the little shocks of good

"the simple things come back to us. they rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward."
-colum mccann, let the great world spin

i think today is a good day to talk about this amazing book.
the night before i left for new york this summer, we hosted colum mccann with the washington state center for the book at the seattle public library. he told the audience that this book was an intentionally creative response to 9/11. instead of all the anger and fear and revenge that sprouted from that tragedy, mccann instead was intent on the human aspect of healing. inspired by little pieces of beauty that flutter around us in tragedy, colum mccann wrote an allegory. he uses the story of phillipe petit, the tightrope walker who commited "the artistic crime of the century" by walking between the twin towers on a tightrope as they were just erected in the 1970's. and from that story, mccann creates a multitude of other stories of new yorkers directly or indirectly effected by phillipe petit. there is war and pain and death and beauty and so much thought. it is a masterpiece.

today is for you, new york. for your ability to heal and to keep on going.

"it (the city) accepted whatever came its way, the crime and the violence and the little shocks of good that crawled out from underneath the everyday. "

-let the great world spin

******

responses to september 10:
ida: thank you, quebec city was so european, i loved it. and, yes, there is always more and more inspiration on etsy.
trinsch: thank you. the real world can be a good thing, right? :)
hiki: i love that time of day, too. somehow that was when i got my best photos in quebec city.
polly: van gogh! oh my, thank you! it was, indeed a canon, if you can accept that. :)

responses to end of the road:
montague, marion, alexandria: thank you!
jane and lecia: sigh, fall is inevitable and i'm sure soon i will remember why i love it so much. but not yet.