From: Nick Moffitt <nick (at) zork (dot) net>
Subject: [CrackMonkey] Mercury Theatre on the Net's Diary of a Spectator
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 23:52:16 -0700
I woke up this morning to the radio, not because of any noise, but
because the frightened tone of the NPR anchors reached my inner
paranoid. I came to right as the voice said "Ohh-okay... s-so, just
to explain again, two passenger jets have crashed into the World Trade
Center in New York City. It's-it... I'm sorry <deep breath> ..."
The thing's raising up. The crowd falls back now. They've seen
plenty. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can't
find words . . . I'll pull this microphone with me as I talk.
I'll have to stop the description until I can take a new
position. Hold on, will you please, I'll be right back in a
minute.
I called E, who had been trying to call and wake me up all morning. I
agreed to stay away from tunnels and tall buildings for a while, and
we agreed that the bridges weren't such a hot idea either. I pretty
much resigned myself then and there to bunker up in my own
neighborhood for a while.
San Francisco didn't get off so easy, though. SFO, which normally has
about eight or nine planes just waiting to LAND at any given moment,
has been eerily quiet what with the state of emergency. The local
news said that muni was working fine on surface streets, apart from
the places where it had to route around Willie's tomb (our gilded city
hall, rennovated by Willie Brown, our so-called mayor). The school
closing announcements made the whole thing sound like there had been a
snow storm.
I have been requested by the governor of New Jersey to place
the counties of Mercer and Middlesex as far west as
Princeton, and east to Jamesburg, under martial law. No one
will be permitted to enter this area except by special pass
issued by state or military authorities. Four companies of
state militia are proceeding from Trenton to Grovers Mill,
and will aid in the evacuation of homes within the range of
military operations. Thank you.
When she called me later in the afternoon, she still had the
frightened edge that we both had this morning. She had been cut off
from all news about the event, while I had done what any red-blooded
American would do: I plonked my laptop in front of the TV and worked
to the tune of CNN.
She's movin'! Look, the darn thing's unscrewing! Keep back,
there! Keep back, I tell you! Maybe there's men in it trying
to escape! It's red hot, they'll burn to a cinder! Keep back
there. Keep those idiots back!
The whole situation is so unreal. The last time this many Merkins
died in a single battle was our civil war some 150 years ago. The
last time we lost a major institution to it was 1812 when the British
burned down our capitol. Merkins aren't used to having bombs dropped
from above -- just planted in our back yard.
The flash in the sky was visible within a radius of several
hundred miles and the noise of the impact was heard as far
north as Elizabeth.
So what better way to deal with it than to make it more unreal?
Just keep looping the footage, like hitler's fabricated looney-dance.
Eventually, you file the collapse of both your nation's administrative
center and focus of commerce alongside the Rodney King videos, Clinton
sex scandal interviews, and car commercials. Been there, done that.
Now a tune that never loses favor, the ever-popular "Star
Dust." Ramo'n Raquello and his orchestra . . .
So I watched the 9AM of New York safely from the 9AM of San Francisco.
Three hours of catastrophe divided up into easily inserted digestible
bits. Overlay that with interviews and tired reporters having to make
noises of shock and disapproval for the umpteenth time and you've got
a spectacle to last all day.
We have dispatched a special mobile unit to the scene, and
will have our commentator, Carl Phillips, give you a word
description as soon as he can reach there from Princeton. In
the meantime, we take you to the Hotel Martinet in Brooklyn,
where Bobby Millette and his orchestra are offering a program
of dance music.
The disaster was spread out over an hour or so, so people had time
from the first strike to get out their camcorders and start filming.
One doctor fellow had a running commentary going as the plume of dust
engulfed him. He wandered the streets, borrowing oxygen from firemen
and joining paramedic teams in the rescue effort. The whole scene
looked like Portland after Mt. St. Helens erupted, or some sort of
nuclear ash winter, or snow day.
As I set down these notes on paper, I'm obsessed by the
thought that I may be the last living man on Earth. I have
been hiding in this empty house near Grovers Mill -- a small
island of daylight cut off by the black smoke from the rest of
the world. All that happened before the arrival of these
monstrous creatures in the world now seems part of another
life. . . a life that has no continuity with the present,
furtive existence of the lonely derelict who pencils these
words on the back of some astronomical notes bearing the
signature of Richard Pierson.
George Bush's speech was without his usual stutters, likely due to his
heavy use of a teleprompter. We picked out the quotables, such as
"quiet, unyielding anger". It's no "day which will live in infamy",
but then again this *isn't* Pearl Harbor. The enemy flew no flags,
and we have not yet heard any demands.
Citizens of the nation: I shall not try to conceal the gravity
of the situation that confronts the country, nor the concern
of your government in protecting the lives and property of its
people. However, I wish to impress upon you -- private
citizens and public officials, all of you -- the urgent need
of calm and resourceful action. Fortunately, this formidable
enemy is still confined to a comparatively small area, and we
may place our faith in the military forces to keep them there.
