What's Been On My Mind...
My blogging habit has slipped a little lately. With the New York trip behind me and being settled right back into the work-and-home groove, I haven't had as much inspiration to record the events of my life lately. But I know if I scratch below the surface there are interesting things to be observed and shared here.
So this morning, here's what the world looks like to me. We have some girls at work who, as usual present complicated challenges to us, their treatment providers. A lot revolves around issues of self-abuse and aggression, and how we can best keep everyone safe when there are a few girls who frequently look for moments of opportunity to create danger. I also have a training to lead tomorrow that involves several of my colleagues at the Delta Home (the program I supervise.) It's the training I lead for a lot of different staff - Life Space Crisis Intervention and Handle With Care - that I've mentioned here in the past, but it will be different because I'll be presenting to people that I know pretty well. I'll probably spend time today reviewing the material and getting my mental game plan together. There are a number of other miscellaneous work details that I won't bother spelling out here - mostly just tasks to get done.
Tonight I'll be working the Motley Crue concert at Van Andel Arena. With the training set for tomorrow, it's not the ideal set-up. I'd prefer a quiet evening at home and an earlier bedtime in preparation for leading a day-long training event, but instead I'll be spending the night handing beer cups and taking money to a bunch of overaged adolescents who I hope will have sense enough to keep the spandex off their flabby middle-aged thighs, no matter what incentive they might otherwise have to do so. Leave the freak show to the professionals, gents!
In yesterday's G.R. Press, it was reported that this particular Crue show is going to be recorded for release as a DVD later this year. Apparently the band thinks that this is the ideal setting for them to pull out all the stops and put on a show for the ages. This concert will feature a lot of pyrotechnics, stunts, special effects and on-stage carousing already, but apparently they are going to ramp it up even higher with the cameras rolling. Oh boy, what a spectacle. I am not sure how much if any I will be able to see myself - I expect we'll be busy in the booth all night long. But I'll be sure to report on my experience and impressions.
Which reminds me, I have to summarize the recent John Mellencamp and Kenny Chesney concerts that I worked over the past several weeks. I will, don't let me forget.
I'm also tracking the story of the battle over judicial filibusters that is preoccupying the U.S. Senate as of late. The angle that intrigues and annoys me is this notion that those who oppose some of Bush's judicial nominees are "waging war on people of faith." That's a poor and irresponsible way to frame the issue, which indicates to me that the people behind that effort aren't so much interested in clarifying the issues or engaging in reasoned discussion and debate, but would rather use the impasse as a method of inflaming sentiment among a narrow segment of Christians, many of whom seem predisposed to regarding themselves as victims in a culture where they already wield considerable power and influence.
Yes, Christians are opposed by some in our society, but that's the nature of a pluralistic culture - there are always going to be tensions and conflicts, whatever one's beliefs and values may be. But in political terms, it seems to me like the political views that these Christian espouse are taken seriously and already wield considerable clout. They apparently aren't satisfied with the impact they've made and seem willing to use strong-arm tactics or whatever means are necessary to push a few particular judges into lifetime appointments, despite the concerns that many have raised about these particular nominees. It comes across as self-serving and arrogant, ultimately a counter-productive move as far as what benefits "people of faith" in the broadest sense of that word.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Lumberjack Dave
The weekend after I returned from New York, I had to keep a commitment I made to my mom to cut down some trees that were dead or dying along the side of her house. Last year, my step-brother Ed, my sons and I took two of them down, but my mom wanted to take out six more just to get the job more or less over with. (There are still two more trees in the line that still stand, but they are healthier and will require that professionals come in to take them down because of where they are situated.)
So it was an opportunity to grab a chain-saw and do some manly men activities with my boys. The weather was nice and I knew that my mom would be happy to put on a lavish lunch spread for the bunch of us, so all in all it wasn't a bad way to spend a Saturday.
Still, I had some mixed feelings. Just a couple weeks earlier, as I blogged at the time, destruction, I mean, construction crews invaded the vacant lot at the end of our cul-de-sac, chopped down a bunch of big old trees and began the process of building nine houses on what used to be a lovely open space that most of the people in our neighborhood enjoyed. I didn't like the idea of cutting down those trees, but here I was wielding more or less the same tools myself. Well, my mind came up with some guilt-alleviating rationalizations and that was that, I could proceed with a clear conscience.
We took the first few trees out pretty quickly and easily. I got to use the heavier, more professional strength chain-saw that Mom had rented. There is an undeniable feeling of power that comes with taking down a 40 or 50 foot tree! Not having done anthing this before the trees we removed last year, I was at first a bit uncertain how it would go. This batch consisted of bigger, thicker, heavier trees, but we were successful in getting them to fall pretty close to where we wanted them to. It was tiring work, but it offered a strangely satisfying sense of accomplishment.
Unfortunately, we had a problem with one. The cuts appeared to be in the right place to make the tree fall at the proper angle, but we hadn't notched it at the front the way we probably should have, and when it began to fall, the trunk spun on the stump just a bit and the falling tree came to rest on the corner of the roof of my mom's duplex.
Eek.
So we had a predicament on our hands. Beyond the damage to the house, which would have to be dealt with and paid for on another day (fortunately, nothing deeply structural - there was no impact on the interior), we now had to figure out how to bring down the rest of the tree without causing it to crash through the deck.
We went through a series of trial-and-error hypotheses before settling upon the eventual solution, which I don't really feel the need to explain in detail here, but will in the comments if anyone simply must know how we solved that riddle. It's actually better that the trunk landed on the roof - if it hadn't, the deck would have been shattered, along with the furniture and grill, most likely. Much more expensive to replace!
After that, we learned a few things, made some adjustments, and finished the job without any further calamity. The last tree was quite a challenge, because it tilted ominously away from Mom's yard, toward a neighbor's house, and it was a heavy sucker.
So heavy in fact that when I started to cut into it, the tree leaned in on the incision causing the saw blade to seize up, compressed under the weight of the trunk.
We had to go out and buy a heavier rope than the one you see in the pictures, with everyone pulling on it so that we could open up a bit of space that would allow the chain to spin again. Once that happened, the boys had to yank with all their might to ensure that the tree fell toward them, then run like the blazes to make certain it didn't come down on top of them!
Wow, what adventure. But it worked out just the way it was supposed to, and Mom still has a backyard fence, good relationships with the neighbors and no pending litigation to worry about. Just a little fix-it project, which I am unfortunately not qualified to help out with.
The weekend after I returned from New York, I had to keep a commitment I made to my mom to cut down some trees that were dead or dying along the side of her house. Last year, my step-brother Ed, my sons and I took two of them down, but my mom wanted to take out six more just to get the job more or less over with. (There are still two more trees in the line that still stand, but they are healthier and will require that professionals come in to take them down because of where they are situated.)
So it was an opportunity to grab a chain-saw and do some manly men activities with my boys. The weather was nice and I knew that my mom would be happy to put on a lavish lunch spread for the bunch of us, so all in all it wasn't a bad way to spend a Saturday.
Still, I had some mixed feelings. Just a couple weeks earlier, as I blogged at the time, destruction, I mean, construction crews invaded the vacant lot at the end of our cul-de-sac, chopped down a bunch of big old trees and began the process of building nine houses on what used to be a lovely open space that most of the people in our neighborhood enjoyed. I didn't like the idea of cutting down those trees, but here I was wielding more or less the same tools myself. Well, my mind came up with some guilt-alleviating rationalizations and that was that, I could proceed with a clear conscience.
