9.15.2001
posted by fred solinger 4:41 PM
are you ready for some football?: we need football. the pros and colleges have mostly called off their schedules this week, so we find it where we can, where political and security concerns are a null issue: peewee football. my nephews -- numbers 44 and 80 in your program, but numbers 1 and 1a in your hearts -- play for the team in their town...no, no, after watching today's display, they are the team in their town. sure, they lost 13-7, but that's hardly the point.the point is this: this is life. this is normalcy. this is kids playing football on a cool saturday afternoon. the game really has no implication, and it shows as i watched them play in the mud on the sideline. but listen to that: they were playing in the mud on the sideline. these are kids being kids and, thankfully, they're not incredibly affected by this week's atrocities. after the game, they weren't sullen for losing; they wished me a happy birthday and fooled around: i talked about the extra padding on their bellies, they mocked the "wet paper towels" that comprised the "muscles" (quotes, theirs) of my arms.
i bought a red, white & blue ribbon the cheerleaders had made and my fee is going to the red cross. you couldn't really escape it, even coming here. but you didn't see a people defeated. hell, i was assured to see that, even during these troubled times, grown men can still be whipped into a frenzy by little kids playing sports. leaving the game, i had the strong desire to throw the football around and i might just do that. the terrorists may have hit the wtc and the pentagon, but their real targets are still standing.
9.14.2001
posted by fred solinger 8:41 PM
oh, i've finished reading jonathan franzen's the corrections and would love to say something intelligent about it, but what i said below about music applies equally to books. i actually completed reading the last 60 pages or so while i kept up with the news on tuesday, though i've since reread those pages since they obviously didn't have my full attention at the time, and they most assuredly deserved them. it's an excellent book, but for now all i'll say is that it's like white noise and the crying of lot 49 sung to the tune of "i'll be home for christmas." that's right.
posted by fred solinger 8:36 PM
the pointlessness of it all: tim makes some valid points about how difficult it is to write about pop music/culture following the events of this past week. as usual, he's right. i mean, i can tell you that i bought the new chemical brothers single, "it began in afrika," and that i was ABSOLUTELY freaked out by the ominous voice that intones the title phrase at song's beginning (and don't get me started on the lion noises!).i bought jay-z's new album on wednesday. others have talked about the superior quality of the music, so i will instead say that these are the most opulent sleevenotes i've ever seen. i mean, he really includes a blueprint. it's as rich as the backing music and as bling as jay himself. part of me, though, thinks he'll regret that back cover photo and its, um, implications. (i wonder what kind of week this will be for record sales. i'm sure def jam was betting on a big opening for jay-z.)
right now, i'm listening to "xanadu" by olivia newton-john. it's warm and enveloping and paints a picture of a world far more enticing than the one we currently find ourselves in, even if jeff lynne does live there. it's not frightening like the chemical brothers, or intense like jay-z, or melancholic enough to bring me to tears like mercury rev. it's, as they say, just right.
posted by fred solinger 3:52 PM
last night, i was stirred...no, that's far too calm and casual. i was FUCKING FRIGHTENED OUT OF MY MIND when i was awoken by a bolt of thunder that seemed to rend the air into shreds. of course, when we wake up, we're not at our steadiest and most rational and i figured we were under attack or something. this whole week i've gotten up in the middle of the night and put on the news, afraid that some vital piece of information relating to our security may have been revealed while i was slumbering.
posted by fred solinger 3:42 PM
in hoboken, again: as far as work is concerned, this week has turned out to be a wash; as far as the rest goes, i don't need to tell you that absolutely nothing will ever wash away what we've been through as a country. as soon as i got in i was told by my boss that we could leave once we got done whatever was urgent; i was hard-pressed to think of anything that could be considered "urgent" in the world of consumer marketing, though i knew what needed to be done, and that's just about all we did this week.i left at 11 or so, only two others were in my path train car: one was a woman dressed all in black and the other was a man holding, and i'm not exaggerating, at least 20 flags, and wearing a red & blue jacket and a u.s.a. hat. i figured that the woman was wearing the standard manhattan uniform -- basic black, worn by several other females i saw later -- and that the guy didn't lose anyone he loved in the wtc. personally, i was dressed all in black with a black umbrella -- yeah, i got that e-mail but i find little to celebrate today, besides the way that the country has pulled together: it's a day of mourning, not the 4th of july.
