E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Imploding The Mirage , as critics and reviewers will quickly inform you, is a title that refers to the famous Las Vegas casino's demolition, which made way for something arguably even snazzier, or more empty. Born in Vegas, that most artificial and symbolic of American places (famous for gambling, glitz, misadventure, criminal origins, and mass murders), The Killers - named after a Hemingway-based film noir, but following in the footsteps of numerous rock acts that have signalled their outlaw claims with similar names ( Jerry Lee Lewis was called The Killer) - are a very American rock band. That their lead singer, Brandon Flowers , is famously a Mormon and allegedly a straight arrow, albeit flamboyant on stage, only adds to the resonant enigma - they are part of the myth of the American Dream, while in classic post-modern mode, nod to the artifice, albeit a non-nihilistic one with a God. Their inoffensive, hummable songs, mainly about broken hearts, yearning, broken lives, and ho...

much has changed... 18 YEARS AGO, like most everyone else, I watched the planes hit the twin towers on this day, on television, and was stunned. I felt instantly this was a different level of historic event I was witnessing - the world had changed. That gets said a lot, but 9/11 was a major shift - the start of the 21st century that has led, one way or another, to where we are today. IRONICALLY, the rise of the digital social media world, and the collapse of the banking system a decade ago, coul d not be foreseen then, nor Trump, Brexit, or the resurgence of Russia and China, and the relative decline of America, in the world. Nor that a Black President would be twice elected in a once slavery-owning nation. IN SOME WAYS, 9/11 feels like a much-more-distant event, now - like Pearl Harbour, or the Charge of the Light Brigade - because the 2003 illegal war in Iraq, and then the tragic destruction in Syria, as well as the enduring Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not to mentio...

There are several faces of the most famous day in American history - and the defining moment of the 21st century.  There are the faces of the valiant rescue workers, caked in soot and sweat.  There are the astonished faces of the shocked and bereaved, fleeing, simply staring, or returning to help.  And there is the clueless face of the worst American president ever, on hearing the news of the attack.  Ten years later, it is clear that 9/11 ended the so-called "post-modern" era. Instead, the terrifying event immediately stamped the age with its defining images, and its defining conflict - between The West, and a newly-resurgent variant of fundamentalist Islamic ideology.  Depending on who you talk to - Tony Blair for instance - the West's reaction - wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - did, or did not, act as bellows to the coals.  The question which remains unanswered is -  was there anything "we" could have done differently, before or after?  Not...

The history of the decade begun in September, 2001, has come to a strange and unexpected sort of conclusion today.  Waking to history, I was confronted with the death of the most famous enemy of America.  The cheers at the death of a human - slightly vulgar - shocked me, but I also felt a curious elation at knowing that Obama had achieved what Bush did not - and some sense of closure.  Unfortunately, ripples of violence seem likely - terrorism is complex, despite its seemingly simplistic message.  Still, this day, May 2, 2011, is historic.

On the 9th anniversary of 9/11 it seems the conflict, pain and confusion generated by that critical moment in world history only proliferates with the passing years, unfortunately, as intolerance grows in America.  I offer a link reminding readers of the free Nthposition anthology I co-edited in 2006, which features poems by Charles Bernstein, Paul Hoover, Ruth Padel, Elaine Feinstein and John Tranter , among many others.  It is also available as a printed book.