We took the first few trees out pretty quickly and easily. I got to use the heavier, more professional strength chain-saw that Mom had rented. There is an undeniable feeling of power that comes with taking down a 40 or 50 foot tree! Not having done anthing this before the trees we removed last year, I was at first a bit uncertain how it would go. This batch consisted of bigger, thicker, heavier trees, but we were successful in getting them to fall pretty close to where we wanted them to. It was tiring work, but it offered a strangely satisfying sense of accomplishment.
Unfortunately, we had a problem with one. The cuts appeared to be in the right place to make the tree fall at the proper angle, but we hadn't notched it at the front the way we probably should have, and when it began to fall, the trunk spun on the stump just a bit and the falling tree came to rest on the corner of the roof of my mom's duplex.
Eek.
So we had a predicament on our hands. Beyond the damage to the house, which would have to be dealt with and paid for on another day (fortunately, nothing deeply structural - there was no impact on the interior), we now had to figure out how to bring down the rest of the tree without causing it to crash through the deck.
We went through a series of trial-and-error hypotheses before settling upon the eventual solution, which I don't really feel the need to explain in detail here, but will in the comments if anyone simply must know how we solved that riddle. It's actually better that the trunk landed on the roof - if it hadn't, the deck would have been shattered, along with the furniture and grill, most likely. Much more expensive to replace!
After that, we learned a few things, made some adjustments, and finished the job without any further calamity. The last tree was quite a challenge, because it tilted ominously away from Mom's yard, toward a neighbor's house, and it was a heavy sucker.
So heavy in fact that when I started to cut into it, the tree leaned in on the incision causing the saw blade to seize up, compressed under the weight of the trunk.
We had to go out and buy a heavier rope than the one you see in the pictures, with everyone pulling on it so that we could open up a bit of space that would allow the chain to spin again. Once that happened, the boys had to yank with all their might to ensure that the tree fell toward them, then run like the blazes to make certain it didn't come down on top of them!
Wow, what adventure. But it worked out just the way it was supposed to, and Mom still has a backyard fence, good relationships with the neighbors and no pending litigation to worry about. Just a little fix-it project, which I am unfortunately not qualified to help out with.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
New York Wrap-up
As I said the other day, it's about time that I finished blogging about my recent trip to New York City. So here are the last pictures I'll post from that fun, busy, memorable weekend, along with a few comments to explain them...
Me in my hotel room
This is pretty much what I looked like all weekend long. Wearing my Lions cap because it was rainy and I was proud to show off my Michigan roots while roaming the streets of Gotham.
Lobby of the Empire State Building
I was a lot more impressed with the building's bottom than I was the top. Downstairs, there's a lot of cool Art Deco touches, including the big panel you see above.
At the top of the ESB
Upstairs, it's mostly just tacky commercialism. They force you to enter the viewing area by getting your photo taken, so they can try to sell it to you as you leave. Then after you wind through the maze that I guess is ordinarily full of tourists and sightseers (it was mostly empty the day we went because we had zero visibility from the rainstorms, hence no pics from the top), you arrive at the cheezy little gift shop. That's where you find the doors to the outside deck, which was closed to us. The winds were ferocious and it would not have felt safe at all to be in the howling gale, but it would have been cool anyway.
Family portrait, Rockefeller Center
Curt, me and Derek.
On the bridge of the USS Intrepid (Ret.)
Artist's original mock-up of the Iwo Jima memorial in Washington D.C.
Here's a link to learn more about the USS Intrepid. It's an interesting place, but I won't say much about it here.
Midtown Manhattan skyline
I just like this picture. That's the Empire State Building in the middle.
Modern Art Moment
Check out the old guy, obviously a connessieur of modern art, checking out the dude in the pink bunny suit. This was just a random spontaneous street scene that we stumbled upon. One of my favorite photos from the 200+ I took, just because it's so wierd.
Lazaro Gomez Carriles, supposedly the "only artist of the 21st century," is a writer who wrote the screenplay for Before Night Falls, a film based on the memoirs of gay Cuban pet Reinaldo Arenas, who was persecuted by the Castro government before eventually making it to New York later in life. In case you were wondering.
Two views of the Atlas sculpture at Rockefeller Center
St. Patrick's Cathedral
The mourning vestments outside the church, the day after the death of Pope John Paul II
Another shot from the plaza at Rockefeller Center
Finally, here's a picture of Derek standing beneath an inspirational work of art. A fitting way, I suppose, for me to finish my account of our trip to New York City. I have a lot more pictures though. Let me know if you want an invitation to view my on-line photo album!
As I said the other day, it's about time that I finished blogging about my recent trip to New York City. So here are the last pictures I'll post from that fun, busy, memorable weekend, along with a few comments to explain them...
Me in my hotel room
This is pretty much what I looked like all weekend long. Wearing my Lions cap because it was rainy and I was proud to show off my Michigan roots while roaming the streets of Gotham.
Lobby of the Empire State Building
I was a lot more impressed with the building's bottom than I was the top. Downstairs, there's a lot of cool Art Deco touches, including the big panel you see above.
At the top of the ESB
Upstairs, it's mostly just tacky commercialism. They force you to enter the viewing area by getting your photo taken, so they can try to sell it to you as you leave. Then after you wind through the maze that I guess is ordinarily full of tourists and sightseers (it was mostly empty the day we went because we had zero visibility from the rainstorms, hence no pics from the top), you arrive at the cheezy little gift shop. That's where you find the doors to the outside deck, which was closed to us. The winds were ferocious and it would not have felt safe at all to be in the howling gale, but it would have been cool anyway.
Family portrait, Rockefeller Center
Curt, me and Derek.
On the bridge of the USS Intrepid (Ret.)
Artist's original mock-up of the Iwo Jima memorial in Washington D.C.
Here's a link to learn more about the USS Intrepid. It's an interesting place, but I won't say much about it here.
Midtown Manhattan skyline
I just like this picture. That's the Empire State Building in the middle.
Modern Art Moment
Check out the old guy, obviously a connessieur of modern art, checking out the dude in the pink bunny suit. This was just a random spontaneous street scene that we stumbled upon. One of my favorite photos from the 200+ I took, just because it's so wierd.
Lazaro Gomez Carriles, supposedly the "only artist of the 21st century," is a writer who wrote the screenplay for Before Night Falls, a film based on the memoirs of gay Cuban pet Reinaldo Arenas, who was persecuted by the Castro government before eventually making it to New York later in life. In case you were wondering.
Two views of the Atlas sculpture at Rockefeller Center
St. Patrick's Cathedral
The mourning vestments outside the church, the day after the death of Pope John Paul II
Another shot from the plaza at Rockefeller Center
Finally, here's a picture of Derek standing beneath an inspirational work of art. A fitting way, I suppose, for me to finish my account of our trip to New York City. I have a lot more pictures though. Let me know if you want an invitation to view my on-line photo album!
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Sad News
I had planned on just doing one more New York blog entry, since I've now been back for two full weeks and it's time for me to move on to document other things that have been happening in my life. I will get around to doing that last entry sometime, maybe tomorrow. But for today I have to pause and write about a tragic event.
