indieVisible: Sequence 11

Here is what I've been working on recently:



This is something that I've been wanting to do for years.  It's been in my head for so long.  I just thought it might be interesting to cut together.

This was not my first music choice, but I think it works very well.  They are two music tracks by the band Shadows Fall.  I like it because you wouldn't necessarily know that they are a heavy metal band from hearing this.

Youtube wouldn't allow my original choice because the copyright owner doesn't get along with them.  But I did get a bit teary eyed from that version.  However, I think the way it is now is more reflective, perhaps even hopeful, than the other.

Growing up in Jersey City, I used to always see the twin towers.  They were just always there.  Walking around New York, it used to be our guide for getting home; when we were lost downtown, we would just head toward the World Trade Center because we knew the PATH Train would be under it.  When I first got my license as a teenager, I would sometimes use it to know which way I was going.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who can say that the buildings had become a part of me.

I had only been up there once.  That was when my older brother came to visit during Christmas in 1992. We went around the New York City spots with him.  I had been living in America for a year, but we never did that stuff.  I guess because I would be a resident, and my brother was only on vacation.  I was 12 and he was in college and the plan was for him to finish school and come back in a few years to get a job.

I remember the long line in the lobby.  And then going into a huge elevator, the biggest elevator I've ever been in.  And then going around the viewing area upstairs.

A few days later we watched "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York".  I remember my brother asking during the movie if Duncan's Toy Chest was a real store.  I think he may have wanted to visit it.  I shook my head and whispered, "No, I don't think so."  But that shot of Kevin on top of the tower is an unforgettable one for me, and I'm so thankful to the filmmakers for producing that.

In 1993, I was in seventh grade and I hated it.  I couldn't stand all the nonsense.  Most of the time I would daydream and look out the window.  At history class at St. Aedan's I could always see the New York City skyline.  I remember I would sometimes stare at the light on top going on and off, almost putting me in some sort of hypnotic trance.  My eyes would just fix on it while my mind would wander.

I remember one specific time I stood observing the towers absently.  I was standing by the window, and not sitting, because we were doing some sort of project where we were all scattered about in groups or something.  And then I remember coming home to find I couldn't watch the Disney afternoon on Channel 11.  We didn't have cable, and there was no signal.  I flipped through the channels, and there was nothing.

Until I got to Channel 2 and found out the towers had been attacked.  All the other channels had been broadcasting through the towers.  I think WCBS used the Empire State Building instead.

In 2000, our professor for our art class took us on a trip to Battery Park in lower Manhattan.  We took a ferry across the river, the first time I've been on the water since going to Ellis Island eight years before.  Anyway, there were little bronze sculptures all around, and I think our professor wanted us to discover them and find inspiration or something, so that's why we were there.

But I remember wandering into one of the building lobbies.  It turned out to be the Winter Garden Atrium.  It was domed, and I never realized until I entered it that you could see through the glass on top of it.  It was a complete surprise for me to spend the day looking down at the ground searching for tiny bronze statues, enter into a building, look up, and see that the World Trade Center towers were up above me.  For people who have been there many times, it may have been a common sight, but for me it was indescribable.

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