email89.xml

email89.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-03-21

Dear J.--

these are weird
and terrible times. My kids are all shell-shocked and nervous about
what's flying overhead. C. is hyper-aware of mortality, illness,
disaster. M. and I are
worried about economic collapse, physical safety, -- Who knows what will get
blown up next, or which biological toxins will be dumped into our water
and air supplies? I heard a commenator last night say, "This is not the

beginning of the end, it's the beginning of the beginning of the
end...." What the hell does that mean? (At the end of the movie,
Millennium, a voice-over says: "This is not the end. This is not the
beginning of the end. This is the end of the beginning." -- I'm not
sure what that means, either, but beginnings and ends are much on my
mind, lately.)

So far, a few guys I know are lost or dead in the collapse of the WTC.
They were former students of mine who were/are in the Fire Dept. and/or
Rescue Service. One was an EMT. I suspect I'm going to know of one or
two cops who are lost as well. Even if I knew no one, the grief I feel
--and the disorientation--when I see an empty space where the twin
towers were....it's indescribable (the grief and the empty space). It's

one thing to delete physical structures within the frames of
computer-generated film images. The idea of whole buildings, thick with

symbolism and crammed full of human beings, being erased from the
city-scape is nearly impossible to wrap our heads around. It's
difficult to remember why to do things-- why do I teach? What do I tell

students? How do I require them to do the things they need to do to
graduate? Why graduate? Why not stay, "forever," in the safety of
academia where the thing that counts is mastery of skills and
information? Who wants to be "out there" where the bombs fall,
buildings collapse, people are crushed/burned/blown apart?

Long Island is a surreal place. People go about their business with the

gusto of old. Bitchy Plainview women still try to cut you off for a
parking spot at the shopping center. The only differencce now is they
do it with an American flag duct-taped to their antennae There is, it's

true, an air of slightly increased courtesy, a little bit more patience
here and there, less road-rage, more expressions of care. In Manhattan,

people walk around with grim expressions, occasional glances upward,
faces enclosed in the private strain that public disasters provoke. No

one knows what to say anymore. People talk about the plane crashes and
building collapses using the language of the movies. And I guess that's

the available idiom. Still, it's unsettling to hear that the pancaking
of the towers and of building #7 "was just like The Towering Inferno or
Die Hard." There has been nothing like this disaster. When M. called me from work to tell me: 1)don't go into NYC and 2)to turn on the

tv right away, I caught the last few seconds of an emergency report on
the first crash. Then, moments later, I watched, live, the second plane

crash into the South Tower. When I saw the huge, rising plumes of
smoke, I thought: what did I just see? Then I thought: what is in that smoke? where is it
heading? how many people are going to breathe that stuff? I wondered
whether the towers were going to fall over or down, whether the
surrounding buildings would all be crushed, whether the gas-lines were
going to snap, ignite, and then explode. I wondered how many children
had just died, how the people on the floors above the crash had prepared

to die. It wasn't until 12 hours later that I heard--and thought--about

a cinematic connection to the events. You go home from movies (or eject

the videotape); none of us can ever go home from this catasrophe.

I feel certain that this is not the end of the acts of terrorism---not
even close. Something awful--maybe more awful--is brewing. There was
too much planning for this set of acts, too much time taken, for me to
think that this was the whole event. We'll all obsess about Osama
bin-Laden and his henchmen, but he is far too smart and practiced for me

to believe that his capture and death will amount to an end of terror.
In fact, there is general agreement that he has surely instructed the
various terrorist-cells around the world that the moment he is captured
and/or assasinated, terrorists around the world are to act according to
a longstanding plan for extremist retribution. Blown up buildings,
germ-warfare, internet scrambling, local and national disasters, nuclear

weapons....who knows? Probably the point is that we cannot fully
imagine what will be next. And the fact that we are all looking over
our shoulders and at the skies is an indication of how effective this
single set of terrorist acts has been. Paranoia on a national level
(actually a multi-national level) is as effective a means of disrupting
a society as most others ways.

