondness for this place, with the Revolutionary War manor houses, the gorgeous gardens, the fantastic pizza, the strange shadow race of orange people who live on the edge of town (that’s a story for another post).
Tonight, I was confronted with the one aspect of living in one’s hometown that I’ve avoided for years: bumping into an old schoolmate.
Now, I’ve seen some of them over the years, but never gotten into a conversation. The last time was in 1997, when I walked into the local barbershop (The Shear Shop). I was going out for a job interview the next day (at the office where I now work), looked like the Unabomer’s little brother, and needed to clean up. The stylist at the counter took one look at me and said, “Gil?”
I replied, “Ericka?” It was she. We talked while she cut my hair, reminiscing over our barely shared high school experiences. But that encounter was almost a decade ago. I’ve bumped into almost no one since.
It’s not that I’m averse to talking to people from my youth; I have plenty of friends from that stage of my life. I’m just averse to getting into conversations in supermarkets or convenience stores, which is where these little recognitions take place. I’m usually pretty tired by the end of the day, and I tend to have many excuses in my arsenal to keep from talking to people.
But There I Was, standing on the deli line at the supermarket, while Amy was getting some other fixings for dinner. The guy working behind the counter looked a lot like someone I met in kindergarten or thereabouts, and his nametag pretty much sealed the deal.
But did I say anything? Oh, no. I figured it was fine just recognizing the guy. There was no need to actually start talking to him. I could just tell Amy that I saw a guy from grade school at the deli counter.
He turned to take my order, paused a second, and said, “Gil Roth?”
“Rick Bolt?”
“Wow! I thought it was you! How you doing?”
“Living in Ringwood,” I told him. “You too, huh?”
“Been around a lot, but I ended up back here,” he said.
“Not a bad place to be,” I said. I introduced Amy to him, and he mentioned that his wife had just stopped by to see him.
Fortunately, he avoided the awkward, “So what are you doing?” question, which would’ve been fine in theory but would’ve contrasted with his, “I’m working behind the deli counter, cutting a half-pound of cheddar for you” response.
But I don’t want to address any class-oriented issues in this post. No, I’m more concerned with a very basic question:
How the heck did someone who hasn’t seen me since 1989 identify me at a goddamn glance?!
Seriously! You’ve seen what I looked like around then! (masochistally speaking, I love breaking out this picture)
I’m 40-50 lbs. heavier, I don’t wear glasses, and my hair is a bunch shorter. Moreover, it’s been almost 20 years! I mean godDAMN!
Written in flesh
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 cursive he was planning to use.
A few months ago, an acquaintance of mine (Eric Solstein) discovered that an acquaintance of his (Jonathan Hyman) has been photographing 9/11 memorials: tattoos, graffiti and other personal tributes. Eric hooked us up, and a few photos of my tattoo are now among the 15,000+ pics that Jon has taken.
Before the shoot, Jon showed me a bunch of shots from the collection, and they’re pretty breathtaking. He filled me in on the stories of how many gallery shows or museum exhibits he was going to have, and how often the rug was pulled out from under him. While the portfolio was amazing, I admit that my BS-meter was pinging a bit (but I was glad to be part of the collective memory).
Fortunately, I was utterly wrong. “9/11 and the American Landscape: Photographs by Jonathan Hyman” will be open from Friday, Sept. 8 to Saturday, Oct. 7, at WTC #7, 250 Greenwich St., 45th flr. The event is curated by Clifford Chanin and is accompanied by a color catalogue featuring an introduction by Pete Hamill, according to Jon.
I doubt that my photo is among the 63 that are on display in this exhibit, but Amy & I will head in Saturday for the opening reception. The venue (that rebuilt WTC #7) overlooks the WTC site (or the Memorial Hole, as The Onion put it); I’ll try to post some photos from the event, especially for you out-of-towners who wonder what things look like nowadays.
Unrequired Reading
Stuff I meant to post about in the past week:
Writing about restaurants in New Orleans (with a go-to mention of Finis Shelnutt):
“When people are still mucking out their houses, chefs are living in FEMA trailers, and others are finding out they are going to get screwed by their insurance company, I don’t want to be the guy who is writing about how the foie gras is not quite up to snuff,†he said.
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Why bashing Wal-Mart is not a good strategy for the Dems:
By restraining inflation, intense competition of the sort that Wal-Mart provides eases pressure on the Federal Reserve to do the job with higher interest rates. Note the paradox: At one level, intense competition destroys jobs, as some companies can’t compete, but the larger effect is to increase total job creation by fostering favorable economic conditions.
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Get your picture taken with Jesus.
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NO,LA: It’s the civil engineering, stupid!
Why didn’t the Corps design a consistent, redundant system? In large part, the reason was foot dragging — or worse — by pols on the state, local, and federal levels. In some cases, political opposition prevented the Corps from seizing land to build sturdier foundations. Plus, Louisiana’s local levee boards were lousy stewards. Levee officials were political animals, not engineering experts, and sometimes proved more interested in running ancillary “economic development” projects than working with the Corps to make sure the levees were up to their task. (It’s not because New Orleans is poor and black: the levees protect New Orleans’s richer, whiter suburbs too.) In addition, the Corps warned that many of New Orleans’s manmade canals, obsolete for years, should be closed or at least gated - to no avail. Moreover, when the Corps, along with state officials, came to understand that wetlands restoration is a vital part of the flood protection system, not a tree-hugger’s afterthought, Congress balked at spending the required $14 billion over several decades for coastal restoration.
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The Chinese village of Dafen is like the opposite of William Gaddis’ The Recognitions:
In just a few years, Dafen has become the leading production center for cheap oil paintings. An estimated 60 percent of the world’s cheap oil paintings are produced within Dafen’s four square kilometers (1.5 square miles). Last year, the local art factories exported paintings worth €28 million ($36 million). Foreign art dealers travel to the factory in the south of the communist country from as far away as Europe and the United States, ordering copies of famous paintings by the container. [. . .]
Some five million oil paintings are produced in Dafen every year. Between 8,000 and 10,000 painters toil in the workshops. The numbers are estimates: No one knows the exact figure, which increases by about 100 new painters every year. But it’s not just professional copy painters who are drawn to Dafen — graduates of China’s most renowned art academy also come here. They complete only a small number of paintings a month and earn as much as €1,000 ($1,282).
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Go see Little Miss Sunshine when you get the chance. We caught it yesterday. So did a couple of children sitting in the row behind us. They were less than 10 years old, and I’m sorta wondering if their mom noticed the “R” rating on the movie, or just thought it would be a fun flick about children’s beauty pageants, with that guy from The Daily Show. She may’ve been a little surprised when Alan Arkin was snorting heroin in one of the opening scenes. Anyway, it was a really wonderful flick, with a punchline that almost had us crying with laughter.
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And have a good holiday.