plastics and wire in your kiss; the breath of eternity on your lips.

seven years later.

ten lifetimes ago.

seems like it was yesterday.

i always think of emk on this day; it was right around then that we got close. my experience of nyc during that time is inexorably linked to her. lo and behold, she emailed me as much this morning. that was comforting; to know we'll always share that. and that period is also tied to palm; we had just started living together. from our roof on fourth st, we had an all too good view of the unbearably large plume of smoke.

i remember the makeshift memorial that literally thousands of new yorkers contributed to in union square in the following days. my dad took some old stuffed doll my sister had, wrote 'the brins care' on it, adorned it with some other thoughtful artifacts, and placed it amongst the other tributes.

if you werent here, ill tell you. the city came up aces.

anyway, i couldnt help sharing some remembrances, but the main pt of this post is to make a couple of recommendations.

there are myriad historical records of 911. but im more interested in the impressionistic records; the ones that capture those lives, as opposed to those events. i single out two.

the first is the album the rising by bruce springsteen. nowadays it's just rare to hear a concept album, let alone one as resonant as this. is it any wonder? teams of firefighters and policemen, ie lunch pailers, perished while helping to save people during a seemingly ordinary workday - in springsteen's own backyard. talk about the right man for the right time. the album is exquisite. it captures loss so poignantly that to this day some of the songs put an empty pit in my stomach.

the second rec is don delillo's novel falling man. it's about a survivor of the towers and his family, in the aftermath, and it also touches upon the jihadists, from their persepctive. i chanced upon it in the airport on my way to moscow over the summer. couldnt put it down. i recently gave it to emk. as she said: what a fucked up day. and no one that wasn't here when it happened really gets it. the book gets it.

ok, enough preachy preachy. but it had to be done.

rip, my classmate. god knows how many times, during our four years at stuy, she looked out of a window and gazed at the towers. i know i did it hundreds of times myself.

still unreal.