Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Twelve Years On

I made this for the eighth anniversary of 9/11... can that be?
[checks] Yes, in 2009, eight years after.
One day at a time, eh?
From the Star Trek (TOS) episode "A Taste of Armageddon" (1967)

This year I want to add this quote from James Baldwin, from his 1964 essay Nothing Personal:
"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."

Nothing Personal was published with b&w photographs by Richard Avedon. I don't actually like the photos with the text, but you can see the photos here.

Oh--googling around, I see Avedon did some portraits of 9/11 workers. From the Library of Congress "Remembering 9/11" in 2011.
They're pretty cool, with the people's quotes. (click to enlarge)




2 comments:

Bianca Castafiore? said...

hi ya, fresca. i've missed you, but then, i've missed most everything, haven't i?

count me as a great admirer of the creativity that either drives your life, illustrates it, or celebrates and memorializes it -- and the people, events, and schtuff swirling alongside in the friendly, terrifying vortex making up experience. wow, heavy and brilliant insights, eh?

what brought me to the point of needing to comment atcha? the tide of september elevenseses, the 40th anniversary of pinochet, our own terror attack, then, a few days later, the 50th anniversary of the 16th st. baptist church bombings in birmingham.

but mostly, you allowed an echo in my admittedly stretched out of logic's shape brain, following yesterday's shooting at the navy yard. an echo of what dr. janis orlowski said at the podium:

"There's something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate....I would like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots. Let's get rid of this. This is not America."

oh, i'm so jumbled.



Fresca said...

BIANCA!!!
Hello! Thanks for writing! A while ago your blog said "only invited readers" and told me I was not invited, so I jumbled too...

Re yesterday's shooting, I just now posted about that swirling "schtuff" (I love your words).

Creativity---such a fancy work, I mean plain old making stuff!--is tow-rope through the evil in our society.