i had two hours until my train came and so i headed towards the park in hoboken once again. it was raining and cloudy and just nasty in general and it all seemed painfully appropriate. the smoke has, essentially, cleared; the remaining cloud, despite being more sinister in its appearance and its genesis, blended in well with the others.
extending from the railing that keeps us all from falling into the hudson and catching, quite literally, our death are small, square wooden boards whose purpose i can't divine except for the purpose all carvable objects eventually serve, i.e. the victims of hearts and love 4-ever and declarations that so-and-so was here. on a few of the boards, someone scrawled what can only be deemed emo lyrics. "i want you to know how hard it is to get over you..." unbearably earnest sentiments that, when spoken with your own voice, seem to work whereas, when sung by someone unbearably earnest, they never do. "i keep remembering how you fucking broke my heart..." probably written by a drunk kid in the dead of night months and months ago about some girl but now, for me, standing in the rain and soaking in the broken landscape, he's had his context pulled right out from underneath him. today, if i had my own wooden board, the miserablist lyric my inner 16 year-old would add would be: "i wear black on the outside because black is how i feel on the inside."
9.13.2001
posted by fred solinger 7:19 PM
on the train: okay, today was a bit more like it. sure, only a small handful of people got on the train, including a carribean man who was beside himself when he realized that the hijackers only had knives and yet no one tried to stop them on all flights but one. i've thought similarly until i heard that they told passengers that they had a bomb -- how do you know for sure? how would even an air marshal know, really?today was about quiet on the train, it was about having your own seat -- while most business above 14th st. were going back to work, it sure didn't seem that way to the trained eye of the commuter. normally, by the fifth stop or so, there'd be someone trying to squeeze in beside you ("can i get in there?"), forcing you to change the positioning of your legs. and that's just the ones who got seats; a place to sit, by bergen county, comes at a premium. but, no, today silence reigned.
the path train to 33rd st., on the other hand, was comfortably full and fully uncomfortable -- a fact which made me want to kiss the swollen knee of the portly gentleman who squeezed in next to me. prior to departure, i made a quick scan of the contents of the train: there were the three early twentysomethings, just out of school, who get out at 23rd st.; there's the gay guy who's on my train who walks really fast; oh, look, there's the elderly woman who's always reading the bible and who seems to be on her second go-round by now. i've never spoken to any of these people, don't even know their names (though i've assigned them ones according to their personality traits), and yet if i didn't see them, my day would be even more off; in their own anonymous way, they lend balance to the proceedings, particularly in these trying times.
i don't even want to think about those who took the world trade center train, a train i took myself for a month until construction began on the n/r subway line and necessitated me finding a new route, after which i never looked back. i took comfort -- after tuesday, the meaning of words and their relationships with each other were changed forever -- i took comfort in believing that their businesses were destroyed and they had no reason to come in to the city, even as many companies begin having meetings at temporary headquarters throughout the city. didn't want to think that there used to be two trains that went to the world trade center, leaving every four minutes and filled to capacity and beyond, and that, while this train was full, it wasn't quite full enough.
when i arrived home, to the train station lot, i looked around. i'm trying not to think about the fact that that blue ford was here tuesday morning, was here after my four hour exodus out of new york, was here yesterday morning when i ventured alone into new york and that afternoon when i got back, is here now and it hasn't moved from the same spot. i'm really trying.
9.12.2001
posted by fred solinger 5:42 PM
in hoboken: i am an idiot. it's been said before, it's being said now, and it will, rest assured, be said again. i went into work today. despite the fact that giuliani was asking those who could stay home to do so. i, worker bee, obviously couldn't afford to stay home; i had IMPORTANT work to do. plus, i'd left early yesterday (not knowing when the others left -- which turned out to be 10:30). plus, i didn't want to be the only one who didn't show up, despite the fact that i was coming from jersey.i was one of ten or so people in the entire company who showed. the only other person in my department who showed came in from long island; his reasoning was the same as mine. we were anathema to each other: we reminded each other of our own stupidity and unwitting arrogance (we apparently saw ourselves as more valuable than our boss, the head of the department, etc.) as we left, we vowed that we had not seen each other, quiet as kept. he strolled off to penn station, ready to walk onto a 10:15 train as it was about to leave. i, on the other hand, victim, slave of new jersey transit, had to wait until 1:47. a cursory glance at my watch indicated it was 9:15. groan.
