Re: <nettime> Reading the Skyline

[Bill Spornitz <spornitz@mts.net>]

>And so I'm glad to see that as the smoke clears and those TV images keep
>coming, Manhattan looks more distorted than ever, and the absence of the
>towers looms even larger and louder than their presence did. Long may it
>loom. I've learned too late to love the imbalance those towers brought to
>the skyline. Here's hoping their loss teaches us all to find some grace in
>the imbalance of the age.


For me, as one approached from New Jersey, the wtc was like an art 
school lesson in balance - it made a kind of sense, in the same way 
that a mobile has big red parts out at the edge, and that helps it 
swing and sway in an enduring way...

I remember my only visit to the Trade Center: it's cavernous lobby 
hosted the College Music Journal conference one year; it was on the 
same weekend as the Marathon and as Halloween, a deep symbolism quite 
impressive for this prairie boy.

I dropped out of 3rd year civil engineering to join a rock band, and 
some of the sensibility of the engineer remains... anywhay, I 
remember looking up, standing between the towers, thinking: *How are 
they ever going to take this thing down when it gets too old?*  <- 
well, I guess that question is answered.

The american networks' total coverage features video of the wtc event 
in a way that looks more like a movie trailer than a telling of a 
story... sad and beautiful, flight 11 cuts like a knife, over and 
over and over and over.... images that punctuate stories of endless 
war and racist hate.

That's pretty sad, but the true, deep sadness comes for me in three thoughts:

-My deepest sympathies are with the families, and with all Nuevo 
Yorkers everywhere.  It is like surviving a terrible car crash, only 
to awake and find that not only have you have lost family members, 
you've lost your arms as well...

-It truly is a work of ***** (<- insert your favourite demon here, 
Satan being the default around these parts) because now George W. 
Bush the Apocalyptic has exactly what he needs...

-The only thing that really heals is forgiveness, and that's (as they 
say down on Wall Street) a *Non-Starter*, I fear


sadly
b

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