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December 12, 2005
Recent History
This New York Times article on a movie set mockup of the World Trade Center site being built for an Oliver Stone film about 9/11 (more specifically, about two rescue workers) is not actually very interesting. But this paragraph struck me:
The scene is even eerier inside the old airplane hangar, where the production team rebuilt a portion of the World Trade Center concourse - complete with period handbags in the Coach storefront, clothing in the Banana Republic windows and shoes from Johnston & Murphy.
"Period handbags." Those two words speak volumes about our historical imagination. What I remember -- what everyone remembers about that day is where they were. What they were doing, who they were with, how they knew. For New Yorkers, of course, the event means something far more intense than for anyone else. And yet the process of history -- which happens inside our collective imagination -- has already begun to create distance between our lives now and that day.
"Period handbags." That fall morning, did I walk into a period high school, wearing period jeans and a period sweatshirt, ready to play in period wind ensemble on my period bassoon on my period reed? Did I watch the period tower fall at 6:59 am Pacific time on a period television? Did I make a period call on a period telephone to my period mother? And did I write a period blog entry on a period blog using period software on a period computer on the period internet?
sidenote: one thing's for sure, I was a bad writer. Period.
In fact, I did: life was different then. Then again, I didn't: so many of those "period" elements are still here. Or, if not, there are their echoes. We are held together through the passage of time by flimsy threads of meaning. It is true that those meanings are sometimes consciously woven. It is also true that they weave themselves -- often almost imperceptibly, and always immediately. It is the relative historical immediacy that astounds me. September 11, 2001, was just over four years ago. Only four years! And how much was different then, for you?
Posted by David Richmond at December 12, 2005 12:50 PM EST
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Comments
Great reading, keep up the great posts.
Peace, JiggaDigga
Posted by: JiggaDigga at April 7, 2006 1:45 AM