[lit-ideas] Five Years Ago
- From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 16:41:03 -0400
One last thing before I go away.
On Monday, the US Media had its wallow in the 'anniversary' and of course
the talk show hosts did their bit on each's nightly show.
After 9/11, I taped Leno, Letterman, Jon Stewart, Conan, Craig Kilbourn
etc. as they each 'came back' to do what they used to do. Every so often I
rewatch them, along with 12 hours I taped off CNN on 9/11/01 starting just
after the first plane hit. It's very interesting to capture the absolute
disbelief in people's eyes, faces, voices and thoughts.
This year's anniversary late night monologues were okay, but nothing
spectacular, but I was struck particularly by what [TeeVee's] Craig
Ferguson said near the end of his: something like "you know, maybe if we
noticeably aren't talking about something, it might indicate that we need
to talk about it a wee bit."
I remember vividly Dave Letterman's return speech -- probably the most
heartfelt and poignant of the bunch, but Stewart's was pretty good too,
albeit a little too blubbery -- when he nicely encapsulated it:
"As I understand it (and my understanding of this is vague at best),
another smaller group of people stole some airplanes and crashed them into
buildings. And we?re told that they were zealots, fueled by religious
fervor? religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will
that make any sense to you? Will that make any Goddamned sense?"
So... perhaps we need to talk about it a little still. Instead of just
remembering vaguely. Perhaps people DID go back to their old life and
forget about the incredibly pain that they were in for weeks/months
afterwards. It seems like it happened 20 years ago, but it seems like
yesterday when I really try to remember.
Anyway,
sorry to be such a pop culture guy, but I've disavowed all me fancy
book-learning.
p
##########
Paul Stone
pas@xxxxxxxx
Kingsville, ON, Canada
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