One of the students on our trip, a girl named Michelle Bulver, was killed in a jet-ski accident this past Sunday. Michelle was a senior, just a month or so away from graduation, who had served the marching band as drum major for the past three years. I met her for the first time on the NY trip, and really didn't get to know her too well - she wasn't part of the crew that hung around me when we were out on the streets of Manhattan. But I'd seen her lead the band on several occasions, and always enjoyed the sense of vitality and enthusiasm she and the other drum majors brought to the performance. She was a nice kid on the trip - always smiled at me when I did the head-counts every time we got back on the bus. I have a picture of her on the campus of Syracuse University. I commented to her right after I took the photo that she was wearing the right color - she had on a vivid orange sweatshirt, and Syracuse is the home of the "Orangemen."
As you can imagine, the students in the band and the rest of her school have been badly shaken by this terrible loss. Beyond her band involvement, she was also very active in other aspects of high school life, was a bright student and from what I could tell, a genuinely kind and friendly young woman who probably had a wide circle of friends and admirers.
This article from today's Grand Rapids Press chronicles more about her and the circumstances of the accident that led to her death. As a parent with two sons so close to the end of their high school years, I am simply aching with empathy and sorrow for her parents who have to say goodbye to their daughter at such a time in her life. Life sure can seem cruel and random sometimes, and perhaps in many ways it simply is like that. My boys are mostly just subdued about what happened - kind of stunned by the suddeness, and wondering "why her?" A lot of the other kids at school were emotional, clearly devastated to see their friend leave them so abruptly. Michelle's passing is sure to cast a long shadow over all the graduation festivities that we will all go through, obligatorily, as best we can. I'm sure that the kids will all find ways to have their fun. But she is going to be badly missed.
I woke up around 4:30 am just thinking about the deep regrets that so many people close to Michelle and her family must be feeling. This is not a very easy situation to accept, but what choice do we have? These are the kinds of questions that we simply must turn over to God and wait for the reply.
I had planned on just doing one more New York blog entry, since I've now been back for two full weeks and it's time for me to move on to document other things that have been happening in my life. I will get around to doing that last entry sometime, maybe tomorrow. But for today I have to pause and write about a tragic event.
One of the students on our trip, a girl named Michelle Bulver, was killed in a jet-ski accident this past Sunday. Michelle was a senior, just a month or so away from graduation, who had served the marching band as drum major for the past three years. I met her for the first time on the NY trip, and really didn't get to know her too well - she wasn't part of the crew that hung around me when we were out on the streets of Manhattan. But I'd seen her lead the band on several occasions, and always enjoyed the sense of vitality and enthusiasm she and the other drum majors brought to the performance. She was a nice kid on the trip - always smiled at me when I did the head-counts every time we got back on the bus. I have a picture of her on the campus of Syracuse University. I commented to her right after I took the photo that she was wearing the right color - she had on a vivid orange sweatshirt, and Syracuse is the home of the "Orangemen."
As you can imagine, the students in the band and the rest of her school have been badly shaken by this terrible loss. Beyond her band involvement, she was also very active in other aspects of high school life, was a bright student and from what I could tell, a genuinely kind and friendly young woman who probably had a wide circle of friends and admirers.
This article from today's Grand Rapids Press chronicles more about her and the circumstances of the accident that led to her death. As a parent with two sons so close to the end of their high school years, I am simply aching with empathy and sorrow for her parents who have to say goodbye to their daughter at such a time in her life. Life sure can seem cruel and random sometimes, and perhaps in many ways it simply is like that. My boys are mostly just subdued about what happened - kind of stunned by the suddeness, and wondering "why her?" A lot of the other kids at school were emotional, clearly devastated to see their friend leave them so abruptly. Michelle's passing is sure to cast a long shadow over all the graduation festivities that we will all go through, obligatorily, as best we can. I'm sure that the kids will all find ways to have their fun. But she is going to be badly missed.
I woke up around 4:30 am just thinking about the deep regrets that so many people close to Michelle and her family must be feeling. This is not a very easy situation to accept, but what choice do we have? These are the kinds of questions that we simply must turn over to God and wait for the reply.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Celebrity Sightings
For common folk like us, going to a big city where all kinds of famous people live their lives or just hang out raises the hopes that we will have some kind of brief fleeting encounter with the coolness and glamour that we associate with those we regularly see on TV. And on this trip, we were not at all disappointed. Here's a gallery of our brush-ups with pop stardom...
Derek meets Bo
We'll start off mildly with our trip to Planet Hollywood in Niagara Falls. I know I already slagged this place when I compared it unfavorably with Hard Rock Cafe, but this pic was actually taken outside the restaurant and had nothing to do with the quality of food or service. There's a gallery of celebrity handprints out on the sidewalk, as well as some cars that had roles in various movies. The picture above is my son Derek putting his hands in the handprints made by Bo Derek. Get it - Derek meets Bo? Heh. (Don't worry, it gets better...)
Curt meets Conan
This shot comes from inside Rockefeller Center, just outside the NBC studios. Curt really likes Conan O'Brien (he watches the afternoon reruns on MSNBC, not the live latenight broadcasts) so I took his picture next to Conan on the wall-sized publicity mural featuring most of the prominent faces associated with NBC (Jay Leno was the biggest.) The horns over Curt's head are unintentional. It's part of the new NBC Universal logo resulting from the corporate merger last year. We took a tour of the studios but were forbidden from taking any pictures inside, or I'd have posted pics of Brian Williams' news room, the Saturday Night Live stage and Conan's studio, three more celebrity landmarks that we saw. Staring into uninhabited rooms was never so exciting to me. Actually, it was interesting seeing how small the studios were and how they were laid out. The news room (where Tom Brokaw used to do his thing) is tiny - an old radio studio converted for TV, packed with overhead lights and made to look big due to wide angle lenses and a backdrop of people working in a news control room. All the stuff you see happening behind the anchor (people scurrying around, watching monitors, passing important papers to each other, etc.) is just one continuous video shot a year or two ago and looping continuously ever since. The SNL stages looked familiar to me but it was still a surprise to see how they all fit together and how awkward some of the sightlines are for the audience, depending on where you sit and which stage is being used. I liked the music stage where so many great performances have taken place over the years, and the center stage where the opening monologue takes place. The Conan stage was pretty basic and functional, but his desk is way over to the right (from where audience sits), I guess to give more room to the bands that perform on his show.
Holly the Rockette
We took a tour of Radio City Music Hall (also located in Rockefeller Center) and we were all very impressed with the opulence of that magnificent theater. I do have a few pictures of the interior but I would actually recommend that you just visit the website if you want to know more about the place since my pics only turned out so-so. But here's one you won't see anywhere else - my picture of a real-life Rockette. Holly has been dancing on their steel stage for eight years now. She came out from behind the star to answer a few questions and tell us about what it takes to be a dancer in this famous company.
Later that night, we made a walk-through visit to Grand Central Station. Before we even entered the main concourse, our tour guide noted how unusually bright the area was and assumed that some kind of filming was going on.
Grand Central Station
Sure enough, you can see the big floating light fixtures. They looked like gigantic pharmaceutical capsules of pure light, and underneath all that, a scene was being filmed for a movie or TV show, the title of which I don't have any clue. But we did discover who at least one of the actors will be - none other than teen starlet Lindsay Lohan!
