Tuesday, September 11, 2007

September 11, 2001

I have no idea how to properly commemorate the terrorist attacks of 9/11. There are so many conflicting emotions and memories. All I have to offer today is this rather ambiguous image.

In the hours after the towers fell, thousands of pieces of paper fell from the sky. There were pages from manuals, private correspondence, printed emails, corporate policy statements, stock evaluations, manifestos, and all the other imaginable materials from the daily work life in America. This was the first piece of paper to fall in front of our apartment directly downwind in Brooklyn. It appears to be a part of a page from a dictionary.


4 comments:

suttonhoo said...

so powerful. so poignant.

so wide open and full of pain.

Scott Walters said...

The charred scrap looks to be from a thesaurus, a place where words are not defined so much as sifted through in search of the right one. As such the photo suggests the frustrating inadequacy of words in the face of horror and the desperate need we humans have to find a few that are still somehow faithful to, or point vaguely toward our experience.

Lovely work, Aric.

- A long lost friend in Little Rock.

Aric Mayer said...

Scott,

Thanks for your addition. I would extend that frustrating inadequacy to pictures as well. And there too we have such a need that to find a few that come close to the experience itself.

It is great to hear from you.

Anonymous said...

RETALIATION: How amazing that is the word in the center of the charred piece of dictionary/thesaurus that floated down to your front stoop. This is not a pro- / anti-war statement... I'd prefer to leave justice and "retaliation" up to God. But, it's amazing to me that you captured this at the time you captured it.