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Kinematics

New York, NY - Peter - Wednesday, April 10th, 2002 : goo

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After all the terror unwound to digestible tolerances and the eyes of Manhattan slowly began blinking back vague signs of its charmed life, returning, I was having dinner with a friend who had experienced September's events at a closer proximity than anyone should have. With tedious stoppages and awkward nonsequiturs parsing his tale, he pieced together an abstraction of his placement one morning in September, and how the ground shook and fell away, sprinting and sprinting before the sharp pains rained down on his shoulder.

He explained that his overbearing sense of sentimentality is what gave him the clarity of mind, amidst the whirling protoplasm of humanity, concrete and glass, to stoop for a fragmented sliver of a second and retrieve the grapefruit-esque chunk of granite facade that slipped down from one of two very tall tower-tops onto his still-fractured clavicle.

Pausing in mental inventory of his life in the intervening several months, he concluded that his possession of this fragment was ill-advised, carrying a weight so much heavier than its physical pound or two. Palming his face, raking sweat from stubble, he sighed in dilemma; i can't throw it away, and i sure as hell can't carry it around with me every day...

Two days later, it was pouring rain. Seemingly, spring's showers had finally found their way to Manhattan's shores despite the battered piers, windswept warehouses and unyielding ribbons of gray motorway that lick the rivers' edges. I dove into my foyer, umbrella-less in the gray torrent, picking soggy bills and banal missives from my gunmetal gray post box. And there, in the bottom of the box, was the stone. And there, crudely banded around the incongruously smooth granite chunk was the note; carry a burden for a friend?

No one but God trifles with the fundamental laws of nature; no source of power is adequate, no fleet of shiny flaming planes, no diabolical stabs of hate, no monsoon of shattered half-mirrored glass raining down on Wall Street can encroach on God's fated kinematics. No human force can bear the weight implied by a single, architecturally smooth fragment except that of friendship.

Last night, I held the fragment aloft on my right palm, not in prayer or offering, not in fastidious display, but alone in my basement. I observed the halogen-flare of the ceiling's lights around its smooth surface, and the matte refractions that slipped from the single jaggedy side where it was loosed from some oblique parapet. I probed its floor-cast shadow with my foot; made assumptions of its mass and momentum, envisioned it falling, falling.

The arena of this stone is large; its compatriot parts now circling the globe, orbiting the earth's surface, my city's surface; everywhere. Through the atmosphere in postal mail they go, barges, dump-trucks, shipping containers, cargo holds bound for third-world scrap refineries; recycling plants, Pennsylvania forges, New Jersey scrap yards, Staten Island landfills; being dumped into the Huson river, the East river, the NY Harbor, the Long Island Sound; rubble, sitting in still-vacated apartments and Battery Park condos, still as vacantly embedded in flesh, still dusting the streets of lower Manhattan, still seeping into the subway stations with the human remains every time it rains.

Nature is inevitable and relentless, unyielding to millions of metric tons of continually manifested debris; conservation of matter is perpetually at work in this system, this city, this planet.

This article has been viewed 6028 times in the last 8 years

jamie: 18th Mar 2005 - 14:12 GMT

I lost my piece of wtc rock years ago. I always felt slightly uneasy in my ownership of it. It felt wrong somehow

elaine: 16th Apr 2005 - 09:26 GMT

uncomfortable thing to have a souveneir of, I imagine, and certainly a momento mori. The way you write about this is the most evocative and meaningful account I have read. I was in NY the following May and looked down into the abyss there, a fenced off void, but what struck me was the surrounding buildings which were still covered in the netting which I suppose is about broken glass or superficial structures, but which were, I seem to remember black and printed with stars and stripes (which were, in any event, absolutely everywhere), so they looked like massive upended coffins

Stacey: 20th Jun 2005 - 18:47 GMT

Please Jamie do not feel that way. I lost my nephew and many, many friends. To hold a piece of the WTC is to hold my family and friends in your hands. To keep a reminder of that day means that you will never forget. To Peter - I hope you will always keep that piece with you whether on display or in a personal, private place.

Peter: 8th Mar 2006 - 16:55 GMT

i have it. every so often, when i move or rearrange, it turns up. in a box. on a shelf, under the desk, in the nightstand drawer... i do not display it or make any issue of it, i do not take photos of it or think of it often or talk about it aside from here. but by chance, i end up rediscovering it once or twice a year. once, my wife asked me "whats this rock for?" and i explained. i have never seen a confluence of sheer enlightemnent and terror as that that crossed her face as she held it and i told her the story explained above. it transformed from a meaningless object to a heavy, heavy relic tied to one of history's greatest tragedies in one single second, in her very hand.

it is most uncomfortable. and the fragment holds so much pain and death.

but as long as it turns up none-too-frequently every now and then, i know its contained, and that the terrible story it could tell is muffled away in a drawer or box.

i have been told that i, like many new yorkers, suffer no small abount of psychosis from what i saw happen that september morning. and in some strange way, in my own mind's eccentricities, having possession/control of that fragment gives me possession/control of the unspeakably chilling emotions and memories i permanently have from that event.

