If you have a fondness for the absurd, you might like something I saw today at the New Yorker website, which has of late been compiling and publishing answers to a series of 9/11 questions put to many of their regular contributors. The questions are:
- What were you thinking about, or working on, the day the attacks occurred?
- Did 9/11 change your work plans?
- Are there places you’ve gone, or people you’ve met, that you wouldn’t have if not for 9/11?
- Is New York a different city for you now?
- Is there one image or scene that evokes that day for you?
- What piece of work to emerge from 9/11 has stayed with you the most?
This morning I was reading the responses of Nick Paumgarten, who edits the magazine’s Talk of the Town section. In a strange way, they were both predictable and compelling. He had been in the magazine’s midtown office when the first tower was struck, and had immediately taken a taxi as far south as the cabbie would drive. He had then seen with the naked eye a few of the events that followed. His answer to the fifth question was:
The sight of the people jumping from the towers, one after another. I was quite close to that. It was horrific.
At the end of his answers, there is a single reader comment, and it goes like this:
I just got a $829.99 iPad2 for only $103.37 and my mom got a $1499.99 HDTV for only $251.92, they are both coming with USPS tomorrow. I would be an idiot ever to pay full retail prices at places like Walmart or Bestbuy. I sold a 37” HDTV to my boss for $600 that I only paid $78.24 for. I use BidsFresh.com
My country, tis of thee I sing.
