Showing posts with label september 11th. Show all posts
Showing posts with label september 11th. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
It's On
Judging from the headlines here, a lot of Austrians, and Europeans in general, are excited about the 44th President of the United States. After his election, one glossy magazine put Obama on the cover with the words "Die Hoffnung der Welt" (the Hope of the World.) This morning, Heute, the conservative tabloid given away free in the subways(and swallowed whole by a frightening number of straphangers), called its front page story on the Inauguration "Stark, cool, gut (Strong, Cool, Good.)
Is that a time-warped reference to TLC, or is it just me? "Crazy, sexy, cool"? I don't care--I think seeing headlines like this here is Alright, Uptight and Outta Sight.
Americans, Austrians, Africans and everyone in-between celebrated the swearing-in at a half dozen big parties across Vienna. Even though I was still woozly from a case of food poisoning (!), I brought my American-Austrian-African family to the rumpus on the Badeschiff. A friend helped throw the party for her organization, Democrats Abroad; the Badeschiff is a barge (moored on the Danube Canal) with a pool and transvestite DJs. As soon as we stepped inside, I was bumping up against every American I do and do not know in this city. Their moods ran the gamut from magnanimous to giddy.
The place was packed. I heard a 'Hi, Pat!' and someone was shaking my hand before I'd turned around to see who it was. The last time I'd seen this former colleague, she was practically hissing, as she told me what a terrible boss I was! Later, a fellow teacher from Webster University was standing next to me and almost blew a gasket as she belted out "The Star-Spangled Banner." The three African women on the other side of us were all beaming, sitting on a tabletop, sitting on top of the world. I even ran into an American lady who I'd met in line at Caritas (the Austrian Salvation Army) just last weekend. The Badeschiff was stinking with embassy officials, diplomats, NGO folk, UN thugs and ex-pats. I had a good time.
The girls too. Though Anette almost cried several times during Obama's speech. Adinah was asking a million questions: like many observers from the past two hundred years, she was particularly puzzled about the role of the Vice President.
V. just wanted more pretzel sticks.
It still didn't (doesn't) feel real to me. I almost lost it when Aretha sang. But that (and that hat) was just another level of surreality. The gigantitude of the moment is hard to express.
The entertainment at the party was several huge screens showing the live CNN feed of the inauguration, against which a few unfortunate live onstage human musicians were competing. As I tried to make sure Adinah and V. didn't tumble off their bar stools, I stared at images of the Mall in Washington DC, a place that evokes bittersweet memories in me. I've never liked DC. Too many politicians live there. And it's full of people who believe in the government. Since the Gulf War, I've only been to DC, and to the Mall, to protest. To march and chant and holler and sing out against the crimes of pro-life assassins and anti-Muslim presidents. Almost eight years ago, on my fortieth birthday, Anette and I went there to protest the invasion of Iraq. At the time, most of my best, most leftest friends thought I was crazy to question Bush/Cheney's War on Terror. The President called us enemies of the State, and a lot of really scared Americans agreed with him. So I remember the Mall as a place where we were always allowed to parade, but never to be heard.
But on Inauguration Night, my twisted-up brain tried to look at the Mall like it was a new place. Was it, on this grand day, still ground zero for the politics of deafness? Or could it really now be a place, again, of ideals and clear vision?
* * *
The next morning, Osterreich, the other tabloid given away free in the U-bahn here, published a tiny photo of Adinah and I at the Badeschiff party. I look bemused, and she, in her "Obama's in the House: 1-20-2009" t-shirt, looks beautiful.
Is that a time-warped reference to TLC, or is it just me? "Crazy, sexy, cool"? I don't care--I think seeing headlines like this here is Alright, Uptight and Outta Sight.
Americans, Austrians, Africans and everyone in-between celebrated the swearing-in at a half dozen big parties across Vienna. Even though I was still woozly from a case of food poisoning (!), I brought my American-Austrian-African family to the rumpus on the Badeschiff. A friend helped throw the party for her organization, Democrats Abroad; the Badeschiff is a barge (moored on the Danube Canal) with a pool and transvestite DJs. As soon as we stepped inside, I was bumping up against every American I do and do not know in this city. Their moods ran the gamut from magnanimous to giddy.