Lindsay Lohan
Do you know who Lindsay Lohan is? If not, you can check out this or that website to find out more. The kids were pretty excited about this chance encounter - as one girl put it, "she's our star," meaning someone from the current generation of high school students, whom many of them have grown up watching on TV over the years, since Lindsay began acting as a young child, though not quite as long as the Olsen twins. I did a poll on the bus to see who is considered cooler - Lindsay beat Hillary Duff by a narrow margin and wiped out Britney Spears, who is after all a married and now pregnant adult, and so three years ago, which is an eon in the teen pop culture.
Al Roker, Johnny Damon, Jimmy Fallon
This shot was taken outside the Today show studios on Monday April 4. Al Roker (the weather guy) was interviewing comedian Jimmy Fallon (dark hair, head just above the blonde in the foreground, promoting his new movie Fever Pitch) and Boston Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon (in orange tie, promoting his new book Idiot.) We weren't necessarily expecting to see these guys - we had no idea who was going to be on the show that day. But a contingent of very excited young women who were clamoring heavily to get Damon's attention had infiltrated the section of the pen that the Wyoming Park Marching Band had claimed as our territory. It was no problem, they were fun and added greatly to the excitement of the moment.
After the on-camera portion of their visit had ended, Jimmy Fallon took advantage of the opportunity to soak up some love from the audience, running around the perimeter giving hugs to girls so that they could scream and have their picture taken with him.
Here he's about to grab the girl standing right in front of me - I couldn't get the angle but I like the way this picture came out anyway.
While Fallon was making his rounds, Damon was quietly slipping back into the safety of the studio. I suppose a professional ballplayer can't risk spraining his wrist jumping into the fray shaking hands. And he probably had reason to fear what might happen if the groupies actually got ahold of him.
Yes, the WPHS Marching Band did have our brief instant of exposure on TV, when Al Roker did his walk-by with us in the background while he gave the 8:15 am (or thereabouts) weather report before breaking away to see how things are looking in your neck of the woods. If you missed it, I have it on tape. I didn't intend for the photo to turn out so blurry, but it expresses the hyperness and jostling that was going on as our Today show experience came to its frenetic peak.
I think that pretty well captures the famous people that we had some degree of personal contact with on our weekend in New York.
For common folk like us, going to a big city where all kinds of famous people live their lives or just hang out raises the hopes that we will have some kind of brief fleeting encounter with the coolness and glamour that we associate with those we regularly see on TV. And on this trip, we were not at all disappointed. Here's a gallery of our brush-ups with pop stardom...
Derek meets Bo
We'll start off mildly with our trip to Planet Hollywood in Niagara Falls. I know I already slagged this place when I compared it unfavorably with Hard Rock Cafe, but this pic was actually taken outside the restaurant and had nothing to do with the quality of food or service. There's a gallery of celebrity handprints out on the sidewalk, as well as some cars that had roles in various movies. The picture above is my son Derek putting his hands in the handprints made by Bo Derek. Get it - Derek meets Bo? Heh. (Don't worry, it gets better...)
Curt meets Conan
This shot comes from inside Rockefeller Center, just outside the NBC studios. Curt really likes Conan O'Brien (he watches the afternoon reruns on MSNBC, not the live latenight broadcasts) so I took his picture next to Conan on the wall-sized publicity mural featuring most of the prominent faces associated with NBC (Jay Leno was the biggest.) The horns over Curt's head are unintentional. It's part of the new NBC Universal logo resulting from the corporate merger last year. We took a tour of the studios but were forbidden from taking any pictures inside, or I'd have posted pics of Brian Williams' news room, the Saturday Night Live stage and Conan's studio, three more celebrity landmarks that we saw. Staring into uninhabited rooms was never so exciting to me. Actually, it was interesting seeing how small the studios were and how they were laid out. The news room (where Tom Brokaw used to do his thing) is tiny - an old radio studio converted for TV, packed with overhead lights and made to look big due to wide angle lenses and a backdrop of people working in a news control room. All the stuff you see happening behind the anchor (people scurrying around, watching monitors, passing important papers to each other, etc.) is just one continuous video shot a year or two ago and looping continuously ever since. The SNL stages looked familiar to me but it was still a surprise to see how they all fit together and how awkward some of the sightlines are for the audience, depending on where you sit and which stage is being used. I liked the music stage where so many great performances have taken place over the years, and the center stage where the opening monologue takes place. The Conan stage was pretty basic and functional, but his desk is way over to the right (from where audience sits), I guess to give more room to the bands that perform on his show.
Holly the Rockette
We took a tour of Radio City Music Hall (also located in Rockefeller Center) and we were all very impressed with the opulence of that magnificent theater. I do have a few pictures of the interior but I would actually recommend that you just visit the website if you want to know more about the place since my pics only turned out so-so. But here's one you won't see anywhere else - my picture of a real-life Rockette. Holly has been dancing on their steel stage for eight years now. She came out from behind the star to answer a few questions and tell us about what it takes to be a dancer in this famous company.
Later that night, we made a walk-through visit to Grand Central Station. Before we even entered the main concourse, our tour guide noted how unusually bright the area was and assumed that some kind of filming was going on.
Grand Central Station
Sure enough, you can see the big floating light fixtures. They looked like gigantic pharmaceutical capsules of pure light, and underneath all that, a scene was being filmed for a movie or TV show, the title of which I don't have any clue. But we did discover who at least one of the actors will be - none other than teen starlet Lindsay Lohan!
Lindsay Lohan
Do you know who Lindsay Lohan is? If not, you can check out this or that website to find out more. The kids were pretty excited about this chance encounter - as one girl put it, "she's our star," meaning someone from the current generation of high school students, whom many of them have grown up watching on TV over the years, since Lindsay began acting as a young child, though not quite as long as the Olsen twins. I did a poll on the bus to see who is considered cooler - Lindsay beat Hillary Duff by a narrow margin and wiped out Britney Spears, who is after all a married and now pregnant adult, and so three years ago, which is an eon in the teen pop culture.
Al Roker, Johnny Damon, Jimmy Fallon
This shot was taken outside the Today show studios on Monday April 4. Al Roker (the weather guy) was interviewing comedian Jimmy Fallon (dark hair, head just above the blonde in the foreground, promoting his new movie Fever Pitch) and Boston Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon (in orange tie, promoting his new book Idiot.) We weren't necessarily expecting to see these guys - we had no idea who was going to be on the show that day. But a contingent of very excited young women who were clamoring heavily to get Damon's attention had infiltrated the section of the pen that the Wyoming Park Marching Band had claimed as our territory. It was no problem, they were fun and added greatly to the excitement of the moment.
After the on-camera portion of their visit had ended, Jimmy Fallon took advantage of the opportunity to soak up some love from the audience, running around the perimeter giving hugs to girls so that they could scream and have their picture taken with him.
Here he's about to grab the girl standing right in front of me - I couldn't get the angle but I like the way this picture came out anyway.
While Fallon was making his rounds, Damon was quietly slipping back into the safety of the studio. I suppose a professional ballplayer can't risk spraining his wrist jumping into the fray shaking hands. And he probably had reason to fear what might happen if the groupies actually got ahold of him.
