Month: September 2008

I only shot sporadically yesterday, and a lot of my shots just weren’t all that great. What are you going to do?  Here they are, for better or worse.  This is a beam from one of the towers that they had down at Battery Park, where people could line up to sign it.

Outside St. Paul’s and in front of the site was a long line of conspiracy theorists.  Over on Broadway, an all day long shouting match took place between the craziest of them and family members of the people who were killed that day.  Apparently one of the theories is that 9/11 never happened.  That can’t be right though.  I mean, the towers are gone.  The hole in the ground is still there, right there.  I’m not sure if that’s a rumor going around to make these people seem even crazier or if some of them really believe that.

The following is a few shots from the lunch Barbara and I organized for the volunteers.  I didn’t get any great shots.  Whenever I’m in host mode I’m very distracted and oddly distant.  I have to oversee and don’t focus in very well.  Like, I noticed my friend Cori has a great new haircut (I was jealous!) and I think I forgot to mention it.  I thought it, but didn’t say it outloud.  Plus, I didn’t get a good picture of her and Jim!  (Overcome with envy, proabably.) So please forgive me everyone who I didn’t get a decent picture of.

And finally, even though it didn’t come out, I woke up during the night, looked out my window and saw the Tower of Lights and photographed it, even though I was half asleep.

For some reason I thought of this old post just now. It’s one of my personal favorites. I cracked myself up. It’s from September, 2006.

What is not communicated in this photograph was the two minutes of crying at the ceiling and me trying to figure out what was wrong.

The conversation.

Buddy: Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.
Me: What??
Buddy: Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.
Me: What??

The same conversation, translated.

Buddy: Aliens! There are aliens in the ceiling! Help me! I cannot fight them alone.
Me: What??
Buddy: What? Are you deaf?? Aliens! ALIENS. For the love of GOD. Here they come. God help us.
Me: What??

I organized a reunion lunch of 9/11 volunteers with Barbara Horn (no relation but we’re honorary cousins) so I’ll be heading downtown for that.  I plan to take plenty of pictures.  In the meantime, here is one of my furry heroes.

God do I love Dennis Overbye’s writing.  Here’s how he started today’s Times article about turning on the LHC.  “Science rode a beam of subatomic particles and a river of champagne into the future on Wednesday.” It was turned on early this morning, just a few hours ago actually, at 4:27 a.m.   

And no one got swallowed up. YET. Ha.  Once again, just kidding, but I have to point out that according to Overbye, and everything else I’ve read, this thing has to rev up for a while before anything really happens.

So, it’s exciting, but sad. The United States has lost yet another lead.  From Overbye’s piece, “In 1993, the United States Congress canceled plans for an even bigger collider and more powerful machine, the Superconducting Supercollider, after its cost ballooned to $11 billion. That collider, its former director Roy Schwitters of the University of Texas in Austin said recently, would have been in operation around 2001.”  

What did we spend $11 billion instead?  Exactly.  

The picture is Moran’s, a tavern on Washington at Rector.  “Our landmark location, built in 1897, was formally an inn and later became St. George’s Chapel during the Depression in 1929. St. George’s Chapel catered to the local merchants and residents, which were mostly of Syrian Catholic descent. This area came to be known as “Little Syria.” In 1979 the church retired, and the Moran family acquired and converted the site and began operating on Dec. 26, 1986.”

Back from breakfast.  It’s pouring and thundering, so I don’t know about going back out there except for choir tonight.  Current Working Sluggage Excuse:  I don’t know if I mentioned it, but a Chinese publisher bought the rights to Waiting For My Cats to Die so a Chinese edition will be coming out.  I’m so excited.  I can’t wait to see what it looks like.  Will anyone in China read it?? Excuse-wise, I can kick back and relax because pretty soon I’m going to be read in a country with a way lot of people, right?

I took this picture this morning at Veselka, at 2nd Avenue and 9th Street.