The place was packed. I heard a 'Hi, Pat!' and someone was shaking my hand before I'd turned around to see who it was. The last time I'd seen this former colleague, she was practically hissing, as she told me what a terrible boss I was! Later, a fellow teacher from Webster University was standing next to me and almost blew a gasket as she belted out "The Star-Spangled Banner." The three African women on the other side of us were all beaming, sitting on a tabletop, sitting on top of the world. I even ran into an American lady who I'd met in line at Caritas (the Austrian Salvation Army) just last weekend. The Badeschiff was stinking with embassy officials, diplomats, NGO folk, UN thugs and ex-pats. I had a good time.
The girls too. Though Anette almost cried several times during Obama's speech. Adinah was asking a million questions: like many observers from the past two hundred years, she was particularly puzzled about the role of the Vice President.
V. just wanted more pretzel sticks.
It still didn't (doesn't) feel real to me. I almost lost it when Aretha sang. But that (and that hat) was just another level of surreality. The gigantitude of the moment is hard to express.
The entertainment at the party was several huge screens showing the live CNN feed of the inauguration, against which a few unfortunate live onstage human musicians were competing. As I tried to make sure Adinah and V. didn't tumble off their bar stools, I stared at images of the Mall in Washington DC, a place that evokes bittersweet memories in me. I've never liked DC. Too many politicians live there. And it's full of people who believe in the government. Since the Gulf War, I've only been to DC, and to the Mall, to protest. To march and chant and holler and sing out against the crimes of pro-life assassins and anti-Muslim presidents. Almost eight years ago, on my fortieth birthday, Anette and I went there to protest the invasion of Iraq. At the time, most of my best, most leftest friends thought I was crazy to question Bush/Cheney's War on Terror. The President called us enemies of the State, and a lot of really scared Americans agreed with him. So I remember the Mall as a place where we were always allowed to parade, but never to be heard.
But on Inauguration Night, my twisted-up brain tried to look at the Mall like it was a new place. Was it, on this grand day, still ground zero for the politics of deafness? Or could it really now be a place, again, of ideals and clear vision?
* * *
The next morning, Osterreich, the other tabloid given away free in the U-bahn here, published a tiny photo of Adinah and I at the Badeschiff party. I look bemused, and she, in her "Obama's in the House: 1-20-2009" t-shirt, looks beautiful.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
(a movie about) that day
Last night, after putting the kids in bed, I watched United 93, the Paul Greengrass film about the only hijacked plane which didn't hit its target on September 11th. I'd heard it was good, I'd gotten a copy, but still I had waited until I thought I was ready to see it. Maybe I miscalculated.
Anette is out of town, and even though I was completely exhausted from chasing V. and Adinah around by myself all day, and even though I was drinking a tall boy to steady my nerves, I was twitching five minutes into the movie. After 18 minutes, I paused United 93 to catch my breath and try to stop shaking. I paused it again after 29 minutes, and then again every seven to ten minutes. It wasn't exactly suspense or excitement, but reliving the shock of that day was almost too much.
Since 2001, wherever I am in the world, and whoever I'm talking to, if the subject of 9/11 comes up, it's always the other person who's in a rush to say where they were the minute they heard what had happened in New York City. Oftentimes they say, 'I saw it happen!' and what they mean is that they saw it live on TV. But I really did hear those two booms. I really was on Pitt street on the Lower East Side on that beautiful fall morning when I looked half a mile south and saw a hole in the World Trade Center. I saw it all.
I guess it left a hole in me too.
So.
Yeah, well that was almost seven years ago.
In the apocalyptic, ohmygod days and weeks after September 11th, I decided I wanted to live. To go forward somehow. I decided I wanted to have a kid. One of the shittiest Presidents we've ever had got us into even more trouble. We went to Ethiopia and met Adinah. Then we moved to Vienna, and I wasn't sorry to leave behind a country that would re-elect a shitty President. And now I miss America, but I live in Europe, and I have a foster daughter too and I work for an NGO and help refugees because I want to live and embrace life.
I wonder where I would be if that day never happened.
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