September 11, 2001

January 26, 2005 4:01 PM

September 11, 2001 is an online documentary from the Library of Congress with "nearly 170 audio and video interviews, totaling 40 hours, with photos, drawings, written narratives and poems." (About the collection.) [via Salon]
posted by kirkaracha (15 comments total)

Obviously just trying to capitalizing on the tragedy. Some people have no shame.
posted by mullingitover at 4:16 PM on January 26, 2005

.
posted by dabitch at 4:16 PM on January 26, 2005

I kid, I kid. Only the republicans would do that.
posted by mullingitover at 4:22 PM on January 26, 2005

Just a note...I know we have total freedom in tag use, but the tag "11" isn't really useful (and likewise the tag "september", although that at least means something). "september11" or the popular "9/11" might be more appropriate. Just remember that every space denotes a new tag.
/smallderail (big derail)
posted by rooftop secrets at 4:29 PM on January 26, 2005

A question, why isn't 9/11 a national holiday yet?

A very good find, kirkaracha. I will get back and explore it more fully when I'm home and can sit down with the required libations.
posted by fenriq at 4:30 PM on January 26, 2005

Oh, and good post.
posted by rooftop secrets at 4:32 PM on January 26, 2005

I don't think 9/11 should be a national holiday. Because that means by 2011, it'll be an excuse for "Twin Tower Blowout Mattress Sales" and "World Trade Tequila Parties." Not that this has specifically happened to Veterans Day or anything, but... I don't know. I think we need more time to really figure out what the anniversary means to us as a nation.
posted by pzarquon at 5:00 PM on January 26, 2005

Yeah, I'm pretty jaded and I found it jarring when I saw an ad for "MLK Day Mattress Sales". His "dream" wasn't exactly about pillow-top beds. We don't need a "9/11 Toyotathon".
posted by owillis at 5:05 PM on January 26, 2005

This is fantastic news. I'm feeling nostalgic for those two fucking years where I couldn't read a newspaper, watch the news, open my email or read Metafilter without hearing more about September 11th. I can't wait to hear more stories about people nearly dying while people around them die. Listening is the least I can do-- after all, it was the greatest tragedy in the history of mankind ever and and I can hardly be expected to fully remember or understand something that happened so long ago.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:49 PM on January 26, 2005

[W]hy isn't 9/11 a national holiday yet?

Same reason December 7^th isn't. We don't celebrate bad things.

Now as for a national day of remembrance, September 11th, 2002, 2003, and 2004 have been offically designated as "Patriot Day" by the President. Though I belive it takes an act of Congress to make it a permanent day of remembrance.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 7:28 PM on January 26, 2005

Mayor Curley, I think that the milk of human kindness that normally courses through the veins of most people has to have curdled up and become a vile, rank, noisome stanking mess in yours.

Just sayin'

But you prolly don't care at all.
posted by 1016 at 7:44 PM on January 26, 2005

pzarquon, o and Steve, good points. Patriot Day would be fine by me. Some lasting recognition, I think, is in order.

Now that I've had a chance to browse the site a little more, could it be more obtusely organized? Back and forward and back and forward. Still good but damn, leave it to the government to make the navigation such a distraction.
posted by fenriq at 8:33 PM on January 26, 2005

I really don't get the obsession. For me, the eleventh was intensely personal. I was here; I remember. Am I wrong to suspect the urge to see it documented* is somehow related to watching it on TV and wanting to make it belong to you? (No disrespect meant, but it has always struck me as odd when people go on about it "happening to all of us.")

*Yes, there is a historical reason to keep the documents, but that doesn't seem like this is what making a post of it is about.
posted by dame at 10:20 PM on January 26, 2005

A question, why isn't 9/11 a national holiday yet?

It is. In Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Indonesia...
posted by mullingitover at 10:56 PM on January 26, 2005

Mayor Curley, I think that the milk of human kindness that normally courses through the veins of most people has to have curdled up and become a vile, rank, noisome stanking mess in yours.

The Milkman of Human Kindness usually leaves an extra pint for me. But as he left this morning he pointed out that reliving a tragedy for your own personal stimulation in no way helps the victims. And he said that you're a ghoul. And then he muttered something about large portions of other nations being destroyed, but most of his customers still having a stronger morbid fascination with September 11th, despite the fact that the only people still in physical need as a result are dying in Iraq because of lies.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:34 AM on January 27, 2005