Yes, the WPHS Marching Band did have our brief instant of exposure on TV, when Al Roker did his walk-by with us in the background while he gave the 8:15 am (or thereabouts) weather report before breaking away to see how things are looking in your neck of the woods. If you missed it, I have it on tape. I didn't intend for the photo to turn out so blurry, but it expresses the hyperness and jostling that was going on as our Today show experience came to its frenetic peak.
I think that pretty well captures the famous people that we had some degree of personal contact with on our weekend in New York.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Strawberry Fields
At the end of our long rainy Saturday in New York, after our group of 80+ had enjoyed a delicious meal at Dillons Restaurant, we took a bus drive uptown to see a few sites on our way back to the Lincoln Tunnel. One spot that our tour guide wanted to give us the chance to visit was a small portion of Central Park called Strawberry Fields. Its a plot of just across the street from the Dakota Apartments, a longtime New York landmark as one of the very first luxury apartments built in the city, but more famous to many as the address that John Lennon and Yoko Ono kept throughout the late '70's up until the night that John was shot and killed by a crazed fan mere steps away from his home.
Even though the rain was coming down fairly hard and it was rather dark outside, we had the busses pull over anyway so that those who wanted to could get off and pay a brief visit to the site. We parked right in front of the Dakota building, which I immediately recognized by it's tall pointed gables that I'd seen in numerous pictures of John and Yoko over the years. A bunch of others joined us, and a bunch of others stayed on, put off by the weather conditions or maybe just not caring all that much about Lennon. I for one would not have missed the chance, though a visit in daylight would be much preferable. We had to walk a ways until our guide found the spot he was looking for: a mosaic laid into the walkway with the single word "Imagine" in the middle. I had heard about this spot but didn't have much of a minds eye picture of what it looked like. Still, I was moved to be in that place.
I asked the guide if I could tell the story of Lennon's death and what happened here in the park, across the street from his apartment in the hours and days after the sad news was announced to the world. He told me to go ahead, so I proceeded to tell the mostly high-school aged crowd my own recollections of that event.
It was in December of 1980. John and Yoko had just weeks earlier emerged from a sabbatical of several years where John in particular had made it clear that he was done with the whole routine of being a pop star, preferring instead to focus on raising their son Sean and simply enjoying the simple pleasures of life in their "Double Fantasy." The new album that had been released was something a bit different than what I and a lot of other Lennon fans had been wishing for or expecting - Lennon seemed a lot more tranquil and domesticated as he entered into his forties, at a different place in life than I was (just 19, playing in a punk rock band, living in a house near Ocean Beach with six other guys in San Francisco.) But he was still John Lennon, the living legend, and that was enough to command our attention.
I still vividly recall the miserable and helpless feeling I had when I first heard that Lennon had been shot, and a few hours later, that he had died. It was probably the most depressing news I had ever heard up to that point in my life (as far as events not personally or directly involving my own life were concerned.) It shook a lot of us up, especially as we learned over the course of time just how senseless and ill were the motives of his attacker.
But that wasn't the point of a place like Strawberry Fields. What happened there was a spontaneous gathering of hundreds and perhaps thousands of Lennon's fans, standing vigil in their grief, singing songs like "Give Peace a Chance" and "All You Need is Love" as they consoled each other in those bewildering days at the dawn of a new decade. Lennon's early and tragic demise created a lot of pain and loss in a generation (or more) of people all around the world, but what grew out of that terrible event was a renewed appreciation for the good and beautiful dreams he promoted and stood for. In the light of all his crazy humor, his skeptical and sarcastic attitude towards the pompous and the authoritative, at the bottom of it all, he was, in my mind and the minds of many, really about peace, love and understanding, and his music continues to spread that message to this day.
This little section of the park itself was apparently a favorite hangout of John and Yoko and Sean, so Yoko contributed some of the resources needed to make the place a lasting tribute to John's dream. I don't know who created the Imagine mosaic itself, but it's simple eloquence, even in the rainy darkness and chill of the evening, spoke more than my words can adequately summarize. I was grateful for the opportunity to share my story and my appreciation of John Lennon at this special place in the middle of Manhattan with these fellow pilgrims by my side.
At the end of our long rainy Saturday in New York, after our group of 80+ had enjoyed a delicious meal at Dillons Restaurant, we took a bus drive uptown to see a few sites on our way back to the Lincoln Tunnel. One spot that our tour guide wanted to give us the chance to visit was a small portion of Central Park called Strawberry Fields. Its a plot of just across the street from the Dakota Apartments, a longtime New York landmark as one of the very first luxury apartments built in the city, but more famous to many as the address that John Lennon and Yoko Ono kept throughout the late '70's up until the night that John was shot and killed by a crazed fan mere steps away from his home.
Even though the rain was coming down fairly hard and it was rather dark outside, we had the busses pull over anyway so that those who wanted to could get off and pay a brief visit to the site. We parked right in front of the Dakota building, which I immediately recognized by it's tall pointed gables that I'd seen in numerous pictures of John and Yoko over the years. A bunch of others joined us, and a bunch of others stayed on, put off by the weather conditions or maybe just not caring all that much about Lennon. I for one would not have missed the chance, though a visit in daylight would be much preferable. We had to walk a ways until our guide found the spot he was looking for: a mosaic laid into the walkway with the single word "Imagine" in the middle. I had heard about this spot but didn't have much of a minds eye picture of what it looked like. Still, I was moved to be in that place.
I asked the guide if I could tell the story of Lennon's death and what happened here in the park, across the street from his apartment in the hours and days after the sad news was announced to the world. He told me to go ahead, so I proceeded to tell the mostly high-school aged crowd my own recollections of that event.
It was in December of 1980. John and Yoko had just weeks earlier emerged from a sabbatical of several years where John in particular had made it clear that he was done with the whole routine of being a pop star, preferring instead to focus on raising their son Sean and simply enjoying the simple pleasures of life in their "Double Fantasy." The new album that had been released was something a bit different than what I and a lot of other Lennon fans had been wishing for or expecting - Lennon seemed a lot more tranquil and domesticated as he entered into his forties, at a different place in life than I was (just 19, playing in a punk rock band, living in a house near Ocean Beach with six other guys in San Francisco.) But he was still John Lennon, the living legend, and that was enough to command our attention.
I still vividly recall the miserable and helpless feeling I had when I first heard that Lennon had been shot, and a few hours later, that he had died. It was probably the most depressing news I had ever heard up to that point in my life (as far as events not personally or directly involving my own life were concerned.) It shook a lot of us up, especially as we learned over the course of time just how senseless and ill were the motives of his attacker.
But that wasn't the point of a place like Strawberry Fields. What happened there was a spontaneous gathering of hundreds and perhaps thousands of Lennon's fans, standing vigil in their grief, singing songs like "Give Peace a Chance" and "All You Need is Love" as they consoled each other in those bewildering days at the dawn of a new decade. Lennon's early and tragic demise created a lot of pain and loss in a generation (or more) of people all around the world, but what grew out of that terrible event was a renewed appreciation for the good and beautiful dreams he promoted and stood for. In the light of all his crazy humor, his skeptical and sarcastic attitude towards the pompous and the authoritative, at the bottom of it all, he was, in my mind and the minds of many, really about peace, love and understanding, and his music continues to spread that message to this day.
