An Amex Moment

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From the heart of Toronto to the heart of Manhatten…Torontonians are forever comparing ourselves to New York City, so here is material recorded adjacent to the World Trade Center site in NYC.

Having actually been to the vertiginous tippy-top of NYC’s archetypal twin towers as a teenager, and then subsequently having visited the  site of the 9/11 events and the hole-in-the-ground that now remains, I had actually anticipated playing flute down at the vistitors’ level of Ground Zero as some kind of offering to an unseen, benevolent God: an understated yet sincere display of collective respect for those who perished lo those many years ago on that dramatic, mind-searing day.

I wanted to make my peace with someting otherwise incomprhensible.

Essentially hallowed ground, I was somewhat hesitant to infiltrate Amex’ public space and record here, not to mention that it was crawling with security. The Irish Hunger Memorial was easier picking later that afternoon!

Having just arrived in NYC for a friend’s art opening uptown in Soho, I was rather disappointed to see the 9/11 site abuzz with construction and re-directed pedestrian traffic – so much for a heartfelt tribute that I had wanted to improvise on my shakuhachi. The city was vibrant with an incredible, positive energy, yet nonetheless this site still had a tangible, hushed quality about it. Rather than caving to the temptation of heading off and shopping at Century 21, I ended up skulking around the area, finally retreating to the safe haven of this American Express flagship foyer, which features a prominent memorial for Amex employees who perished in the cataclysm, replete with its dripping pool of tears and a suspended, monolithic crystal.

You can understand my reluctance to play here, to even sound a few humble notes in a kind of reverent tribute to events of a recent past.  9/11 may be somewhat abstract to me, but, to hazard a guess, the events of that day are visceral and all the more real for the individuals pictured here and the families directly involved in that life-changing, tragic day.

…back on that sunny, fresh September morning, as school was just getting started again, when innocence shed yet another skin.

Note: I am in part inspired to delve into this archival material on the heels of having seen a most remarkable film at the Bloor Cinema, Man On Wire, a documentary by James Marsh that is all the more poignant considering that the scene where the world’s ultimate tightrope was rigged up is today a changed place.