While I have promised to continue with the tale of endless sorrow- the sound job in which everything goes wrong -I take this moment to bring you my heart felt thoughts about my experience of the 911 ceremonies at ground zero, and how I spent the day of September 11, 2006. Seeing as construction is scheduled to start and this will be the last 911 ceremony at the site itself, I felt it appropriate to share these thoughts.
I have chosen to let the story be told through it’s sounds. And here they are…
10:05 AM
The day begins and we head out into the city. This "we" consists of Shen, her friend Lyjia, and myself. On the way there we discuss where we were on that day, and what we were doing. I realize that five years later, this single event has to these overlapping generations that bore it witness the same form as the scarring, character deforming quality as the assassination of President Kennedy held for it’s generation. We speak of many other things as the conversation organically branches out in exploration of digressions to such matters as our CIA orchestrated overthrow of the Chilean government, and how it was like for Shen's friend to attend a school were soldiers would march in and simply take students out of their class rooms, never to be seen again.
11:28AM
We get off the train at Chambers street, and we hit the streets in the direction of the largest mass grave in the United States, Ground Zero, formerly known as the home of the World Trade Center. Although the building complex consisted of several structures, far more than the two signature slivers of steel and glass that on a cloudy day poked through the cloud cover, we all simply called it ''the twin towers''. Even though the ceremonies by now are well on their way, the streets are still bristling with the electric energy of activity. We pas an entire block of satellite uplink trucks belonging to the various media organizations documenting or exploiting the event, as their individual cases and agendas may happen to be.
The Sounds of Ground Zero
The street was full of people, some whom we passed were walking away, either having seen what they came to see, or otherwise family members who had simply had enough and had to get away. It is terrible enough to commemorate the tragic loss of a loved one. It is far worse for some when your loss is part of such a larger, emotionally scarring historical event, as were the attacks that took place on September 11. People over time absorb and forget wars and plane crashes, but this was something more. It has taken five years for me to actually be able to bring myself to take pictures there at that site. I felt somehow that it was wrong.
Everyone we pass is quietly lost in his or her thoughts. It was a remarkable contrast to Ground Zero itself, which was full of the sounds of people milling about, others in clusters here and there discussing their views of what happened there five years earlier. At random locations you could see single, solitary soldiers in full dress uniform, oblivious of the mass of people thronging about them. There faces betrayed the emotions boiling within them, almost contradicting their stance of attention. Soft murmurs where punctuated by the sharp exclamation points of NYPD with bullhorns shouting to 'please keep moving' and that they must 'keep the sidewalk clear'. This was a difficult enough task with the emotions running high as they were. We walk by a group of demonstrating Buddhists, beating taiko drums and meditating for peace. Others are there with their agendas of enlightening the public to their theories of what actually took place here.
I am amazed to find firemen and conspiracy theorists politely discussing their polar views of what actually transpired on the day the North, South, and tower seven collapsed. I am saddened by the attitudes of others who have taken this solemn moment to grandstand and argue out opposing views that shall never meet or stand together in agreement. I take photos of single individuals standing alone with their placards and banners, after of course asking their permission first. They all smile at my taking into consideration their private moment of expression in this very public place. The bells of Trinity church toll during the four moments of silence; solitary Buddhists standing still as the crowds walk by them ring their bells while privately repeating their mantras in meditation. The sounds of tolerance abound as atheists, activists and religious evangelists all gathered here today and for once we mostly tolerate one another. Representatives of the local chapter of the Hell's Angels ride by, as they reach the corner of Vessey street they simply allow their motorcycles to coast by, considerate of the inescapable fact that the sound of a Harley Davidson throttling up makes it probably one of the loudest motorcycles on the face of the earth.
There are other motorcyclists in attendance as well, and we all share a tension dissipating moment of humor as one rider with a pristine, absolutely gorgeous show bike can’t get it started and has to be pushed away by other bikers. Even the owner of this $50,000+ motorcycle was laughing over his embarrassing moment. Laughter is a rare sound here at ground zero on September 11th. Elsewhere reporters were preparing for their six to eight second on air reports, while their technical crews busied themselves with cables, microphones, lights, and adjusting cameras, all while demonstrators everywhere hold court. In the midst of it all is one lone woman with a Caribbean accent, she stands alone in a multitude preaching an end times gospel of repentance. The air is full of sounds, such as the names of those who died echoing mournfully about the pit as they were read off over a public address system. The voices belonging to the 200 pairs selected to read off these names today betray the pain that even now, five years later, still remains deeply rooted in the hearts and souls of these men and women.
