Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Saturday, 22 November 2003

# 10 PM (GMT-5)

Visited my uncle Lewis, who lives down on Chambers Street. After lunch we went to see the memorial designs for the World Trade Center, now being exhibited at the World Financial Center (just across the street from the giant pit in the ground where the WTC once was). It's hard to judge something that will be built on a monumental scale from a four-foot-square model — or, really, at all. I suppose architectural critics get good at this. Neither Lew nor I were terribly happy with the designs. Lew is concerned that, since they're all on such a huge scale, they are all too impersonal for a proper memorial. I share this concern, and in addition I don't like the symbology of any of the designs, in particular the preservation of the "footprints" of the old towers as elements of the memorials.

Apparently this was a non-negotiable stipulation of the families of the dead. Now I do not have much of an emotional attachment to the event, certainly not as much as they do. I had been living on the other side of the continent for years when it happened, no one I knew died, and I always thought the towers were kind of an eyesore. (The new plan for the site fits much better with the overall NYC skyline, I think, — or at least it would if not for that ridiculous glass spire, which I hope they run out of money before it gets built.) Anyway, keeping the footprints strikes me as the symbolic equivalent of deliberately creating a giant scar in a very visible location on the "body" of Manhattan. It's just the thing to freeze people into the way they feel about it right now, which I do not think is healthy.

(Editor's note, months later: The selected design is not nearly as bad as some of the alternatives, I'm pleased to find. I still don't like the symbology.)

# 3 AM (GMT-5)

Went to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World with my old friend Steven Kasow, at the Ziegfeld. This is New York City's most famous lavishly decorated movie theater. It used to be a stage, then it went bankrupt and was bought out by concerned citizens and turned into a movie theater.

I have read only one of the books on which this movie is based. Thus, to me the movie was a rollicking good sea yarn, but not the feast of references to things in the books that Steven found it to be. Almost all the action is at sea, and there's a handful of scenes filmed on the Galapagos Islands, which I cannot quite believe they got permission to do. It's very long but it does not drag.

Afterward I met another old friend, Michael from the CU marching band, who informs me that that institution has mostly recovered from the unhealthy attention it got from the deans' office back in the nineties. This is a relief, however I would like to see it for myself, which there will not be an opportunity to do on this trip. Michael now works for Bloomberg Inc and was delighted to show me around their incredibly lavishly decorated offices. Lot of money to be had in providing tons of juicy data to stockbrokers.