This little section of the park itself was apparently a favorite hangout of John and Yoko and Sean, so Yoko contributed some of the resources needed to make the place a lasting tribute to John's dream. I don't know who created the Imagine mosaic itself, but it's simple eloquence, even in the rainy darkness and chill of the evening, spoke more than my words can adequately summarize. I was grateful for the opportunity to share my story and my appreciation of John Lennon at this special place in the middle of Manhattan with these fellow pilgrims by my side.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Imagine
At the end of our rainy Saturday night, after finishing a delicious meal at Dillons restaurant, our bus drove up Central Park way. Even though it was raining pretty hard at the moment, our tour guide asked the driver to stop across the street from the Dakota Apartments, which is perhaps most famous these days for being the address that John Lennon and Yoko Ono kept up until the fateful day in December 1980 when he was shot to death just steps away from his front door.
The site our guide wanted to show us wasn't the Dakota, though we could see its darkend outline easily enough through the darkness. He invited anyone interested in John Lennon to get off the bus so that he could show us the place called Strawberry Fields and the Imagine mosaic that's embedded in the walking path as a memorial to the great singer and songwriter.
Even though it was dark, chilly and wet, I was certainly not going to miss this chance to pay modest tribute to one of my cultural heroes. So a bunch of us got off the bus (and a bunch stayed on.) When we got to the place, I kind of took over from the tour guide in describing the events of the night that John was murdered and the shocking, depressing effect it had on so many of his fans. I told the kids who had assembled around the mosaic about how John and Yoko had taken a several-years sabbatical from being pop stars so that they could concentrate on raising their son and having something like a normal domestic life, and how eagerly his new music was anticipated when rumors of a new album began to circulate in early 1980. When "Double Fantasy" was released, it took some of us off guard who had enjoyed the trippy, subversive Lennon persona and didn't know what to make of this matured, content, reconciled "family man" that he had become. But whatever we thought of the songs, Lennon was still an icon and a resounding voice that commanded our attention when he spoke. So it was with unbelieving horror that we first heard the news that he had been shot, and a few hours later, that he had died, and we just could not make any sense of what had happened. And we still can't.
But in the aftermath of this nightmarish end to the happiness that John, Yoko and Sean had found, thousands of people who appreciated Lennon's music and vision of love and peace spontaneously began to gather across the street from the Dakota, in the open spaces of Central Park that the Lennon's apartment overlooked. Though I was living on the opposite coast, near Ocean Beach in San Francisco, at the time, my heart and spirit were with those beautiful people who consoled each other by singing "Give Peace a Chance" and "All You Need is Love" and other lyrics that Lennon had given us over the years.
And sometime between then and now, the City of New York had seen fit to dedicate this space, this little patch of ground in the heart of Manhattan, to not only Lennon's memory, but even greater, to the hopes and dreams he articulated in his song "Imagine." And that's the story of how this mosaic came to be, or at least as much of the story as I was able to articulate that night. I was honored to share my recollections of John Lennon with the young people who accompanied me on my brief rainy pilgrimage to this shrine.
At the end of our rainy Saturday night, after finishing a delicious meal at Dillons restaurant, our bus drove up Central Park way. Even though it was raining pretty hard at the moment, our tour guide asked the driver to stop across the street from the Dakota Apartments, which is perhaps most famous these days for being the address that John Lennon and Yoko Ono kept up until the fateful day in December 1980 when he was shot to death just steps away from his front door.
The site our guide wanted to show us wasn't the Dakota, though we could see its darkend outline easily enough through the darkness. He invited anyone interested in John Lennon to get off the bus so that he could show us the place called Strawberry Fields and the Imagine mosaic that's embedded in the walking path as a memorial to the great singer and songwriter.
Even though it was dark, chilly and wet, I was certainly not going to miss this chance to pay modest tribute to one of my cultural heroes. So a bunch of us got off the bus (and a bunch stayed on.) When we got to the place, I kind of took over from the tour guide in describing the events of the night that John was murdered and the shocking, depressing effect it had on so many of his fans. I told the kids who had assembled around the mosaic about how John and Yoko had taken a several-years sabbatical from being pop stars so that they could concentrate on raising their son and having something like a normal domestic life, and how eagerly his new music was anticipated when rumors of a new album began to circulate in early 1980. When "Double Fantasy" was released, it took some of us off guard who had enjoyed the trippy, subversive Lennon persona and didn't know what to make of this matured, content, reconciled "family man" that he had become. But whatever we thought of the songs, Lennon was still an icon and a resounding voice that commanded our attention when he spoke. So it was with unbelieving horror that we first heard the news that he had been shot, and a few hours later, that he had died, and we just could not make any sense of what had happened. And we still can't.
But in the aftermath of this nightmarish end to the happiness that John, Yoko and Sean had found, thousands of people who appreciated Lennon's music and vision of love and peace spontaneously began to gather across the street from the Dakota, in the open spaces of Central Park that the Lennon's apartment overlooked. Though I was living on the opposite coast, near Ocean Beach in San Francisco, at the time, my heart and spirit were with those beautiful people who consoled each other by singing "Give Peace a Chance" and "All You Need is Love" and other lyrics that Lennon had given us over the years.
And sometime between then and now, the City of New York had seen fit to dedicate this space, this little patch of ground in the heart of Manhattan, to not only Lennon's memory, but even greater, to the hopes and dreams he articulated in his song "Imagine." And that's the story of how this mosaic came to be, or at least as much of the story as I was able to articulate that night. I was honored to share my recollections of John Lennon with the young people who accompanied me on my brief rainy pilgrimage to this shrine.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Times Square
A big part of the fun of New York is being on the scene of so many famous landmarks, especially places like Times Square which are so full of energy, and so thoroughly documented, even mythologized, in our culture that one feels a kind of "I can't believe I'm really *here*!" sensation. For a lot of the kids on the trip (and for me, who am I trying to fool?), Times Square was an especially important stop along the way. The neon, the hype, the craziness and the merchandising all exerted a strong, mildly hypnotic attraction. I also just enjoy the geography of the place. The way that Broadway crosses Seventh Avenue, forming a big elongated X in the heart of Manhattan, gave me the sense of being somewhere approximately close to the center of the universe... at least in the same zip code.
When we had our first opportunity to get off the bus and walk around a bit, I announced that I'd be heading up to Times Square to check out the Toys R Us and the MTV stores. That got a group huddled around me pretty quick, so off we went. We were just a block or two away so we had a short walk down busy streets, turned a corner or two and then, bam, all of a sudden, there it was, the super-tall billboards, the flashing hi-res screens and video monitors, the scrolling news headlines that on Saturday, April 2 were still reading "Vatican reports that Pope John Paul II remains in grave condition" - he would die later that afternoon.
The atmosphere of the square is really unique - I am just sitting here savoring the memory of looking around at all the buildings, soaking up the strange mix of open spaciousness in the midst of the surrounding slabs of granite, glass and steel. Of course there were cars, taxis, pedestrians all scurrying around to a million different destinations, street vendors on the corners and sidewalks, and most everyone that I could see seemed to be in a pretty good mood. It felt like a great privilege to me to be one of the people on the scene on an otherwise unremarkable day. In case you want to know what's happening at Times Square right now, here's a link to some webcams that will show you the scene at any given moment.
