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candles in the villages
Friday, September 14 2001
1:30pm
I'm watching this prayer vigil because it is the only thing on television, but it's not a pleasant experience for me. The Rev. Billy Graham Jr. is milking this tragedy for all it is worth, mentioning God and "Our nation founded on the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord" dozens of times. Others are saying things such as "now begins a new era of faith in this nation." I'm sorry, but the only role God and religion played in this tragedy was bad, very bad. Religion and the delusion of an afterlife is what made it possible for knife-wielding lunatics to drive planes into skyscrapers. A lack of divine compassion sent a cold hard rain to frustrate the rescue effort last night and today.
This crisis has brought about a few good things, things like community and domestic compassion. But it's also brought out the scary extremist side of some relatively well-known public figures. The events of Tuesday were unprecedented and scary, but if this is all it takes for us to embrace fascism and religious totalitarianism, there is no hope, the Taliban invasion is complete. Have we learned nothing from the example of the Germans?
I just learned that Bank of America was the sixth largest tenant in the World Trade Center. With such a large presence in this city, I wonder why they never saw fit to put any branches or Versatellers in New York.
9:52pm
I'd been working all day over a Virtual Private Network from home, but towards the end of the day I needed to go into the office to accomplish a few additional things. Before I left for Manhattan, I took Sally the Dog for a walk in the Vale of Cashmere in Prospect Park. George W. Bush was visiting the World Trade Center at the time, and his jet fighter escorts saw fit to race back and forth overhead like angry hornets. As I walked past the arch at Grand Army Plaza, a young Orthodox Jewish man in a black hat stopped me and asked, "Do you by any chance happen to be Jewish?" I said no and he walked on, but I was left to wonder what ordeals he would have put me through had I said yes.
Once I'd made it into the woods, the zipper of my pants failed and I realized I was in something of a crisis myself. The button on those same pants fell off over a year ago, and without an effective zipper, there was nothing to hold them up at all! Worse still was the place where this crisis happened, the biggest, most isolated gay cruising zone in Brooklyn. Pants are important in the woods of Prospect Park, especially when you're nasty like me and don't wear underwear. I eventually figured out a way to tied together my two front belt loops using a discarded plastic bag, but this did nothing to keep my fly shut. While leading Sally, I had to awkwardly hold my shirt in front of my crotch for the entire walk home. I'm glad I didn't run across anyone I knew!
After I was done with the things I needed to do in Manhattan, I went on a long leisurely stroll diagonally through Greenwich Village into the East Village. From the unsympathetic heavens rain had been pouring down all last night and this morning, and in its aftermath the evening was uncomfortably cool for the first time of the season. In my short-sleave shirt I was conspicuously underdressed; most of the others I saw were wearing jackets and sweaters. As I walked into Washington Square Park, I came upon a massive candlelight vigil for those who had died in the terrorist attack. Wandering through its very center, I was struck by how amazingly silent this number of people were managing to be. Part of the reason for the quiet was the sheer number of sound-damping black overcoats, all well-rested after a summer spent in closets.
A large fraction of the people I saw from then on were holding candles. There was a bit of a breeze blowing, but I saw very few candles that the wind had succeeded in extinguishing. Whoever had organized this candlelight display must not have been an Orthodox Jew; it being Shabbat, I didn't see a single man in a black hat holding a candle.
As I wandered down 7th Avenue into the heart of Park Slope, I saw the first airborne commercial airliner since Tuesday. It was flying very slowly, directly overhead with its lights gleaming brightly - but also shyly. I wondered what it felt to be on that plane over this city in this part of this week. Further down 7th Avenue, the avenue and all its cross streets had been closed down and it had filled with somber pedestrians carrying lit candles. Many of them also wore small American flags or, in a few rare cases, signs advocating peace.
I keep forgetting about the scale of what happened on Tuesday. I keep forgetting that Tuesday was a major World tragedy as well as a New York tragedy, that it was far more than something that left a smoking hole in Manhattan and screwed up my commute. But then I hear about vigils in Los Angeles and attacks on mosques in Texas and I realize that I happened to be near world history as it happened.
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