WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
![[5 Out of] 21 Vintage Snapshots Of Woman in Killer Sunglasses](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Women-In-Sunglasses-Vintage-Snapshot-Photos-18-768x967-1.jpg "[5 Out of] 21 Vintage Snapshots Of Woman in Killer Sunglasses")
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles –
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Gary Snyder
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
— BY THEODORE ROETHKE
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Comments on this entry are closed.
Gosh, witness to the world’s largest “controlled demolition”….Special.
My son was born August 31st, 2001, so I always know how long ago 9-11 was.
Surely the taker of this photo realized that something unbelievably horrific was going on, yet he posed this little boy for the photo. What kind of person would do this?
@Lynne, Keep in mind that tarriss had the pedal to the floor and that jet was going maybe 500+ mph (something like 6 miles a second), so when that person knelt to take that pik the 1st jet was off in the distance and probably of no concern (jets are over NYC all day long) and by the time they focused, told the kid to say cheesecakearooni, and then clicked, the jet made it’s impromptu appearance.
Uncanny? Yes.
Planned retardation? Doubtful.
It might have been a *she* that took the pik.
Notice how the other strolling pedestrians seem unconcerned – how cruel of them. heh
@ghostsniper — I don’t think your scenario checks out. That pic looks to me like both planes had hit some time earlier (note how dark the tower in the background looks mid-way down). And if the first plane had hit while the shot was being set up, we’d likely see flame in the smoke cloud and debris still in the air. And I’m not sure the pedestrians look “unconcerned” to me. I have the impression their pace is fairly quick, and they do all seem to be northbound. Before the towers actually collapsed, a lot of the folks leaving the area were more quietly shocked or kind of grumpy, if anything, rather than panicked.
While the kid’s binoculars might just be standard tourist equipment, I think it possible that he and his parent(s) came from their nearby home specifically to see what all the fuss was about, and to get a few shots of a pretty spectacular event in their neighborhood.
Lynne might consider it callous or ghoulish to behave in such fashion, I think it’s important to consider the moment, and the shock and cognitive dissonance that surrounded it. I myself was working in Midtown that day (made my way home, Dunkirk-like, via a ferry to Hoboken), and remember the shock and distance I felt — how weird it was to be in the presence of an event of such magnitude, and not having had time to process its significance. If I’d been where they were, with a camera in hand, I would likely have snapped some pics too, and if I was the sort of parent prone to photo-document my kid’s every move, I might well have done so here as well.
Geez, what is the world coming to when Ghostsniper is the sane one…
Could be wrong but, wasn’t the first plane to hit the highest?
(the 2nd plane was lower on the building?)
Also, notice the hole on this side of the building, the entry point?, thus the exiting debris would be on the opposite side?
Hey, it’s been 16 years and my memory may not be as crisp.
I was trying to blow Capt Browns brain housing group by coming up with a kinder reason.
I’m not familiar enough with the physical layout to be sure where the pic was taken, and which tower is the nearest. But the selfie phenomenon shows that people are weird, in that way. A bad car wreck will happen, and you will see folks doing selfies with the wreck in the background, steam rising, injured passengers still in the wrecked cars. This is not uncommon at all. It might have been uncommon in 2001, but it isn’t now.
I agree with ghostsniper, I don’t think those people on the bridge are yet aware of what’s happened behind them. Directly behind the little boy’s head is a person who’s stopped dead in his tracks and is staring at the disaster. Near the middle of the picture is one man who’s turning around to look. Maybe he sees the horror on the faces of people approaching looking up and behind him, and he’s turning to see what’s happening. The others are just minding their own business for a few seconds longer. At that distance, the normal thing would be to stop and stare. It’s not close enough for people to be fleeing in fear yet.
Man you guys clearly suck at photo interpretation. Based on the building to the left in the picture the little boy is about a block north of 230 W. St. He’s on the Hudson River Greenway. We’re looking South since the shadows are falling to the right in the picture. WTC1 (North tower) is the one in front and has clearly been hit from the North side. WTC2 has already been hit lower so it probably 10-15 minutes after the second plane hit at 9:03. The fireball has dissipated and smoke is coming from around the 78th floor (dark area) A picture taken from the southwest at about the same time can be seen at: http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/attack/docs1/amanz/wtc9.jpg
As to why the person took the picture, you have no idea what they saw or didn’t see that morning… maybe they just walked across the street after getting up and saw the buildings on fire. Judging those you know nothing about is a task best left for Liberals. The photographer took a picture of a child at a moment in historic time….
Moments of shock and awe can make people do strange things.
Grandson same age as the kiddo in the photo and looked about the same.
I can imagine trying to distract the child by doing something normal…or maybe she just wasn’t paying attention to what was going on up in the air. Who knows.
You would have been surprised at how little noise it all made. people at that distance didn’t hear a thing. Only turned their backs to look when someone said, “hey, look at that?” Towers didn’t make a noise till they hit the street.
@Casey – our son too on 9/6/01. His due date was 9/11.
My wife spent many many nights after that trying to nurse our son at 2-3am while watching news coverage of searching for bodies, tears streaming down her face.
It’s hard for others to comprehend it but let me tell you, it’s quite an extraordinary emotional experience to have a baby and feel good about the world around you and the future ahead of your new child … and then a few days later, 19 despicable pieces of garbage murder a bunch of innocent people with airplane bombs because they hate everything about you, your religion, your history, and your civilization.
And now the planes and bombs and even the muslims are gone (for now) but what remains is a vast host of your fellow countrymen so crazed that “they hate everything about you, your religion, your history, and your civilization.”
The enemy is inside the gate, and you put them there if you are a voter.
My wife’s birthday is today. I’ll never forget it. Why are we still in Afghanistan? Guarding the opium? Empires die there I’m told.
@chris : +1
Objective truth and sanity
toastsniffer publicly effs up again.