Story of the Decade
I’ve just got back from a short trip to the States, which involved trips to New Haven (for Yale vs Harvard), New York and Boston. I’m creating a gallery for all the photos from that trip, although in the meantime you can see them on Facebook. I previously posted a photograph from the trip (that I entitled The Dominating Feature) which shows the extent to which the Empire State Building dominates over the downtown Manhattan skyline. I had never realised quite how much the extent of that dominance was, but with the view that we got from the top of the Rockefeller Center it towered head and shoulders above even the Chrysler building. I’d imagine this dominance was less pronounced when the Twin Towers shared that skyline, though I never did get to see them.
One interesting Wall Street Journal article I’ve read upon returning, called Two Ground Zeroes, contains the following:
After eight years in which the views and interests of [almost everyone] have been duly consulted and considered, this is what we’ve got: a site of mourning turned into a symbol of defiance turned into a metaphor of American incompetence—of things not going forward. It is, in short, the story of our decade.
I found this, from an American perspective at least, to be bang on the money and particularly relevant given my recent trip and the numerous “Review of the Decade” type articles that have been springing up recently. On that note, I shall myself be producing some form of musical review of the Noughties, so keep your eyes peeled for that in the near future.
