knock knock.

the lights have always been my favorite 9/11 memorial.

holy crap

this is what will play inside the elevator to the top of WTC1.

#tbt

FOne Capt. Mark Tillman told me 10 yrs later that we took off at unusually steep ascent bcause he had a report of a sniper at end of runway.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 11, 2014

bush's press secretary is re-live-tweeting 9/11 right now. pretty fascinating.

hey space needle!

(via) #neverforget #freedomaintfree

nErD aLeRt!

this is the design for a new high-rise by dutch firm MVRDV. does it remind you of anything?

i guess a lot of people were reminded of the world trade center towers exploding. MVRDV responded on facebook saying:

A real media storm has started and we receive threatening emails and calls of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse.

MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud projects evokes regarding 9/11, it was not our intention.

The Cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city. It is one of many projects in which MVRDV experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often solitary typology of the skyscraper. It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process. We sincerely apologize to anyone whose feelings we have hurt, the design was not meant to provoke this.

The design inspiration of The Cloud is visualised in the image here. (via)

ooooooooooooops!

it's really too bad it looks like 9/11, because it's kind of cool otherwise.

don't miss your chance to tell this joke this weekend.

me: hey john
knock knock
John: who's there?
me: 9/11!!
John: 9/11 who?
me: YOU SAID YOU'D NEVER FORGET


gulp.

did you pin yourself?

another fantastic inforgraphic from the new york times. pin where you were the morning of september 11th, and how you feel 10 years later.

thx erin.

the terrorists win.

from fresh air, an interesting analysis of the change (or lackthereof) in the american lexicon following september 11th:

They were instant cliches, but they needed saying anyway. September 11th was our Pearl Harbor. It would change the way we think and create a new normal. It defined a generation. And from the beginning, people looked to the language to bear witness to how utterly differently we were seeing the world. Ten years later, it's not so clear. 

I've been making a list of all the words I've been tracking since 2001 that were connected to 9/11 and its repercussions. Its a jumble: axis of evil and the army you have, cakewalk, coalition of the willing and connect the dots, dead or alive and don't touch my junk, evildoers and enhanced interrogation. But the one thing that jumps out at me is how ephemeral they are. Most have already disappeared, and apart from 9/11 itself, few of the rest will be around a decade from now. (via)

your fortnightly boat

guess who i saw getting tug-boated into its parking spot this morning...

the boat made of 9/11!! just in time for the anniversary!

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced in a statement on Tuesday that the amphibious transport ship will travel to the city this week to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack. The vessel will also transport a handful of emergency responders and families of victims from her home port in Norfolk, Va., to New York Harbor.

On Sept. 11, the boat will move from its anchor point in the Hudson River to “a location within sight of the World Trade Center,” the statement said. 

Commissioned into service in November 2009, the ship was built, in part, with steel reforged from the twin towers. Mr. Bloomberg hailed the return of “a powerful symbol of the deeply personal connection that New Yorkers have with our military.” (via)

There's Nothing on TV but 9/11

Today gawker blogger Richard Lawson made reference to Mathnet in his daily trade roundup post.  Omg, do you remember Mathnet?  The dragnet inspired Square One segment where the cops were mathematicians.  I hope you do for the sake of your childhood.  Time to go down a retro PBS rabbit hole!  3-2-1 Contact! Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego!  Reading Rainbow!  Sesame Street!  Here's the Square One theme song.  do do do do do DO DO dooooo. square one!  saxophone solo!



Saxophones almost always make me think of Night Court.  Jesus Christ.  What were people thinking back then.  General retro TV rabbit hole!  227 was set in Washington DC?  I had no idea!  Marla Gibbs!  Jackée! My grandmother loved Mama's Family.  And I thought Alan Kayser was kind of hot!  Shut up, there wasn't a lot to look at back then.  The World Trade Center is in the background of some of these videos.  Gulp.  But it's not my fault!  They were still around back then!  When is it going to stop raining!?

Richard also informs us that a couple of assholes are going to make a sequel to one of my favorite movies, Beetlejuice. No thank you.

9/11 memorial

you can now reserve passes to visit the 9/11 memorial, which opens this year on the 10th anniversary. click.

finally, an explanation.

on saturday, aka september 11th....gulp. we were up on my roof checkin' out the ol' towers of light, when we noticed that something was happening in the beams. they appeared to have been glitter bombed. both light shafts from the ground up to where they terminated into the low clouds were full of little specks moving in the light. from our vantage point in brooklyn, it was hard to gauge the scale of the objects, and they did look sparkly, so we just assumed they had shot some confetti off or something, during the 9/11 party tribute down at ground zero.

anyway, i've been scouring the internet ever since looking for an explanation, and gawker just gave it to me:

They were thousands of birds, trapped into the beams, confused by the intense light while trying to go over New York City, en route to warmer climates. The birds saw the intense light from the distance and, lacking any other navigational reference in the sky, they went into it.

According to John Rowden, citizen science director at the Audubon Society's New York chapter, "it has only happened once before. It's a confluence of circumstances that come together to cause this. Some of it has to do with meteorological conditions, and some with the phase of the moon."

About 10,000 birds were estimated to enter the beams, wasting time and energy that now can't be used in their migratory trip. From the ground, people were surprised and confused by the display. Nobody could tell what the swarm of glowing points were. Ornithology experts recorded the bird voices, as they called in the middle of the night.

To liberate the birds, the NYC authorities had to turn off the beams five times over the night. By dawn, on September 12, all the birds were gone, on their way to their winter promised land. (via)

it was BIRDS!! ten THOUSand of them!

well. i'm glad that's over.

look what i found on facebook.

i feel like i'm stuck between a racist rock and a homophobic hard place.

greg gutfeld is apparently some really funny douchey guy with a late show on fox news who has found a way to mock ethnic minorities AND gays! a republican dream. he wants to build a gay bar next to the cordoba house islamic center at ground zero in tribeca as a way of testing the tolerance of the muslim faith. of course, gutfeld would never suggest building a gay bar next to the morman tabernacle in salt lake city because christians never have a problem with gays.

hey greg, i have an idea, i want to build an abortion clinic in your mom's vagina! waaaaaaaaaa waaaaaaaaaaaaa.

blog sneak attack

john: ugh
youtube is being slow today
probably because it's sept. 11th
their bandwith is at HALF MAST!
ZING!
me: ctm!

was a whistlepig shadow different from a monkey shadow?

i had to get up early, but when i took care of my business (not a 2sie), i was ready to go back to bed. i thought a nice little amount of tv might be nice, and i only have about 25 channels in my room, 7 of which are in spanish. i had intended to watch some today show 4th hour, but 17 of the remaining 18 channels, including nbc, were playing that boring-ass september 11th memorial, like anyone even cares.



fortunately, the only channel left was playing curious george!! i normally don't make a habit of watching children's cartoons, but i loved curious george as a child. i don't remember his little dachshund friend, but they are a wonderful on-screen duo.