EvilGentleman: 8th Mar 2006 - 20:37 GMT

No matter how open-minded or compassionate I may consider myself to be, I am ashamed to realize that I have never actually thought about the fact that the events of that September day have been burned forever into the memory and consciousness of the millions of people in New York that day as they watched the sensless murder of thousands of their fellow human beings. I cannot imagine the horror of watching such events with the naked eye, of hearing the rumble of the collapse intermingling with the screams of other onlookers, of the smells associated with that day, of the terror of not knowing if more was yet to come at any moment.

I started to write about my own feelings a moment ago, about what I experienced watching this horror from the Arctic, where I was safe, yet still connected. After the first few paragraphs, I realized this post would not be appropriate for this article, which is about Peter and the stone he holds for his friend, and the burden of pain carried within. Perhaps a separate article is more in order, where my babbling will be less out of order. I shall see.

One thing I must ask however; Citynoise was created in 2001 as a personal blog for you, Peter? Might I ask, was it created before or after that terrible September day? I guess what I am actually asking is, did the events of that day create a need within you to vent your emotions in a creative manner, and thus citynoise was born? If so, then this site shall, in one respect, be a permanent, positive, vibrant, living memorial to the fallen.

EvilGentleman: 19th Aug 2009 - 18:36 GMT

For those who want to see the original citynoise posts before the Great Russian Spam Wars, check this out:

web.archive.org/web/*/http://citynoise.org

An earlier version of this post:

web.archive.org/web/20050220075711/www.citynoise.org/index.php?article=339#comment

