September 11 and contributing vs. publicizing
Now Playing: Still Behind Blue Eyes, with a little Somewhere and You'll Never Walk Alone thrown in

If not for 9/11, I probably wouldn't have written Travis Tanner. The oratorio contains several references to the incident, including this poem:

LEILA:
From high towers
To a deep hole
Lower Manhattan
Wasn’t just castrated
It was given a sex change
So it’s time for introspection
Not intervention
It’s time for Gestalt
Not assault.

And this lyric:

RED CHORUS:
And where’s the relief
That was promised after nine-one-one?
We need that cash for war—
In the name of the Son
For an overseas run.

In fact, Leila's first line is:

LEILA:
I watched the plane
As it crashed into the second tower.

And I may as well include 9/11 references from Jim:

CHORISTER:
You said—

JIM:
I said the 9/11 hijackers were smarter than Bush.
And Bush could’ve been reading My Pet Spruce Goose.
Well, Heil Georgie, so I’m cancelled today!

And Travis:

TRAVIS:
When they blow up our buildings,
It’s time to play it rough,
Avenging all the killings,
Kicking ass and getting tough.

Just to show you how different people can react to the same event.

I started September 11, 2005 getting ready for church and watching the Ground Zero memorial service on TV. At New Life Fellowship, Pete Scazzero preached on Jesus' telling of the signs of the end times, according to Matthew. Nothing on Earth is permanent, not even the United States of America. Then I went online at the Flushing Library, where I got onto a test blog site at Dennis Miller's incomplete website, and I posted a thought or two:

Dear Dennis,

It's the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 incident and I'm thinking intensely of you today. You said 9/11 changed you. But now do you see the destruction wreaked by the guy you supported? Will Hurricane Katrina change you again?

Since the failure of your CNBC show, you're taking a year off to be with your kids (and I assume, your wife), which I think is the wisest thing you can do now. Regroup, refresh. Listen to your heart, your gut, your conscience. Listen to God.

What are you thinking on this day? Have you reflected on the things you've done over the past two or three years? Has a new seed been planted in you, and will you give it a chance to grow?

Praying for you,

Melanie N. Lee

P.S. Travis Tanner did well with some/much of the audience, but not with the critics or with the box office. Oh, well. You, too, know what it's like to be panned.

Posted by: Melanie N. Lee (mnl_1221) at September 11, 2005 11:02 AM
http://www.safesearching.com/dennismiller/blog/archives/000004.html
(scroll way down)

At the Free Synagogue of Flushing nearby, at 3pm they held a special 9/11 service. If I remember correctly, because I was so sleepy, Rabbi Jo David spoke against how our country played up the fearmongering. Rabbi Emertius Charles Agin mentioned how the middle of the word "life" contains "if"--I suppose "if" as in possibilities or uncertainties--whereas in Hebrew, the middle of the Hebrew word for life, "chaim", contained twice a word or letter which means "am" or "I am"--"I am, I am"...he said it in Hebrew, close to "Yahweh", that is, the name of God. Life must have God in the center. Afterwards they served cookies and coffee and tea downstairs.

Probably while I was either walking to the subway, or on the subway to the World Trade Center site, or when I arrived at the site itself, I got the idea of taping Travis Tanner playbills to the fence. After all, as I said, 9/11 indirectly inspired Travis Tanner.


On the way there, I was reading another character archetype book, 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters , by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, which I'd borrowed from the Central Library in Jamaica, Queens. I was reading the section about the Masculine Journey, imagining Travis' journey in the story. (Earlier, I'd read over the Feminine Journey, imaginging Leila's.)

I arrived at Ground Zero around 6pm. Since I was last there (a year ago?), they've built up the PATH train area, and now you can look into the site one level below ground. I did so, then took an elevator up to the gates surrounding the site. Flowers, pictures, flags, and whatnot had been strewn across the gates. I took out one of the several playbills that were in my tote bag. On it I wrote:

If not for 9/11, I might not have written this.
--Melanie N. Lee
9/11/05
God bless and help us!

Below I wrote "FringeNYC" and the URL of the Travis Tanner website.

Now I've been carrying tape, glue, and paper clips around with me for a few weeks now--probably Fringe-related. I taped the last page of the 12-page to the gate, anchored the side of the first page with tape, and put the paper clip--a white one--over the middle pages.

I walked along the fence viewing the flowers and reading or glancing over the photos, letters, poems, and cards. I put up the playbill again, with similar writing (adding the word "librettist") in the middle of the fence. A group of Jewish Christians, including one I know from New Life, came to pray. At or near sunset, they blew shofars and raised their hands.

My playbill caught the attention of a man in a green shirt who was on crutches. (He'd tripped over a manhole.) He was intrigued by the playbill and wanted to know more about the show. I got his e-mail address. The man praised my offering over the "sideshow" of a small firetruck parked in the street, which on its roof sported a mock missile bomb aimed for Osama and Saddam.

Almost immediately after, another man and his girlfriend read over the playbill. Essentially, this man asked me why I was publicizing my show on the backs of the dead. "This is my contribution, my response," I said. He said others had had one-man shows and plays and they weren't putting their playbills up here. "Maybe they should," I replied. He asked something about what the Democrats who died here had to do with...with what? With my play? He mentioned something about the play being against the President and his policies. I said that President Bush and his administration used 9/11 as an excuse to start a war they always wanted to have. At that point the man waved his hand and walked away with his girlfriend. "It's clear we disagree," I said as they left.

It's also clear how strongly one's politics influences what you think is a "sideshow" or "publicizing yourself".

Okay, publicizing did play a part, a small part--but the show is over, and the CD, if there is one, is months away. All I really publicized was the website. But a bigger part was showing the play as my response to 9/11, and that this incident had inspired this particular work of art. I'm probably the first playwright to post her stuff, or a symbol of her stuff, on the gate, but I'm not the only playwright with a 9/11 play! I think someone should gather an anthology of 9/11 plays and screenplays: The Boys, for instance.

I placed the playbill on a third spot, near the corner across the street from a new Burger King.

The real reason why I went down there at all was to get a full view of the blue beams of light which would shoot up into the sky after sunset. I've only seen them briefly and dimly from a distance before. After I'd strolled along the gateway, I crossed the street and sat on some steps and stared at the light beams, and also sat with my thoughts and feelings and my taking in (or letting out) the whole experience.

This, I believe, was my fifth visit to the WTC site post-9/11.

I forgot: while I was walking by the fence, on the ground they had sheets and an American flag for people to sign. At the lower left corner of the flag, I wrote:

Where have all the levees gone?
Gone to bad war, every one!
When will they ever learn?

--and I signed my name and the date.