Three days of grey clouds portended but did not produce rain. Tonight, after seeing Woody Allen’s “Café Society,” I left the theater to be greeted by a soft rain falling, driving home over glistening roads.
Mixed reports had me slightly ambivalent about seeing “Café Society.” Some said it was good. Some said it wasn’t. One wag commented, “It isn’t the worst Woody Allen film.” No, it definitely wasn’t. It wasn’t “Annie Hall” or “Manhattan” or “Bullets Over Broadway.” It was a slightly overlong, mostly charming view of a family in the late 1930’s in New York and Hollywood. As usual, there was a pantheon of stars giving good performances including Jesse Eisenberg, Steve Carrell, Blake Lively [the first time I have liked her], Parker Posey, Corey Stoll and Kristen Stewart.
Mostly it looked beautiful and poignant and timeless and full of love gone round the wrong corner.
It was the second day of class and we’re all still alive and at least all my students seemed moderately engaged, except, perhaps, for the young woman who seemed to be fighting off falling asleep. When I did a survey, all but three of my students are working jobs as well as attending school. Some of them, many of them, have full time jobs as well as being full time students. No wonder they sometimes yawn.
Out there in the world, beyond my quiet Creekside world, the strident tone of politics continues.
Last night, Matt Lauer moderated interviews, not at the same time, of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, supposedly about their views on issues related to national security.
Lauer, who, once upon a time I liked, devoted a third of Clinton’s half-hour to her email server issues. Then, according to the news reports, didn’t handle the rest of the interview well.
It is the general consensus of the press that Lauer screwed up; was unprepared and unable to stand up to Donald Trump when he repeated he had been against the Iraq War when, in fact, he is on record of supporting it in 2002.
Alas, no TODAY for me going forward. Shame on NBC for blowing this opportunity. Shame on Matt Lauer for blowing his opportunity.
Depending on who you listen to, Trump is beating Clinton or Clinton is beating Trump. The polls are rocky right now. There are only 60 or 61 days left to the election. While I can’t conceive of it, there is a possibility Donald Trump will be President.
Libertarian Presidential nominee Gary Johnson, who has been getting close enough in the polls that he might be included in the debates, made a major gaffe the other day when he had no knowledge of Aleppo. “What is Aleppo?”
Aleppo is the epicenter of the catastrophe that is Syria, where it has been reported Assad’s forces used chlorine gas on citizens. There are frightful images of Syrian civilians needing oxygen. Chlorine gas was the scourge of the WWI and now it is back in Syria.
In news of the future, Google and Chipotle are experimenting at UVA with drone delivery of burritos. Buzzing in the sky will become normal…
In other news from the present, Apple’s stock was down 3% today after the announcement of the iPhone 7. The no jack situation has many people [and investors] spooked. Me too. My iPhone 5s will not connect, for whatever reason, wirelessly with my speakers. Everything else, easy peasy, but not from my phone. And, in the end, I might succumb to the iPhone 7 Plus but might end up choosing the iPhone 6 Plus because it has a jack. I have been waiting for the iPhone 7 and feel just a little cheated. Much thought ahead.
Fifteen years ago tomorrow, my now ex-partner and I made an offer on the cottage, from where I write this. Which means that two days later we will have the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11.
It is an anniversary that always brings me back to my experience of horror on a scale I had never known. It takes me to the corner of West Broadway and Spring Street, looking at the Towers burning and feeling stunned and knowing at that moment there was nowhere to turn. We had just turned a page in history.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 09 11 2016 Fifteen years later…
September 11, 2016It is almost but not quite twilight on the creek. I am sitting at the table on the deck, looking down on the creek as it reflects back the trees, the fading light of the day, the glint and glimmer of life on the creek. Far away, I hear a plane, heading toward the Columbia County Airport. Swathes of sunlight illuminate my neighbor’s yard; the air is coolish and there are hints of fall upon us.
It is September 11, 2016, fifteen years beyond the event that has changed all our lives.
It is a hard day for me. Not as hard as it would be if I had lost someone in the Towers. I did not. At that moment, as many of you know, I was living two blocks north of the evacuation zone. I will be forever at the corner of West Broadway and Spring Street seeing the aftermath of the catastrophe of the first plane hitting the first tower. Forever I will be there. It only takes a moment and I return to that spot.