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With tedious stoppages and awkward nonsequiturs parsing his tale, he pieced together an abstraction of his placement one morning in September, and how the ground shook and fell away, sprinting and sprinting before the sharp pains rained down on his shoulder. He explained that his overbearing sense of sentimentality is what gave him the clarity of mind, amidst the whirling protoplasm of humanity, concrete and glass, to stoop for a fragmented sliver of a second and retrieve the grapefruit-esque chunk of granite facade that slipped down from one of two very tall tower-tops onto his still-fractured clavicle. Pausing in mental inventory of his life in the intervening several months, he concluded that his possession of this fragment was ill-advised, carrying a weight so much heavier than its physical pound or two. Palming his face, raking sweat from stubble, he sighed in dilemma; i can't throw it away, and i sure as hell can't carry it around with me every day... Two days later, it was pouring rain. Seemingly, spring's showers had finally found their way to Manhattan's shores despite the battered piers, windswept warehouses and unyielding ribbons of gray motorway that lick the rivers' edges. I dove into my foyer, umbrella-less in the gray torrent, picking soggy bills and banal missives from my gunmetal gray post box. And there, in the bottom of the box, was the stone. And there, crudely banded around the incongruously smooth granite chunk was the note; carry a burden for a friend? No one but God trifles with the fundamental laws of nature; no source of power is adequate, no fleet of shiny flaming planes, no diabolical stabs of hate, no monsoon of shattered half-mirrored glass raining down on Wall Street can encroach on God's fated kinematics. No human force can bear the weight implied by a single, architecturally smooth fragment except that of friendship. Last night, I held the fragment aloft on my right palm, not in prayer or offering, not in fastidious display, but alone in my basement. I observed the halogen-flare of the ceiling's lights around its smooth surface, and the matte refractions that slipped from the single jaggedy side where it was loosed from some oblique parapet. I probed its floor-cast shadow with my foot; made assumptions of its mass and momentum, envisioned it falling, falling. The arena of this stone is large; its compatriot parts now circling the globe, orbiting the earth's surface, my city's surface; everywhere. Through the atmosphere in postal mail they go, barges, dump-trucks, shipping containers, cargo holds bound for third-world scrap refineries; recycling plants, Pennsylvania forges, New Jersey scrap yards, Staten Island landfills; being dumped into the Huson river, the East river, the NY Harbor, the Long Island Sound; rubble, sitting in still-vacated apartments and Battery Park condos, still as vacantly embedded in flesh, still dusting the streets of lower Manhattan, still seeping into the subway stations with the human remains every time it rains. Nature is inevitable and relentless, unyielding to millions of metric tons of continually manifested debris; conservation of matter is perpetually at work in this system, this city, this planet. This article has been viewed 6028 times in the last 8 years jamie: 18th Mar 2005 - 14:12 GMT I lost my piece of wtc rock years ago. I always felt slightly uneasy in my ownership of it. It felt wrong somehow elaine: 16th Apr 2005 - 09:26 GMT uncomfortable thing to have a souveneir of, I imagine, and certainly a momento mori. The way you write about this is the most evocative and meaningful account I have read. I was in NY the following May and looked down into the abyss there, a fenced off void, but what struck me was the surrounding buildings which were still covered in the netting which I suppose is about broken glass or superficial structures, but which were, I seem to remember black and printed with stars and stripes (which were, in any event, absolutely everywhere), so they looked like massive upended coffins Stacey: 20th Jun 2005 - 18:47 GMT Please Jamie do not feel that way. I lost my nephew and many, many friends. To hold a piece of the WTC is to hold my family and friends in your hands. To keep a reminder of that day means that you will never forget. To Peter - I hope you will always keep that piece with you whether on display or in a personal, private place. Peter: 8th Mar 2006 - 16:55 GMT i have it. every so often, when i move or rearrange, it turns up. in a box. on a shelf, under the desk, in the nightstand drawer... i do not display it or make any issue of it, i do not take photos of it or think of it often or talk about it aside from here. but by chance, i end up rediscovering it once or twice a year. once, my wife asked me "whats this rock for?" and i explained. i have never seen a confluence of sheer enlightemnent and terror as that that crossed her face as she held it and i told her the story explained above. it transformed from a meaningless object to a heavy, heavy relic tied to one of history's greatest tragedies in one single second, in her very hand. it is most uncomfortable. and the fragment holds so much pain and death. but as long as it turns up none-too-frequently every now and then, i know its contained, and that the terrible story it could tell is muffled away in a drawer or box. i have been told that i, like many new yorkers, suffer no small abount of psychosis from what i saw happen that september morning. and in some strange way, in my own mind's eccentricities, having possession/control of that fragment gives me possession/control of the unspeakably chilling emotions and memories i permanently have from that event. EvilGentleman: 8th Mar 2006 - 20:37 GMT No matter how open-minded or compassionate I may consider myself to be, I am ashamed to realize that I have never actually thought about the fact that the events of that September day have been burned forever into the memory and consciousness of the millions of people in New York that day as they watched the sensless murder of thousands of their fellow human beings. I cannot imagine the horror of watching such events with the naked eye, of hearing the rumble of the collapse intermingling with the screams of other onlookers, of the smells associated with that day, of the terror of not knowing if more was yet to come at any moment. I started to write about my own feelings a moment ago, about what I experienced watching this horror from the Arctic, where I was safe, yet still connected. After the first few paragraphs, I realized this post would not be appropriate for this article, which is about Peter and the stone he holds for his friend, and the burden of pain carried within. Perhaps a separate article is more in order, where my babbling will be less out of order. I shall see. One thing I must ask however; Citynoise was created in 2001 as a personal blog for you, Peter? Might I ask, was it created before or after that terrible September day? I guess what I am actually asking is, did the events of that day create a need within you to vent your emotions in a creative manner, and thus citynoise was born? If so, then this site shall, in one respect, be a permanent, positive, vibrant, living memorial to the fallen. EvilGentleman: 19th Aug 2009 - 18:36 GMT For those who want to see the original citynoise posts before the Great Russian Spam Wars, check this out: web.archive.org/web/*/http://citynoise.org An earlier version of this post: web.archive.org/web/20050220075711/www.citynoise.org/index.php?article=339#comment Comment on this article.. Name: Type your comment here: Upload photos (opens in popup window) [previous] :: [next]	search citynoise.org grape street, plinko, graffiti bergen, super contact, manila philippines, recent discussions Columbus Circle Nocturne from: CartLegger Should I Even Say... from: Mikee 1990s NYC Graffiti: Part 8 from: Peter Russian Army Freight Transport from: belyz Yorkville: A Neighborhood Recalled from: Laura Humboldt Park from: corsakti Honest Obe from: p.alfred Harbor Islands from: procyon The Gherkin from: Hasslehoff NYC Style Graffiti Throw Up from: Metro1 from the archives Movin’ Out (Anthony's Song) Anthony left a note on the door... Saving his pennies for someday... You oughta know by now... Workin' too hard can give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack... And it seems such a waste of time... You should never argue with a crazy mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind... ##But she's not... Movin’ Out (Anthony's Song) recently viewed Kinematics from: Peter The Drowning Machine from: ksedge Early 21st Century from: joey White Cliffs of Sabie from: Guy McLaren Jelly Fish from: jack Rhubarb Takes Revenge! from: Michelle Red Light District from: CE 145 Newark Ave, Jersey City from: dilettante Around Peterborough: Part Two from: Jamie The World's Largest Open Prison from: Unknown
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Kinematics

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jamie: 18th Mar 2005 - 14:12 GMT

elaine: 16th Apr 2005 - 09:26 GMT

Stacey: 20th Jun 2005 - 18:47 GMT

Peter: 8th Mar 2006 - 16:55 GMT

EvilGentleman: 8th Mar 2006 - 20:37 GMT

EvilGentleman: 19th Aug 2009 - 18:36 GMT

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