Some of the analysts are saying, with gravity and deep voices, that we
have been "naive for too long" about terrorism. Who's "we"? And if
"we" had been less naive? What would "we" have done? Obviously, such
analysts are referring to those in a position to do something(s)
specific about these potential attacks-- the military, the state
department, the FBI and CIA, etc. But what could anyone have done to
have prevented these suicide attacks? How does one stop a death-plane a

few thousand feet away from a skyscraper? How many warplanes would we
have to have in the sky at once to have been able to shoot one of the
hi-jacked planes out of the sky? And is that what we will have to arm
ourselves to do now? Prepare our flying forces and surface-to-air guns
and missiles to shoot plane-loads of our own people to avoid having a
250-passenger plane become a weapon capable of killing thousands? How
perfect for terrorists--- to be able to watch, now, as the U.S. gears up

to defend ourselves against such weapons.

When I tell the kids that things will be all right now, they know I
can't say that with certainty. They know that it's wishful thinking.
They hear the words "The new war" and are afraid.....as am I. As if we
are still living in the 19th century, people still talk about wars as
fights that can be won. I don't believe wars can be won anymore.
People will be lost, land will be destroyed, buildings incinerated, ways

of life evaporated....but what will a "win" look like? How many 'rogue'

nations will we have to level? Do we still think body-counts are a fair

measure of who is winning and losing?

Probably we should just watch Israel and do whatever the Israelis
suggest. For the entire lifetime of Israel, its people have had to
fight off enemies just to continue to exist as a nation. Israel has
been surrounded by terrorists for 50 years. Somehow, Israel has
survived. Of course, Israel has had to kill thousands to do so.

In tiny nations around the world, civil wars have resulted in the deaths

of 5 and 10% of populations-- gigantic numbers of people lost to
skirmishes for land, religious dominance, political sovereignty.... and
now, in the U.S., two one-thousandths of our population has been
murdered, and the entire nation fears for its existence....and rightly
so.

This is not a cheery greeting, I'm afraid....but this stuff is so
crammed into the 'front' of my mind, I don't know what to do with
it/myself. I hope you are well, and safe and warm... I hope D. is
feeling better and that your kids can learn all they can about what's
going on without becoming numb or apathetic or bored. This is not a
time for apathy or boredom or narcissism or anasthesia. I don't know
for sure what any of us should be doing, but it's not a bad start to
appreciate what we have, who we share it with, and the fact that, for
now, we are alive and can at least hope for a survivable future.

Whew.

I love you, talk to you soon....and happy (early) birthday.

The dark brother from the north.


--------


Michael-
Yours was not a depressing dark letter, but rather a wake up call to all those who might begin to feel relaxed that nothing else seems to be happening. We have to rely on our government to make some correct choices, but that doesn't mean we should feel safe because of them. Our sense of safeness has been compromised so that we all have eyes in the back of our heads. We need to be more aware of all surroundings- who is eating at the table next to you, who is sitting in the movie theater, who might
accidentally bump into you when you were walking on a crowded street. It's sad that we don't feel safe anymore, but it is important
that we have a heightened sense of awareness too. I guess I always thought that our country was too remote, too powerful,
guarded too closely to ever have anything this awful happen. Now I walk around with this cowardly feeling fear that I might take a
drink one day and die 30 seconds later, or worse, my kids might go on a bus trip and the bus could blow up. I don't feel like I can
protect anyone anymore. However, I think this fear will soon pass and change to outrage and defensiveness. We would love to
catch all the bin Ladens in the world and rip them apart piece by piece, but others will inevitably pop up somewhere else. They
have always been around, like AIDS, we just didn't open our coddled eyes wide enough. Now we are aware- maybe we SHOULD
learn from Israel! I am always an optimist so I feel that maybe there is a light somewhere. We all have to try and think that way. [J.E.]

9/19/01

that day