The upcoming media frenzy in recognition of the five year anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks is something I can - and intend to - live without.
But I thought I'd put in my alternative recommendation: this collection of interviews, essays and photos from New York Metro online under the heading: 9/11: Five Years Later. I found The Long Funeral: How 9/11 gave way to grief culture particularly interesting, but there's a lot of variety there. CNN and MSNBC are certainly not waiting for advice from me, but it seems like the least we can do is view the event through the same unflinching lack of sentimentality as the people who were the most affected by it.
We visited our newly transplanted son in New York City in October 2001. He had just moved to the city at the beginning of September. What was most striking then was how quiet the city was, how polite. People stood patiently in line to go through security checks. They were kind and gentle with each other, as if everyone in the city was in the process of recovering from a terrible illness.
In the five years since then New York has gradually returned to itself - noisy and rough. It hasn't forgotten anything that happened that day, but it has incorporated the event into its narrative and has moved on.
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