Three days from now, many of us will spend some time remembering where we were and what we were doing on that day ten years earlier.\u00a0 I remember learning that two planes had crashed into New York City’s World Trade Center at a morning department meeting, then passing on the news to my 10:30 am sociology class.\u00a0 On a residential college where 10:30 am is an “early class,” and before there were iPhones, Facebook and Twitter, few of my students heard the awful news from another source before I broke it to them; it’s with a heavy heart that I realize mine is a face they’ll associate with that “where I was” memory.<\/p>\n
But in case you’re having difficulty remembering that day, it’s fairly easy to find a steady media stream of news specials and opinion segments commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9\/11.\u00a0 On most of these we’ll see Ground Zero before and after 9\/11; be reminded how promisingly warm and sunny that late summer day was; review the iconic plane crashes into the twin towers from several vantage points (the moments of impact at the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA were never filmed); watch once again as the towers burn, collapse, and spew their cloud of smoke across downtown Manhattan; and see the faces of NYC residents, emergency crews, workers and visitors twist with horror, grief, and confusion at the unfathomability of the event they’re living through.<\/p>\n
And then of course we’ll be treated to the subsequent events that provided the dominant definition of 9\/11: the lengthy digging out and search for casualties at Ground Zero; the international outpouring of grief and sympathy; the response of Mayor Giuliani, President Bush, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld\u00a0\u00a0et al<\/em>; the introduction of “al Qaeda” and “axis of evil” into mainstream news vocabulary; the War on Terror in Afghanistan; the War on Terror in Iraq; Guantanamo Bay; Bush’s 2004 re-election; and on and on into the present day of routine anxiety and war without end.<\/p>\n But the events that occurred on the specific date of September 11, 2001 are of such magnitude, they deserve to be isolated from their subsequent redefinitions into (what my Dunkin Donuts calendar reminds me is) “Patriot Day” in the U.S.\u00a0 That date should be remembered in its original incomprehensibility.\u00a0 And it certainly doesn’t need the musical soundtrack that the news specials will invariably give it\u2014no mournful wordless vocal of a wailing woman (a la Dead Can Dance or Peter Gabriel’s “Last Temptation of Christ” soundtrack), no cues for Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising,” no\u00a0nothing<\/em>.\u00a0 Here are some reasons why I won’t be listening to music to remember 9\/11:<\/p>\n 1) 2,977 unsuspecting people died in the attacks on 9\/11.\u00a0 They’re no longer around to hear the music, which we play to dramatize, aestheticize and maybe anesthetize our own grief.\u00a0 Let’s honor their memory on this day, not soothe our own.<\/p>\n 2) 9\/11 was for many Americans, myself included, the day we discovered the geopolitical context for this inexplicable horror: our country’s support of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere that fueled grievances which in turn lit the spark of terrorism.\u00a0\u00a0Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi and Afghan civilians who died in wars not of their choosing.\u00a0 These other unnamed, innumerable deaths and lives wasted also deserve their moment of silence, no matter the fact that it took an unimaginably evil act to reveal them.<\/p>\n 3) Needless to say, the unprecedented global outpouring of empathy and reflection that 9\/11 brought about\u2014a cathexis that, among world cities, perhaps only New York City can support\u2014soon devolved into a very precedented wave of American exceptionalism and crackpot realism.\u00a0 And if 9\/11 has no musical soundtrack, the tragedy of subsequent events has one in the Concert for New York City.\u00a0 This was the October 20, 2001 charity concert organized by Paul McCartney that featured the cream of British classic rockers, a mixed bag of American popstars, and American comics and filmmakers, all to pay tribute to the NYFD, NYPD, and other first responders who gave their lives or lost co-workers and family.\u00a0 If I recall correctly, the audience was heavily composed of these NYC employees and their families, plus the odd celebrity here and there (the rest of us watched it on live cable broadcast).\u00a0 The participation of a diverse set of artists, from Elton John to Spike Lee, underscores the extent to which genuine respect and honor was paid across a wide sociocultural and political spectrum to New York’s police and fire departments.<\/p>\n Probably the song that most people remember from the Concert for New York City is the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”\u00a0 It was an electrifying performance, maybe the best the band ever played after the members turned 50, as the song became a raw, tangible vessel for the audience’s emotional projections.\u00a0 This may not be everyone’s favorite Who song, but it was clearly the right song for the moment, simultaneously sublime and in your face.\u00a0 The camera pans over the audience: beefy policemen and firemen in uniform bouncing around, air guitaring, and generally losing their shit with joyful abandon to this most\u00a0ambiguous<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0malleable<\/a>\u00a0of rock anthems.\u00a0 In retrospect, the visuals projected on stage are demagogic\u2014the Who’s Union Jack flag sandwiched between two Old Glories, eagle-eye views of a pristine World Trade Center and Statue of Liberty\u2014but in that moment it seemed that almost everyone, TV viewers included, couldn’t help but submit in good faith to the collective wave of unity and reverence.<\/p>\n