So we went to the Toys R Us store, which was quite a phantasmagoria of sights and sounds. The place is big - it has a fully functioning ferris wheel, probably 2 stories high, and several levels of toys, all featuring top notch displays. I took Derek down to the Nintendo video game area, and he spent a few minutes playing on their DS system. He already has one of these, and plays it a lot already. I had to get him off it, laughing to myself as I thought of the absurdity of traveling all the way to New York so that he could play on the same unit he uses in our living room at home.
So we headed up to the LEGO area, which was very cool. They have very big models of the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building (complete with motorized flag-waving King Kong) that you can see in these photos.
Curt and I spent some time drooling over the impressive Star Wars spaceships that they offered for sale. There's a Millennium Falcon that runs $100, but we decided to get a father/son pair of sets - he got the Imperial Review, featuring Darth Vader, the Emperor and several henchmen as well as a cool sinister spacecraft. I got an X-Wing Fighter, with Luke Skywalker and Yoda minifigs. Later on we put the models together at the hotel, to the amusement of some of our travel companions.
From there, we stepped across the street to the MTV store, which was actually kind of a let down. They don't have much for sale other than T-shirts and a few other light accessories. There's a Virgin Megastore down the street that pretty much blows away whatever kind of media products (CDs, DVDs, etc.) that MTV might otherwise offer, so they don't even bother. Upstairs from the store is the TRL studio, but since it was Saturday, there wasn't much going on up there. The coolest thing MTV had going on at Times Square was their ultra-hi-res monitor, unleashing a stream of arty videos that blew away most of the competition for smoothness of detail as well as creative ingenuity. I would like to see the videos streaming on the internet somewhere and if I find them I will post the link.
We came back to Times Square on Monday, where we visited the Virgin Store - I got an old Ramones CD as a souvenir of New York, and a CD by Beck just because I wanted it. I also picked up a free music magazine with Mariah Carey for one of my co-workers who is a big fan of hers, but later I discovered that the publication caters to the gay community and I am not exactly sure what I want to do with it. I will probably offer it to Shana but allow her to decide what she wants to do with it. The closer one gets to the back of the issue, the more explicit the contents get, culminating in "personal ads" that I really don't want to take the time to describe here...
So that's probably enough about Times Square. Except for a few more pictures.
A big part of the fun of New York is being on the scene of so many famous landmarks, especially places like Times Square which are so full of energy, and so thoroughly documented, even mythologized, in our culture that one feels a kind of "I can't believe I'm really *here*!" sensation. For a lot of the kids on the trip (and for me, who am I trying to fool?), Times Square was an especially important stop along the way. The neon, the hype, the craziness and the merchandising all exerted a strong, mildly hypnotic attraction. I also just enjoy the geography of the place. The way that Broadway crosses Seventh Avenue, forming a big elongated X in the heart of Manhattan, gave me the sense of being somewhere approximately close to the center of the universe... at least in the same zip code.
When we had our first opportunity to get off the bus and walk around a bit, I announced that I'd be heading up to Times Square to check out the Toys R Us and the MTV stores. That got a group huddled around me pretty quick, so off we went. We were just a block or two away so we had a short walk down busy streets, turned a corner or two and then, bam, all of a sudden, there it was, the super-tall billboards, the flashing hi-res screens and video monitors, the scrolling news headlines that on Saturday, April 2 were still reading "Vatican reports that Pope John Paul II remains in grave condition" - he would die later that afternoon.
The atmosphere of the square is really unique - I am just sitting here savoring the memory of looking around at all the buildings, soaking up the strange mix of open spaciousness in the midst of the surrounding slabs of granite, glass and steel. Of course there were cars, taxis, pedestrians all scurrying around to a million different destinations, street vendors on the corners and sidewalks, and most everyone that I could see seemed to be in a pretty good mood. It felt like a great privilege to me to be one of the people on the scene on an otherwise unremarkable day. In case you want to know what's happening at Times Square right now, here's a link to some webcams that will show you the scene at any given moment.
So we went to the Toys R Us store, which was quite a phantasmagoria of sights and sounds. The place is big - it has a fully functioning ferris wheel, probably 2 stories high, and several levels of toys, all featuring top notch displays. I took Derek down to the Nintendo video game area, and he spent a few minutes playing on their DS system. He already has one of these, and plays it a lot already. I had to get him off it, laughing to myself as I thought of the absurdity of traveling all the way to New York so that he could play on the same unit he uses in our living room at home.
So we headed up to the LEGO area, which was very cool. They have very big models of the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building (complete with motorized flag-waving King Kong) that you can see in these photos.
Curt and I spent some time drooling over the impressive Star Wars spaceships that they offered for sale. There's a Millennium Falcon that runs $100, but we decided to get a father/son pair of sets - he got the Imperial Review, featuring Darth Vader, the Emperor and several henchmen as well as a cool sinister spacecraft. I got an X-Wing Fighter, with Luke Skywalker and Yoda minifigs. Later on we put the models together at the hotel, to the amusement of some of our travel companions.
From there, we stepped across the street to the MTV store, which was actually kind of a let down. They don't have much for sale other than T-shirts and a few other light accessories. There's a Virgin Megastore down the street that pretty much blows away whatever kind of media products (CDs, DVDs, etc.) that MTV might otherwise offer, so they don't even bother. Upstairs from the store is the TRL studio, but since it was Saturday, there wasn't much going on up there. The coolest thing MTV had going on at Times Square was their ultra-hi-res monitor, unleashing a stream of arty videos that blew away most of the competition for smoothness of detail as well as creative ingenuity. I would like to see the videos streaming on the internet somewhere and if I find them I will post the link.
We came back to Times Square on Monday, where we visited the Virgin Store - I got an old Ramones CD as a souvenir of New York, and a CD by Beck just because I wanted it. I also picked up a free music magazine with Mariah Carey for one of my co-workers who is a big fan of hers, but later I discovered that the publication caters to the gay community and I am not exactly sure what I want to do with it. I will probably offer it to Shana but allow her to decide what she wants to do with it. The closer one gets to the back of the issue, the more explicit the contents get, culminating in "personal ads" that I really don't want to take the time to describe here...
So that's probably enough about Times Square. Except for a few more pictures.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Ground Zero
After we left the ferry that took us from Ellis Island to the docks of the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan, our group had a chance to visit the site where the World Trade Center once stood. The first thing we saw that brought the events of 9/11 to mind (other than the skyline view from our hotel that revealed the gaps that the Twin Towers had filled) was a memorial in Battery Park featuring "The Sphere," a bronze orb that had once stood in the plaza between the towers. It's the only work of art that survived the collapse of the buildings, and was installed in unrestored condition, as it was found. Here's a picture of what it once looked like, followed by a picture that I took myself.
In searching for some more information about the sculpture, I discovered that a film was produced about the sculptor and the story of this particular piece. And here's a website featuring several other photos of "The Sphere." I am glad that the work survived and that it's been put back on public display. The message being, "we will not abandon our hopes for peace and the affirmation of our noblest ideals, even in the face of such cruelty and sadness."
