11 September 2001

I have nothing to say, no words of any real value to offer. In Boston we are shocked, sad, and embarrassed to see the worst aspects of humanity projected on such a massive scale.

My heart goes out to all those touched by this horrible event.

From a mail sent to a friend of mine in Europe, trying to give him an idea of what’s going on here at home:

There are about 15 people here in my apartment watching the TV. Lots of crying, people just shell shocked, trying to figure out what the fuck this means. It turns out that some of us knew one of the people on AA11, the first one to hit the WTC, maybe at 8:48am. He was Danny Lewin, the founder of Akamai. One of the guys here works at akamai and is pretty upset.

Lots of information flying around, much wrong. There were erroneous reports of a Camp David attack and a State Dep't bombing. The commercial airliners hit the towers 18 minutes apart. They have incredible footage, from about 6 different angles, of the second flight -- UA 175 -- hitting the second tower. Lots of eyewitness accounts; this is a very public tragedy. It's fucking unbelievable.

I woke up this morning a bit after 10:00 and called my secretary to figure out when my first meeting was. I couldn't get through, and about 2 minutes later she called me: "The United States is under siege. There have been attacks on New York and Washington so far. They think it might be terrorists. Airplanes are hitting buildings. Call your father." For about a second, I was blank, and then I hung up and my first thought was: be ready to run. I put on my pants and shoes and ran out to the living room and turned on the TV. Images from what looked like fight club, the reporters were trying to figure out what was going on. They didn't realize that one of the towers had disappeared at first. I'd never seen such plaintive confusion. Speculation that the plume of smoke was from an explosion, then a pause, then one reporter says "There's only one tower standing," and I ran to wake up Taylor and Miguel. They didn't believe me at first, wanted to go back to sleep, and then we came to the living room and about 10 minutes later the second tower collapsed.

I've been following the coverage online, which is the best source of information. A bunch of us are gathered on IRC sharing info, minimal misinformation, no speculation, just sharing data from various sources, like fucking journalists. There are fighters, what look like F18s, circling Boston and lots of sirens going. Lots of tears here.

I went out and bought a few cases of beer and people were crying in the streets, collapsed in the liquor store talking on cell phones, or trying to get through. Apparently kids laughing about it in Davis Square got smacked around by some businessmen, and Arabs are being attacked in the New York streets.

All appointments today were cancelled.

All sorts of people showing up here at the apartment, I've been making food and passing out beer and cigarettes. Apparently all CNN's servers are down.

I am struggling to hold on to that first feeling, that "what will be hit next?" surrealism. The need to put on my shoes, to be able to run. After I got my shoes and pants on, I put a maglight and some food into a bag before I ran out to the TV. I was ready for fucking *anything*.

Lots of cynicism too. No one knows what's happening.

Everyone is comparing this to Pearl Harbor. Bush's quote is fucking shrink wrapped. To call this cowardly misses the mark so completely.

Everyone smoking here now, people who quit, who don't smoke ever, smoking like it's armageddon.

But mainly silence. Shock.

It's awful here. I can't even conceive of what it's like for the others, the victims, those touched most directly.

No one knows what this is the beginning of.