Sorry people...there is/was nothing even remotely funny about 9/11. It was the most dramatic/traumatic event I have ever witnessed or ever hope to witness again.
However, I just couldn't resist this masterpiece of insensitivity/irony, as reported in a piece carrried by The SMH today.
Here is an exact, although concise, reprint of one man's magnificent blunder.
"THE September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States was the most televised event in history. For several days, long after the four hijacked planes had met their ends, television channels across the globe suspended normal programming to bring round-the-clock coverage. Such was the intensity and relentlessness of it that psychologists warned of the potential trauma that exposure to it might cause.
But there was one type of image from that day that was deemed too horrific for public consumption, and remains disturbing on the eve of the fifth anniversary of September 11. It relates to the several hundred people - the exact number is not known and never will be - who jumped or fell from the blasted-out windows of the World Trade Centre.
The American-born filmmaker Henry Singer remembers seeing them as he watched coverage of the attacks from an office in London. "On a shocking day, it was clearly the most shocking part for me and I imagine it would have been for anyone else who was watching television that day," he says. "It was something you couldn't get out of your mind, that people were falling from the sky."
When Britain's Channel 4 approached Singer to make a documentary about those who jumped from the World Trade Centre buildings he was initially reticent.
"My overall instinct," he recalls, "was this photograph brings up so many important issues about the power of stills photography, American culture, aversion to deal with issues around mortality, memory and how we process events. I thought this is going to be a very hard film but this is an unusual opportunity, so I decided to take the leap."
Just magnificent...
20 comments:
Oh dear. That is about all I can say to that. Some people just don't think.
It was so traumatic to watch it happen live.
I took the day off work i was so traumatised, the footage is very surreal.
It was the sight of people falling/jumping, more than anything else, that left me in a great sobbing heap. And it stayed in my head for weeks and weeks.
I was going to work in a pun about how he'd better jump to it then, or someone else may steal the idea, but I don't want to be seen as insensitive...
In all honesty that footage haunts me to this day.
I was visiting my sister in New Brunswick in Canada, only a few hours from NY. We sat there eating breakfast completely freaked out.
My brother in law was seconded to the Canuckistani army at the time, and there was a real risk in the following weeks that he would be mobilised.
And before you say anything fingers, we stopped eating when we saw what was happening...
It's funny - I was watching TV that night, but never saw the jumper footage - either then or since. I have heard plenty about it, but the photo in the Herald was the first time I had seen it.
I recently got stuck waiting for a hearing at the NRL with some Fox news or somehting playing in the waiting room. They were playing sound clips of the people in the towers who called 911. Worst thing I ever heard. Why anyone would want these to be made public is beyond me. Even my boofhead client got a bit teary, though he claimed he had something in his eye.
At the time of 9/11, due to some poor business decisions, I was once again enjoying Ma and Pa Finger's hospitality.
I remember sitting in the TV room that night in total darkness, watching the unfolding drama in my blue terry-towelling bathrobe. I had a glass of bourbon balanced on my tummy and a ciggie constantly hanging from my lips as I stared at the carnage in disbelief.
Then Dad got up, wandered into the room, fixed himself a drink and sat down in the matching armchair beside me.
He had on a blue terry-towelling bathrobe, a glass of scotch balanced on his tummy and a ciggie hanging from his lips as he stared at the carnage in disbelief..
I stared at the TV, then at Dad, then the TV, then Dad...
Luckily, the horror in New York had numbed me to the point where I was nearly immune to the realisation I had turned into my father...
Er...BTW...the drama that was unfolding was on the TV...not in my terry-towelling bathrobe....
I have chills.
unfortunatley speculation on the contents of fingers bathrobe may be even more traumatising
i got a phone call in the middle of the night from my friends at the pub screaming at me in tears that "the world is going to end, we're all going to war".
oh fuck. what a moron.
I have to say though that the words are accurate for me. I remember all of the images, but those images are stuck permanently.
i think the guy actually did it on purpose. if you read the whole article you will see that he is pushing people to understand what they can tolerate and why and if not why not etc etc.
he so did it on purpose. it was a bit tongue in cheek and a bit off i suppose. but i thought it was clever.
i still think he was making a point.
Mate...it's what you call "a leap of faith". BTW...stay away from stingrays.
wow 5 years since 9/11. All the footage reminding me of it still makes me a bit sappy.
What a tool... I'm actually shocked you were able to find that picture online somewhere. I'd never seen a still of it, but immediately knew what it was depicting. I will not be watching that video... just as I will never watch "Flight 93".
It's funny how people actually say "I'll never forget that day." Yea, niether will the rest of the world. I net even life on other planets were like, "Shit". It's sort of an "unsaid"; A "Captain Obvious" comment, of sorts.
that's fascinating... so sad. such an important documentary.
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