Due to illness, I ha
ven’t been updating this as much as I’d like. But as I’ve been watching the fallout from the earthquake in Haiti, I’ve been reminded—as we all have—of the various disasters of the past decade. Last night’s celebrity-studded telethon reminded me of the tsunami in late 2004, and the images of the destruction are of course reminiscent of Sept. 11. But what has struck me about this situation, as with the others, is how we manage to rise to the occasion and take care of our fellow human beings. (No comment on Hurricane Katrina.)
We wouldn’t need to scramble in these kinds of situations if the pre-existing conditions were better for all involved, unfortunately, but that’s a different argument for a different time. Instead, I’d like to present something I started to write nearly 10 years ago as a memoir of sorts about the emotions I had around 9/11. Given the subject, the theme’s a little more “yay America!” when it comes to lauding recovery efforts, though the events of the past few weeks definitely show once again that humanity itself is pretty resilient. (This excellent piece on NPR’s “The Story” the other night proves that.)
This piece was also never finished. I apparently started getting into the nuances of patriotism vs. dissent, but didn’t complete the thought. So I’m just sticking to the relatively schmoopy parts here.
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In the summer of 2001, I had a girl’s weekend with my best friend. We went on a road trip to Lake Tahoe, stayed in my cousin’s cabin for a night and went to see the Counting Crows perform at Caesar’s Palace on the South Shore. Looking back, I can remember a few moments that took away from the reverie of the trip, including the tricky navigation of the curves of Highway 89 along the lake’s western shore on a moonless night.
But what most made an impression was a comment by the opening act, Glen Phillips of Toad The Wet Sprocket. Of course, I can’t remember the context of what he said, only that it was part of the typical musician’s ad-lib before a song. He commented on the fall of the once-infallible Rome, and said something along the lines of “Who knows how long this American empire is going to last?” It sent shivers up my spine. At that point in time, the idea of our society falling seemed as fantastical as those apocalyptic visions illustrated in films such as The Terminator or Independence Day. My mind just wouldn’t go there.
Last week’s entry regarding my time at the DTH made me think of this piece, which I wrote in late 2007. See, my main gig at the DTH—all four years—was reviewing movies. Most of the time, they were split between heavy-duty art-house films and insipid popcorn flicks. But over time, I got used to it. There was a definite pattern to writing reviews…and it was always much more fun to trash the bad movies. (And as the photo suggests, in my early days on the arts desk, we awarded feet instead of stars.)
I’d always known that at least on a relative scale, my family was doing all right. My parents came from different economic backgrounds—my mother was the only daughter of a wealthy small-town doctor while my dad was one of five kids in a working-class neighborhood—but both were college graduates who worked hard to create the suburban enclave where my brother and I grew up. Those varied backgrounds sometimes clashed when it came to relatively small matters like after-school jobs, but we were never overly indulged. In contrast to some of my peers, I got a hand-me-down minivan when I turned 16 instead of a souped-up sports car, and my parents only grudgingly allowed me my own phone in my teenage years while friends of mine had their own home entertainment centers.