In the meantime placing our faith in God we must continue the
performance of our duties each and every one of us, so that we
may confront this destructive adversary with a nation united,
courageous, and consecrated to the preservation of human
supremacy on this earth. I thank you.
Of course, this doesn't stop people from speculating wildly on the
perpetrator. I think I heard the phrase "It was Osama Bin Laden"
danced around in more ways than I can count.
"Sources suggest..."
"Confidence is rising that the perpetrator was..."
"Few groups have the sophistication to pull this off, such as..."
Add to the confusion that we chose this day to begin reporting in
earnest about Israeli tanks rolling into Palestine (which, given my
tendency to listen to the BBC World Service radio, is not really news
to me) and the civil war in Afghanistan. The way the hams up at CNN
told it, we were bombing them already for giving OBL a place to crash.
Here's a bulletin from Winston Field, Long Island: Fleet of
army bombers carrying heavy explosives flying north in pursuit
of enemy. Scouting planes act as guides. They keep speeding
enemy in sight. Just a moment please. Ladies and gentlemen,
we've run special wires to the artillery line in adjacent
villages to give you direct reports in the zone of the
advancing enemy. First we take you to the battery of the 22nd
Field Artillery, located in the Watchtung Mountains.
It wasn't until I found the BBC America TV station that I caught their
Wednesday Morning coverage of the event. They weren't afraid to talk
about the collateral damage, economic effects of the stock market
closing, insurance claims on the companies and lives lost to the
event, etc. They said it plain and simple. Our economy was being
propped up by consumer confidence. This shatters that.
The last thing I noticed was that this event had turned the BBC
morning TV program into NY-1. NY1 is often referred to as "the
station where they read the paper to you". Issues of the Guardian,
the Times, and the Star ("END OF THE WORLD?") were held up. All of
them had the cinematic footage of the exploding second plane, save the
Star, which had a shot of a jumper.
Like the economic effects, jumpers were also somewhat taboo on the
merkin stations. I saw dozens of falls over on Univision before I
realized that I really should change channels. People would talk
about it on the US networks, but the footage was solely the domain of
foreign newsmedia.
So I'm sitting here in my relatively safe outer mission flat. The
US Dollar is in the tank, everyone's going for gold, and we're likely
to see our civil rights eroded even further by overzealous legislators
who want to put their names in this chapter of the history books.
Looters, all of them.
PIERSON: In the meantime, you and I and others like us. . .
where are we to live when the Martians own the earth?
STRANGER: I've got it all figured out. We'll live underground.
I've been thinking about the sewers. Under New York are miles
and miles of 'em. The main ones are big enough for anybody.
Then there's cellars, vaults, underground storerooms, railway
tunnels, subways. You begin to see, eh? And we'll get a bunch
of strong men together. No weak ones; that rubbish -- out.
PIERSON: And you meant me to go?
STRANGER: Well, I gave you a chance, didn't I?
PIERSON: We won't quarrel about that. Go on.
STRANGER: And we've got to make safe places for us to stay in,
see, and get all the books we can -- science books. That's
where men like you come in, see? We'll raid the museums, we'll
even spy on the Martians. It may not be so much we have to
learn before -- just imagine this: four or five of their own
fighting machines suddenly start off -- heat rays right and
left and not a Martian in 'em. Not a Martian in 'em! But MEN
-- men who have learned the way how. It may even be in our
time. Gee! Imagine having one of them lovely things with its
heat ray wide and free! We'd turn it on Martians, we'd turn it
on men. We'd bring everybody down to their knees.
PIERSON: That's your plan?
STRANGER: You, and me, and a few more of us we'd own the
world.
PIERSON: I see. . .
STRANGER: (FADING OUT) Say, what's the matter? . . . Where are
you going?
PIERSON: Not to your world. . . Goodbye, stranger. . .
Russia feels our pain, England stands in solidarity (Blair and Bush,
the Ronnie and Maggie of the 21st Century?), Afghanistan even feels
our pain. But me, I don't feel it any more. I just watch until I'm
too tired to worry any more, flip off the TV set, and crawl into bed.
This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character
to assure you that The War of The Worlds has no further
significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to
be. The Mercury Theatre's own radio version of dressing up in
a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting
now, we couldn't soap all your windows and steal all your
garden gates by tomorrow night. . . so we did the best next
thing. We annihilated the world before your very ears, and
utterly destroyed the C. B. S. You will be relieved, I hope,
to learn that we didn't mean it, and that both institutions
are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and
remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That
grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an
inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings
and nobody's there, that was no Martian. . .it's Hallowe'en.
--
"The only thing is certain: Russian petty computer hooligans are very
slovenly, while FBI agents are very persistent in hunting them." --Pravda
01234567 <- The amazing* indent-o-meter!
^ (*: Indent-o-meter may not actually amaze.)
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