A Moment of Personal Hell
These sounds intertwined and wove together until they all became an impossibly complex tapestry of sound. It became a dark meditation that haunted my soul and drove me to my knees as tears began to run down the sides of my face. Even five years later I cannot stand unmoved by this place were so many died. The closing of the ceremony by playing taps was simply too much for me, and I was lost in this sea of emotion, and the sounds of grief all around me. I cannot imagine what it must be like for someone who has actually lost a loved one at this place, to come here to the place where their husband, wife, or child lived their final hours. To come to the place where daddy breathed his last breath or mommy thought her last thoughts. One can, if one is so inclined to listen ever so carefully to the sorrowful song of the wind as it winds it’s way through the steel and glass canyons of lower Manhattan, almost hear their final thoughts and desires, the cry for those they loved, echoing off those walls.
A hand reaches down and touches my shoulder, interrupting my plummet into abysmal darkness. I look up into the bright face of Shen, and she asks me if I’m all right. I answer truthfully and say that I am not. I think to myself and wonder if I will ever be, all right. We all wander aimlessly a bit more before deciding on St. Paul’s Trinity church as our next stop…
1:12PM A Moment of Peace
Trinity church at ground zero is a magical place, old beyond the even the age of the structure itself. It stood almost untouched in an apocalypse of darkness that raged and roared, threatening to bury it in dust and debris. Yet not even a single pane of window glass was shattered by the dust cloud that later was reported to have been traveling at two hundred miles per hour. The single casualty was a tree that was literally plowed over by the sheer force of the cloud. The roots of this tree stand immortalized in bronze castings at Trinity Wall Street church this very day.
There is something about the old architecture, the fact that it has stood for centuries, and the history of the place, which soothes my electric nerves as my wandering mind threatens to become unhinged. Sometimes, when the course of my work brings me here, I will walk into Trinity in the middle of the day and just take a moment to silently wander about. I’ll peruse the photo archives on the computer terminals set up or view the displays of cots, teddy bears, and other 911 artifacts. Somehow, here in this place, they can be seen and yet sooth rather than abrasively scrape our brittle nerve endings that have been rubbed raw by the Tower’s demise, the ceaseless media coverage, the resulting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all else that has engulfed us and threatened to drown our sanity in the wake of that terrible September morning. Here, in this place that survived, one is safe.
We listen to the choir sing. It is an impossibly beautiful sound in the face of which the only other sound on the face of the earth is the muted buzz of traffic outside the church. The message of the day for this very special memorial service is about connection, and the human spirit’s need to connect with others. It is a deeply personal word, from the heart of the minister who was there when death raged all about the streets of lower Manhattan and they remained trapped there. It is a word of hope, hope that sprouts forth in the most impossible of situations, hope that can only be born of one who has known his creator intimately. For me, this service that began at 1:30 brought much needed peace to my troubled thoughts.
We leave after the service for lunch, and afterwards decide to return to the church. We browse through more of the items there. There are for example these beautiful quilts hanging that where woven from various and sundry threads that came from all over the world, a thread found in the Cambodian Killing feilds, peices of cloth woven by lepers in India. They are trully magnificent and each is a story in itself simply because of the sources of the threads within them. Later we were watching one of the video archive displays, excerpts actually from a DVD that is available in the gift shop. While we stood there watching, I struck up a conversation with another fellow there who was a heavy machinery operator on the site during the cleanup operation. He essentially lived in Trinity church for the length of the cleanup. Afterwards a friend of his was there and what ensued again brought tears to my eyes. There in a church in lower Manhattan, stood two muscular tatooed fellows whose sexuality noone would question, hugging and kissing like long lost brothers. In a very real sense that could only be understood by those who where there, the workers of the 911 cleanup and recovery crew became a family.
3:00PM- the sounds of protest
After some further wandering about within the church we step out into the beautiful, crisp, September afternoon and find ourselves in the midst of a demonstration being held by an impossibly large group of many ages, races, and backgrounds, but who all share a common belief....
