365 days . . . 8760 hours
. . . 525,600 minutes . . . 31,536,000 seconds
I'm writing these words on September 9 as I prepare
to leave the country on the eve of the one-year anniversary of last year's terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I think I'm glad I won't be in the
country on the anniversary of that dark day -- mostly because I'm not comfortable with the
way television seems intent on making it an event.
Perhaps I'm wrong to single out TV. After all, The New
York Times Magazine ran a full-page ad from Kmart this week, showing the new towerless
skyline mirrored by a reflection in the river that included the WTC. Why? What's the
connection between Kmart and the Trade Center? What's the point?
That's my big problem with the way the networks seem intent
upon dealing with the anniversary. It all seems so pointless -- based on a perception that
we (and by we, I think they mean you as in "all of you regular people")
need TV's help to comprehend the events of that day.
As a New Yorker, I do need to come to terms with
that. Like many of my fellow citizens, I don't think of it in abstract terms at all -- it
was an attack upon me. The only difference between myself and any of the people who
died that day is that my trip to work everyday consists of a stroll down the hall to my
office. For all of its vicious planning and evil intent, the attacks weren't aimed at
anyone who died that day -- they were aimed at a nameless, faceless entity called America.
Me, in other words. And you -- and a lot of people who
probably would have been shocked to learn they were American. But they all had one thing
in common: Whatever they did, whoever they were, none of them deserved to die.
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a luxuriously
sharp, clear, intensely bright day. There was just a hint of the previous night's nip in
the air -- it would get almost muggy later, but early in the morning it felt like summer's
back had been broken.
I walked into my office with a cup of coffee in my hand and
turned on the radio I keep tuned to WNYC. I heard half a sentence from Morning Edition
and the radio went completely silent. I thought nothing of it and powered up my computer,
but a minute later, when the radio remained silent, I began to wonder if it was broken, so
I tuned in to a different station.
The newsreader was saying something about a plane and the
World Trade Center, so I walked into the living room and turned on the television just in
time to see the second plane hit the South Tower.
Like most of the country, I spent the rest of the day glued
to the television, except for a trip to the local hospital to give blood. I almost wrote
that I watched in horror as the towers fell, but that's not strictly true. I saw
the collapse of the first tower, but I refused to believe it -- I was sure it was just a
trick of the light and when the dust cleared we'd see it still standing. I continued to
believe that until the collapse of the second tower, which was impossible to ignore.
My thoughts went back to the last time I'd been in the
structure -- John Atkinson and I attended a Robert Fripp concert in the Winter Garden
across the street and, despite the pre-Christmas throngs filling the lobby/arcade area
near the escalator up from the subways, we walked right into one another as we arrived
simultaneously from different parts of the city. I thought of the thousands of people
milling around the PATH station or shopping on the skyway across the West Side Highway and
all of the people who worked there and I just knew that thousands must have failed
to escape. Thousands did, but so many fewer than I had feared.
The mind isn't always logical, but in my horror and
revulsion at what I was witnessing, my first thought was that I would never again be able
to find anything amusing in the announcer incoherently moaning, "Oh, the
humanity," over the newsreel footage of the Hindenberg conflagration. Now I understood
his incoherence.
The immediate minute-to-minute coverage of the tragedy was
television at its finest. I don't mean the networks did a great job -- most didn't, with
the exception of ABC, which seemed to stand head and shoulders above the others,
principally owing to Peter Jennings' fierce intelligence. But the important thing was that
TV bore witness. I couldn't comprehend what was happening, so it was essential that I see
it.
But as the day wore on -- and in the days that followed --
television coverage became increasingly frustrating. With the possible exception of
Jennings (and perhaps one or two others), TV is not good at analysis or in-depth
coverage. Television, after all, is best at depicting color and motion, and its most
egregious act in the days that followed the attack was in showing what it did have
-- unable to show causes and background, it endlessly repeated its footage of the towers
collapsing. A year later, all I can remember is an endless loop of the buildings
imploding, springing up again intact, and collapsing all over again.
I can't forgive TV for that -- for reducing the horrifying
death of 2800 people to a 30-second loop from a Die Hard movie. And I'm not all
that happy about the new trend I now perceive in its attempt to reprogram me into
remembering that cataclysm with a neat little package of "healing."
I don't want to forget my horror. I don't want to forget my
anger. And no, I don't want to forget the unimaginable acts of heroism that took place on
that day, either. I am in awe of all the firemen, policemen, and medics who ran into the
burning buildings when all the rational people were running out of them, but as much as I
honor them, I cannot help but think about all of the people who also died just because the
place they worked was famous.
I think about the busboys at the Windows on the World who
were getting the restaurant ready for people to celebrate anniversaries or propose or have
that special celebratory evening out. And I think about the television technicians who
maintained the transmission mast -- and who chose to remain on the job after the planes
hit because the people of New York needed that mast to get the news. And I think
about all the people at desks or with mops or pushing mail carts for minimum wage -- and I
get mad and I weep and I gnash my teeth.
So unless television is ready to deal with those emotions
and reflect my white-hot sense of unabating outrage, I'd just as soon it keep its
homogenizing hands off my memories.
But that's a futile wish. Here's what CBS president Leslie
Moonves had to say back in July: "It is far better to err on the side of giving too
much coverage than not paying enough respect to what happened. This probably is the most
significant event since Pearl Harbor in our lifetimes, and to not give it the appropriate
respect, I think, would be a mistake."
CBS, like the other networks and many cable channels, is
planning to forego ads on September 11, out of "respect."
Let's not get into a debate over whether or not
"coverage" shows "respect" -- I imagine Moonves and I place entirely
different values upon the worth of that coverage. But here's an idea -- since they're
already passing up any chance of making money on 9/11, why don't all of the networks just
shut down?
One of the ways we used to show respect was through silence
and contemplation. What if we had a day set aside for silent contemplation? Everybody go
home, no work today -- go be with the people you love. Relish the fact that a random
universe let you have this day of life.
Or, failing that, do what I'm going to do -- go very far
away and ignore 'em all.
But forget? Never.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
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