i had a nice walking tour of hoboken, walking around aimlessly for about an hour trying to find a cab. i was willing to pay whatever price to get back the hours i'd lose by being stuck in hoboken for so long. i was ready to sully myself, to do things i wouldn't normally do. when i failed, i made my way to the park off of sinatra drive (that's FRANK sinatra, the kid from hoboken) and took in the manhattan skyline as i'd done countless times before. it'd be my first time to drink in the whole thing, the altered landscape, in person.
i stopped in my tracks when i saw the smoke plume which was headed towards jersey now. the skyline seemed a whole lot less impressive without its twin jewels. i looked at the decimated buildings and thought of the decimated lives, and i was not alone. the park was full today with all sorts, the closest thing to a vigil our modern times will allow, the sense of peace broken every so often by beethoven's 9th emanating from someone's cell.
though i've seen the world trade center countless times i couldn't place it in the landscape. i could see it in my mind, could picture it, but i couldn't drop it down into its former neighborhood, which began to upset me. i realized that the only way i'll ever see those buildings again is in the endless video on television or in the theater of my mind. before too long, i stop and think about how i'm eulogizing a building when there are people out there who'll only ever see loved ones again in their memories. it seems the mourning is out of proportion, that the buildings are receiving just as much remembrance as those who've passed. i imagine that that'll all change as the death count amasses, and yet i pray that we'll all be tremendously underwhelmed, if such a thing is possible where lives are concerned, by the human loss, that figures like "1300 feet tall" and "110 stories" will dwarf the final toll.
9.11.2001
posted by fred solinger 2:35 PM
escape from new york: took the last path train from
33rd st. was to go to hoboken and journal square.
ended up going to journal square. our conductor passed
out. co-worker and i were left in journal square, a
long way from hoboken. we walked for an hour. we took
a cab until our money ran out. we took directions from
people who didn't know better. we neared our
destination and were told that train weren't even
LEAVING from hoboken. a guy, a saint (john, God bless
you), offered to take us home, said we needed to be
with our families. john's brother and cousin were in
the wtc and he hadn't heard from them. he just needed
to get out, to talk to people. he dropped us off at my
co-worker's, wished him the best. co-worker drove me
home. trip took 3.5 hours. but we're alive. and so is
mike, i'm glad to see.started this morning when a co-worker said she'd seen
a plane hit the wtc. i thought it was just a little
cessna, an accident. and then it all happened, so
quickly too. we stepped out of our building, about 6
miles from the wtc, and all we saw was smoke, like an
angry storm cloud descended upon new york. i'm just
NOW seeing the destruction and i can't believe it. i
just can't believe it. people crawling out of windows
and jumping. heartrending. to all who know anyone in
any of the areas under attack, all of my thoughts and
prayers are with you.
9.10.2001
posted by fred solinger 7:25 PM
new article: yes, a new article by yours truly will appear on freaky trigger by tomorrow (? possibly? mebbe?) but as a valued vs&l reader, i'll afford you the opportunity to read the...ready?...first paragraph here before you can see it anywhere else! readership has its rewards!for the record, it's a review of mercury rev's all is dream, which is released in this country tomorrow. (and while there, since it's my birthday saturday, and since a boy only turns 24 once, why not buy me something as well?) without further chicanery, that opening paragraph...
With their 1995 album See You on the Other Side, Mercury Rev created a world for the listener to inhabit. It was a world where adagios and allegros lived together in peace, where the boundaries of the staff were not strictly enforced, where tones were free to be polygamous; sounds of different colors, genres, and creeds coexisted harmoniously. World building is a difficult thing to do and takes a lot out of a band – don’t believe me, just ask the Lord – and maintaining it is nearly as difficult, so for their follow-up, 1998’s Deserter’s Songs, they staked out one particular corner, an America romanticized, as only a Canadian can do, by Robbie Robertson, only more inhabitable and, therefore, less realistic. Deserter’s Songs, whose childlike sense of awe and wonder concealed a masterful sense of composition, hearkened back to an era when there were still frontiers unexplored and riches undiscovered. As it begins, All is Dream, the new album, is what happens when one gets lost in the unlit backwoods of America, when astonishment gives way to fright, when the fairy tales are stripped away and the nightmare sets in. On All is Dream, Mercury Rev leave the confines of their upstate New York estate, with the listener in tow, only to find themselves lost in a world of their own making.
appetite whetted? can't wait for MORE? keep your eyes -- oh, like you need to be told! -- on ft.
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