They are firm believers in the premise that there are those in positions of power who knew that this attack was coming. There are even those within the group, as every group has, of the extreme view that this was not allowed, but planned, by our own government. This is neither the time nor the place to dispute the correctness of any of their views, I present them now simply to give a bit of background, and to help you appreciate the feel of the air as over a thousand black Tee-Shirted individuals all gathered together with banners, flags, posters, and in unison chanted “911 was an inside job!!!” over and over. This was the sound of genuine discontent, the cry of those who felt betrayed, angry, and who had something to say about it. The vast collection of sounds that made up the experience of ground zero would be missing more than a few threads without this, the sounds of protest.
Shortly before we ourselves left for the grounds of a slightly different but no less fervent protest, I over heard a marine in full uniform say in disgust and anguish “Oh, this is just too much!” and walk away. I could understand even this man’s feelings, one that risked life and well being to defend his country, that great idealized America that he believed in. He fought so that these very people today could be free to voice their discontent. I could understand how he may have felt that they were more than a bit ungrateful of the sacrifices he had to make and the suffering he may have had to endure. War is no joy, whether you are on the winning or the losing side, and it is yet to be determined what we have won or lost in this war. Such determinations are to be made by the historians of future generations who can write about it without the bias of having been personally touched by the pain, loss, and bitterness of the age.
Evening & Nightfall- The sounds of life
We move on, a short train ride to Washington Square Park have us arriving in the middle of a daily protest demonstration that takes place in front of the arch. It is a solemn, quiet demonstration that by its daily persistence makes as bold a statement as the volatile and noisy mob that at this very moment stood shouting in front of the cemetery behind Trinity Church at Ground Zero. They hold banners and signs calling for peace and an end to the war in Iraq. They stand silently, yet cab drivers will honk their horns in sympathy for their cause as they drive by. These too are the sounds of ground Zero, the sounds of 911.
Far from the pit, up abouts of West 4th street, the sounds of traffic, birds singing, a young woman who is to spend the next two hours in the process of intertwining her self within a hula hoop mingle with the sounds of musicians, roller-bladers, and people walking their dogs. These are sounds of life going on, for here where an antiwar demonstration can peacefully coexist with conga drums on the other side of the park; life takes on a new meaning. It is defined differently. Life is precious here too, but it is being lived. At ground zero there is only the deeply rooted memory of death, and it is not something we should try to uproot or otherwise remove. True healing is never about forgeting, and I often tell friends who have been through the emotional scarring that commonly afflicts us all, "you never forget how much it hurts right now, but a day will come when it simply doesn't hurt anymore" No, we must not forget the bitter sounds of anguish that are rooted at ground zero.
Yet the sounds here at Washington Square are as important a part of the sounds of 911 as those at Ground Zero, for in order for anything at all to be learned from this dreadful experience, life itself must go on. It must be lived. The peace that these demonstrators yearn for would be meaningless if life itself were to cease being lived in a meaningful manner.
Here, without naiveté or ignorance, in full awareness and perhaps because of the awareness of how fragile life is, the people live. They enjoy life. After the time slot for the daily anti war demonstrators expires, another group gathers beneath the arch, which I discover has the most wonderful acoustic quality to it, and begin holding an acapella concert. We sit and listen; I take a few more photos of them.
When they are done, we wander through the park as we await night fall, at which point we will witness the banks of lights being turned on just for that evening, creating a dual tower of light were the towers once stood. We for a while listen to a few musicians sing and just hang out in the park, before the sounds of a particularly good group gathered at the other side of the park doing Beatles songs grabs out attention and holds it for a full set, we even submit a request of our own, and they sing “she’s got a ticket to ride” for us. I know all the words to every song they sing, and I must admit that it feels good here. Music is a part of the healing process that now, five years later, has become the experience of 911.
In Conclusion-
This was a day filled with many sounds,…
Tolling bells
People in mourning
The names of the deceased
Angry sounds
Questioning sounds
The sounds of the politicians
The sounds of the soldiers
The sounds of the police and firemen
Sounds of protest and dissent
Sounds of the reporters telling the story
Sounds of the peacemakers
Grown men hugging
The magnificent choir at Trinity Church
The people of New York going about the course of their day
The sounds of the trains of New York and conversations held while riding
The sounds of Washington Square Park, and it’s music
The sounds of healing, of life being lived
These are, the sounds of 911
My next posting will return us to the ongoing saga of the job were nothing would go right, and I will also be posting my 911 photos for 2006 very soon! I thank you for putting up with this very long post, it was something that just needed to be let out...
So long until next we meet- The mad soundman!
email: [email protected]
web: http://amssound.com