When the plans for the Freedom Tower [One World Trade] were first announced, Chris Rock wasn’t sure it was a good idea. He had one question about the building.
“Can it duck?”
The New Yorker’s first cover after the attacks, Art Speigelman’s “In the Shadow of No Towers,” is justly celebrated.1 Less well remembered, to our peril, is Hendrik Hertzberg’s Comment from the same issue.
In response to the attacks, Hertzberg hoped the government would launch a criminal investigation, rather than military strikes.2 I’ve never been able to stop wondering about the world that could have made.
Left to their own devices, absent thoughtful leadership, people want terrible things.
I took this picture on 48th street in 2024. Never Forgive. So much for the Judeo-Christian ethic!
The older I get, the more useful I find it to think of morality as a sort of shortcut to a better life.
If I’m not being grubby, moochy, selfish, etc., I have less to feel guilty about and I’m less anxious. It’s crazy, I know. What’s crazier is that people also seem to like me more.
Al-Qaeda hoped to weaken America’s standing in the world. Their bet was that our response would be disproportionate. It was a good bet.
Al-Qaeda also wanted to end American support for Israel. In this they did not succeed. But two decades later, when Israel itself responded disproportionately to October 7th, the seeds were sown for increasingly widespread pushback against reflexive Zionism, the likes of which I never thought we’d see.
The first inscription on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi is very famous: Know thyself. Less well known, to our peril, is the second inscription: Nothing in excess.
It’s less sexy, I guess. But boy howdy is it worth keeping in mind.
Shoutout to the inimitable Darcie, who called my attention to the first recorded casualty of 9/11: a gay sober priest named Myhcal Judge:
Judge was also well known in the city for ministering to the homeless, the hungry, recovering alcoholics, people with AIDS, the sick, injured, and grieving, immigrants, gays and lesbians, and those alienated by society. Judge once gave the winter coat off his back to a homeless woman in the street, later saying, “She needed it more than me.” When he anointed a man who was dying of AIDS, the man asked him, “Do you think God hates me?” Judge picked him up, kissed him, and silently rocked him in his arms.3
My other positive endnote is the boatlift. When the tunnels and bridges all closed on actual 9/11, hundreds of random boats rescued thousands of people from lower Manhattan. Just like Dunkirk!!
In Garrett Graff’s oral history of 9/11, The Only Plane in the Sky, it is claimed that someone even commandeered a yacht by breaking into it with a sledgehammer, then used it to ferry people, luxuriously, to safety.
Even if that didn’t happen, it’s a great idea.
Invade fewer countries.
Commandeer more yachts.
That’s my Delphic advice for ya.
I once had a customer at the bookstore, himself a longtime bookseller, tell me about a falling out he had with Spiegelman. Turns out the artist doesn’t take kindly to requests for his autograph on that particular cover.
Instead we started with bombing, followed up (I’m told) with Horse Soldiers, and then full-on invaded what is probably the most difficult-to-conquer country on the planet, Afghanistan, a nation nicknamed for how many superpowers they’ve crippled (The Graveyard of Empire). Then we invaded Iraq, which had nothing to do with actual 9/11. As a bonus, by toppling the Iraqi government we were, in effect, doing a huge favor for their bitter rival (checks notes) Iran. A decision assuredly unlikely to come back and bite us on our entire ass.
Wikipedia, bless up