As the first and second Towers fell, people ran down my street, screaming. I watched them from my windows. Late that night, I sat on my bed, never having felt so alone as I did that night, my partner of the time, Al Tripp, stranded but safe on Staten Island, while I listened to the screams of fighter jets overhead.
It seemed that in some way, the world ended that night. At least that’s the way if felt on Spring Street in SoHo on September 11, 2001.
It is now fifteen years later. I am living in the house Al and I purchased on the 8th of September, 2001. We had come to Columbia County looking for a place and found the cottage, the first place we had looked at. We looked at several others and then decided, as we were filling up the car with gas, we should buy it. We had a list of thirteen things we wanted. This place had twelve.
Now, all these years later, I am so grateful to be here. When Al Tripp and I separated, he suggested we sell the place. I bought him out as I could not imagine my life without the cottage. It is and has been and will be my refuge.
And I am grateful we bought it before 9/11 because after then, the Valley became alive with people fleeing New York. There are several people I know who live here who came after 9/11 and have not returned to the city since.
We have all been changed by 9/11. It is the horror that looms over our lives. But a generation is growing up that never knew 9/11. They only know the world that has grown since then. This is their reality. Mine is that I know the before and after.
On this day, I always feel particularly alone. That day is scoured in my mind. Al was trapped on Staten Island, where he worked. I was in Manhattan without him. Friends encouraged me to join them, which I did. But as the evening went on, I found myself needing to be in my own space/place.
I walked from 14th Street home. Arriving there, I sat on the bed, a stunned man, listening to jets overhead. That is the most visceral moment I have of that day, sitting on my bed and hearing jets overhead and knowing the world would never be the same again.
It is almost but not quite twilight on the creek. I am sitting at the table on the deck, looking down on the creek as it reflects back the trees, the fading light of the day, the glint and glimmer of life on the creek. Far away, I hear a plane, heading toward the Columbia County Airport. Swathes of sunlight illuminate my neighbor’s yard; the air is coolish and there are hints of fall upon us.
It is September 11, 2016, fifteen years beyond the event that has changed all our lives.
It is a hard day for me. Not as hard as it would be if I had lost someone in the Towers. I did not. At that moment, as many of you know, I was living two blocks north of the evacuation zone. I will be forever at the corner of West Broadway and Spring Street seeing the aftermath of the catastrophe of the first plane hitting the first tower. Forever I will be there. It only takes a moment and I return to that spot.
As the first and second Towers fell, people ran down my street, screaming. I watched them from my windows. Late that night, I sat on my bed, never having felt so alone as I did that night, my partner of the time, Al Tripp, stranded but safe on Staten Island, while I listened to the screams of fighter jets overhead.
It seemed that in some way, the world ended that night. At least that’s the way if felt on Spring Street in SoHo on September 11, 2001.
It is now fifteen years later. I am living in the house Al and I purchased on the 8th of September, 2001. We had come to Columbia County looking for a place and found the cottage, the first place we had looked at. We looked at several others and then decided, as we were filling up the car with gas, we should buy it. We had a list of thirteen things we wanted. This place had twelve.
Now, all these years later, I am so grateful to be here. When Al Tripp and I separated, he suggested we sell the place. I bought him out as I could not imagine my life without the cottage. It is and has been and will be my refuge.
And I am grateful we bought it before 9/11 because after then, the Valley became alive with people fleeing New York. There are several people I know who live here who came after 9/11 and have not returned to the city since.
We have all been changed by 9/11. It is the horror that looms over our lives. But a generation is growing up that never knew 9/11. They only know the world that has grown since then. This is their reality. Mine is that I know the before and after.
On this day, I always feel particularly alone. That day is scoured in my mind. Al was trapped on Staten Island, where he worked. I was in Manhattan without him. Friends encouraged me to join them, which I did. But as the evening went on, I found myself needing to be in my own space/place.
I walked from 14th Street home. Arriving there, I sat on the bed, a stunned man, listening to jets overhead. That is the most visceral moment I have of that day, sitting on my bed and hearing jets overhead and knowing the world would never be the same again.
Tags:9/11, 9/11 Anniversary, Al Tripp, Claverack, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Soho, Staten Island, Twin Towers
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