novella
Active Member
Art Spiegelman’s new book “In the Shadow of No Towers” is getting reviewed now and will be released in a week or two. Some say it has a raw, incomplete feeling, understandably. I can’t wait to see it. His Maus, I think, is one of the great masterpieces, getting straight to the heart of the matter in places just by going beyond “reality” into the psychological weirdness that tragic disruptions and grief incur.
Some of the most touching, immediate accounts of 9/11 I remember so vividly because of their particulars. Some guys from my hometown (where the plane crashed in Nov. 2001) were interviewed by this shitty local hometown paper. These guys were working on the ground as vollie ambulance drivers, cops, and firemen. What they said was heartstopping. Way more powerful than anything in the major media.
We come from an ocean-beach town where everyone spends their entire childhood in the surf, with a peeling nose and salty hair. One guy described running north away from the towers and being lifted up by the blast like riding a huge wave that crashed him against the pavement of Chambers Street blocks away. You could feel his visceral experience in his words, the way he would hold his breath and try to go with it.
BTW, a little-known fact: does anyone remember the fireman—Mike Moran—who went on TV with various bigwigs and told Osama to kiss his “royal Irish ass”? When that plane crashed in on Nov. 12 that year, it hit the ground down the block from Moran’s house. Everyone was certain (some still are) that it was intentional.
Novella
Some of the most touching, immediate accounts of 9/11 I remember so vividly because of their particulars. Some guys from my hometown (where the plane crashed in Nov. 2001) were interviewed by this shitty local hometown paper. These guys were working on the ground as vollie ambulance drivers, cops, and firemen. What they said was heartstopping. Way more powerful than anything in the major media.
We come from an ocean-beach town where everyone spends their entire childhood in the surf, with a peeling nose and salty hair. One guy described running north away from the towers and being lifted up by the blast like riding a huge wave that crashed him against the pavement of Chambers Street blocks away. You could feel his visceral experience in his words, the way he would hold his breath and try to go with it.
BTW, a little-known fact: does anyone remember the fireman—Mike Moran—who went on TV with various bigwigs and told Osama to kiss his “royal Irish ass”? When that plane crashed in on Nov. 12 that year, it hit the ground down the block from Moran’s house. Everyone was certain (some still are) that it was intentional.
Novella