I'd heard that the site of Ground Zero was very large, and it certainly is. Having never seen the WTC myself, I wasn't ever clear on how the buildings were actually situated, but my imagination is probably not capable of recreating the horror of what the scene looked like in the days following September 11, 2001. I was particularly moved by the sight of the buildings with windows that looked directly in on the disaster. I recognized that there are many apartments and offices nearby, that this was an actual "neighborhood," though that's not a word I commonly associate with a large metropolitan environment. Being in the place where so many people lost their lives, where so many hopes and dreams were dashed so heartlessly, made the tragedy seem all that much more real to me. It involved me in the events of that day in a way I hadn't really known before. The anger, the personal hurt felt by so many who were closer to the scene of the attack became easier for me to understand and empathize with. I wouldn't say that I hadn't considered all that before, but being on the spot itself simply made an impression that media coverage can't quite convey.
The site is surrounded by a high chain-link fence, with clear directions posted all around, prohibiting the distribution of written literature, commercial activities and speech directed at the public, among other things. The atmosphere was appropriately solemn - there are some plaques with photographs of the wreckage and tributes to the safety workers who served heroically during and after the attacks. But it's not excessive or morbid - this is still a bustling public area and life goes on. The PATH subway station has been open for many months now, and a lot of people are simply in transit from one place to another, though there are a fair number of people around taking pictures or just gazing through the fencing.
I took a few pictures that are of some interest.
This is the clearest shot I got of Ground Zero itself. From the sidewalk, there's not much elevation to look down into the deep pit, that has now been cleared out to expose the foundation walls. I am reasonably sure that no new construction has happened there. I'm not at all sure what kind of activity goes on during the weekdays - we were there on a Saturday and it was rainy, so the pit was devoid of any human presence that I could detect while we were there.
The tall building here is draped in black fabric - there's still a lot of cleanup and remodeling work going on inside. But it looks a lot like a funeral shroud, appropriate for the scene in my opinion.
This picture shows the fence and one of the notifying plaques I mentioned above. That's my son Curt in the black cap.
In the process of cleaning up the site, workers found that some i-beams had broken off to perfectly form the shape of a Christian cross. This is a street level shot of that cross, which is understandably inspirational to many. It's now mounted so that passers-by can see it, but as far as I know, this is not an "official" monument, nor is there a plaque that explains or makes any claims about the cross. One additional poignant detail of the cross is that a silver "blob" attached to one of the cross's arms is actually a fireman's jacket that melted and turned into silver. For more background, here is one story about the WTC cross and here's another.
Finally, I'm going to give the last word here to someone who has chosen to express a political sentiment overlooking the former WTC site. On the upper floor of a building next to Ground Zero, two windows hold messages - one, a peace sign, the other, the words "Dissent is Patriotic." It's hard to make out the details in the picture above, but at higher resolution you can see it clearly. This article has more to say about the owner (music impresario Russell Simmons) if you are interested. My response to all that is "right on." What happened here on 9/11/01 was dreadful and wrong, but that doesn't justify the killing of many more thousands that our government inflicted in Iraq or elsewhere. It still makes me angry to think about how the attacks have been exploited by our political leaders to pursue agendas that cause so much death, pain and suffering. We have to learn from these tragedies and find better alternatives to violence. That's the legacy of the World Trade Center attacks that I hope we can all build on.
After we left the ferry that took us from Ellis Island to the docks of the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan, our group had a chance to visit the site where the World Trade Center once stood. The first thing we saw that brought the events of 9/11 to mind (other than the skyline view from our hotel that revealed the gaps that the Twin Towers had filled) was a memorial in Battery Park featuring "The Sphere," a bronze orb that had once stood in the plaza between the towers. It's the only work of art that survived the collapse of the buildings, and was installed in unrestored condition, as it was found. Here's a picture of what it once looked like, followed by a picture that I took myself.
In searching for some more information about the sculpture, I discovered that a film was produced about the sculptor and the story of this particular piece. And here's a website featuring several other photos of "The Sphere." I am glad that the work survived and that it's been put back on public display. The message being, "we will not abandon our hopes for peace and the affirmation of our noblest ideals, even in the face of such cruelty and sadness."
I'd heard that the site of Ground Zero was very large, and it certainly is. Having never seen the WTC myself, I wasn't ever clear on how the buildings were actually situated, but my imagination is probably not capable of recreating the horror of what the scene looked like in the days following September 11, 2001. I was particularly moved by the sight of the buildings with windows that looked directly in on the disaster. I recognized that there are many apartments and offices nearby, that this was an actual "neighborhood," though that's not a word I commonly associate with a large metropolitan environment. Being in the place where so many people lost their lives, where so many hopes and dreams were dashed so heartlessly, made the tragedy seem all that much more real to me. It involved me in the events of that day in a way I hadn't really known before. The anger, the personal hurt felt by so many who were closer to the scene of the attack became easier for me to understand and empathize with. I wouldn't say that I hadn't considered all that before, but being on the spot itself simply made an impression that media coverage can't quite convey.
The site is surrounded by a high chain-link fence, with clear directions posted all around, prohibiting the distribution of written literature, commercial activities and speech directed at the public, among other things. The atmosphere was appropriately solemn - there are some plaques with photographs of the wreckage and tributes to the safety workers who served heroically during and after the attacks. But it's not excessive or morbid - this is still a bustling public area and life goes on. The PATH subway station has been open for many months now, and a lot of people are simply in transit from one place to another, though there are a fair number of people around taking pictures or just gazing through the fencing.
I took a few pictures that are of some interest.
This is the clearest shot I got of Ground Zero itself. From the sidewalk, there's not much elevation to look down into the deep pit, that has now been cleared out to expose the foundation walls. I am reasonably sure that no new construction has happened there. I'm not at all sure what kind of activity goes on during the weekdays - we were there on a Saturday and it was rainy, so the pit was devoid of any human presence that I could detect while we were there.
The tall building here is draped in black fabric - there's still a lot of cleanup and remodeling work going on inside. But it looks a lot like a funeral shroud, appropriate for the scene in my opinion.
This picture shows the fence and one of the notifying plaques I mentioned above. That's my son Curt in the black cap.
In the process of cleaning up the site, workers found that some i-beams had broken off to perfectly form the shape of a Christian cross. This is a street level shot of that cross, which is understandably inspirational to many. It's now mounted so that passers-by can see it, but as far as I know, this is not an "official" monument, nor is there a plaque that explains or makes any claims about the cross. One additional poignant detail of the cross is that a silver "blob" attached to one of the cross's arms is actually a fireman's jacket that melted and turned into silver. For more background, here is one story about the WTC cross and here's another.
Finally, I'm going to give the last word here to someone who has chosen to express a political sentiment overlooking the former WTC site. On the upper floor of a building next to Ground Zero, two windows hold messages - one, a peace sign, the other, the words "Dissent is Patriotic." It's hard to make out the details in the picture above, but at higher resolution you can see it clearly. This article has more to say about the owner (music impresario Russell Simmons) if you are interested. My response to all that is "right on." What happened here on 9/11/01 was dreadful and wrong, but that doesn't justify the killing of many more thousands that our government inflicted in Iraq or elsewhere. It still makes me angry to think about how the attacks have been exploited by our political leaders to pursue agendas that cause so much death, pain and suffering. We have to learn from these tragedies and find better alternatives to violence. That's the legacy of the World Trade Center attacks that I hope we can all build on.
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