Kids leaving and school starting, New York popped with the seasons changing, September energy about us. Each day a new reconciling, of futures, possibilities and sad pasts, regrets and failures, climate week. German elections with the AfD gaining, US mid term terms coming, the bombings and Occupy anniversaries that pointed to the best and worst of ourselves and our times. Anniversaries and sentimentality offer diminishing returns. The present moment is more interesting. Still the month had its conversations, worth recalling, the past always with us, accompanying us into the new.
I’ve been on a tight book line for all my travel work. So my New York writing has largely been in the form of my daily Instagram posts, and journal notes, some of which is compiled here.
Thinking about New York, about our time here, Judson memorial held a service on the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist bombings. The service included several remembrances, beginning with “Sacred Solidarity Then & Now” by Rev. Peter Laarman. Choosing to remember, what to remember, says Rev. Peter Laarman, he would rather recall the good things, the beloved community which took shape here. At our most vulnerable, we became most human.
Yet, everyone has their own 911 which others ignore, choosing not to remember or to see them. The battle over memory, over the past is unending, says George Orwell.
Families for Peaceful Tomorrow preached for a better tomorrow, pointing out victims need not engage in vengeance. Believe it or not, presidents cannot always get away with anything by asking for executive privilege, pointed out Rev Laarman. Much of what has been normalized over 50 years is abomination. We denormalize abomination. In the horror of death, we take care of each other. Deep down in our core we have a glory in us. We’ve seen it, felt it, in sacred solidarity. Our night is not over, but the dawn is on its way. The darkness will fall.
Dr. Debbie Almontaser recalled the solidarity, the mutual aid efforts, organizing around the Muslim ban, places to meet, to be in community, in solidarity, a solidarity for so many communities. Especially after September 11th when communities were targeted. Judson played a role as an ally, in solidarity, in community. There’s a rich tradition of faith based solidarity here. “I will be forever grateful for all the faith based leaders… It said a lot then. It says a lot now. 25 years later, we have our first Muslim mayor. He embodies compassion. Every voice matters, everyone…. It's frightening that people are being abducted in plain sight.”
“There can be no hope that does not constitute itself through a we and for a we. I would be tempted to say that all hope is, at the bottom, choral.” − Gabriel Marcel, on the Judson Bulletin.
Look at the stories we receive, without leaning onto our grief, Micah Bucey, o preaches. People marched against Mandami attending the 911 memorial. Lean into the We. Lean into a new we that goes beyond narrow definitions. Humble ourselves, says Micah. I challenge us to humble ourselves. Learn from other faiths. Be confident. Own our spiritual tradition. How are we going to welcome in an ever expanding we as we recommit to the work. What do we mean? How are we going to do the work?
Service ended with "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder", a traditional spiritual. The biblical image of a ladder to heaven is a metaphor for resilience and the possibility for transcendence.
I recall Pete Seegar and Arlo Guthrie singing it together for years and years.
The bulletin the week before began with the words from Adrienne Maree Brown, appearing in her book We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice: “We are afraid of being hurt, afraid because we have been hurt, afraid because we have caused hurt, afraid because we live in a world that wants to hurt us whether we have hurt others or not, just based on who we are, on any otherness from some long-ago determined norm.”
We all have our traumas and wounds, many self inflicted.
September 16th, Kate Barnhart, Director New Alternatives for LGBT Youth, one of my favorite activists and service providers, dropped by my trauma informed practice class to talk with everyone about coping with the traumas, while working with LGBT Youth. She started her work in the late 1980s with ACT UP—and has led New Alternatives since she founded the organization in October 2008. Wearing a "fuck trump" t shirt, that I forgot to snap a photo of, Kate delivered an amazing talk about working with at risk youth. Trauma impacts development, so people may look one age, but they are much younger developmentally, says Kate. Day after day of trauma tales, we work within people no one else wants to work with. So what of practice? How does it work, with low threshold harm reduction services, coming together as a community on Sunday night for support groups, Kate explains. Direct services offer a way to step out of activist mode, notes Kate, mentioning she’s been arrested with me more times than she can remember. Direct services give us a chase to confront the obstacles our clients face, to do something about the frustration. The clients see us stepping in. Many of our clients are suicidal. Assess the level of distress. Listen, don’t panic. Stay calm, stay in the moment. Ask to hear more about what's going on. What level of distress are we at? It helps to calm them down. Deal with crisis, especially homicidal thoughts accordingly. Many of Kate’s clients live in crisis. We talk about aging out of foster care. In New York, those under 16 are typically in children’s services, under the jurisdiction of child welfare and family services, New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS), 16 to 18 in the periphery, 16 - 24 youth shelters such as Covenant House. Many of these are Kate’s clients. Look at needs in a hierarchy, says Kate. We don’t ask for an assessment on the first day. We get relationship capital over time. We’re starting where they want to start, says Kate. Then we can ask more over time. How can I help you, we ask. Speak quietly when someone raises their voice. Stop, think, and then speak, not the other way around. Don't call the cops. De escalate. Get people housed. What's the hard part, one student asked. Some of the stories are hard to bear. Kate recalled a client who was tortured, with a torn rectum, whose story Kate needed to document. That was hard.
What about the survivor mission, I ask, referring to the concept from Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, in which survivors transform private pain into public social action and engagement, connecting with others, battling to make sure others do not endure what they did. People find meaning in the struggle. In solidarity. It's a positive outcome for a lot of activists, says Kate, recalling her years and years of activism.The lessons are many. How do you get through it? With my cats and my writing, says Kate. She talks a memory wall of her clients who have passed, and a service from Reverend Micah.
Another student asks Kate about his skepticism about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. A lot of it is not about science, says Kate, recalling the long history of queer people being labeled as mentally ill, before social movements changed social mores and the DSM followed. It's kinda random, says Kate.
How do you not get frustrated or angry, asks another student.
I remind myself this is not about me, says Kate, who dropped a few notes of her own about the class in her Observationsofanactivist.blogspot.com/.../trauma…:
The stories were many in September, an oral history here, another anniversary, the day after our conversation.
September 17th
Happy birthday Occupy Wall Street. All of our causes are still connected. Owen told me about the action today. And there he was today, just as he was 15 years ago. Ran into lots of friends at Zuccotti today. Just as I did that first day I rode down September 17, 2011. Still running into friends there. All day, all week, Occupy Wall Street. Then and now it's still a place to break isolation. A place to think about the inequalities, our power in seeing each other. Let's share our stories. We sat talking about the old problems and new. I greeted everyone. One man was angry there wasn't more organization. Sigh. We talked about the novel On earth we are briefly gorgeous by Ocean Voung and Coey Doctor the reverse centaur guide to life after ai. Occupy is still a place to hang out, not really to find the most organized of models. But people being here together,that still works. I think of the fun and the fights, the people who shuffled off, Kitty, Venus, etc Miss you. Happy birthday Occupy.
Finishing the Occupy Press conference, I biked over to Federal Plaza for the Rise and Resist immigration vigil. The barbaric places humans can go still shock me.
September 3rd
First two days of classes, I met Alex at Bijans, where we talked about Mark's new book, and a couple of the kids made an appearance with Mom in Brooklyn, learning who took out Laura Palmer half way through season two, what to make of it all, between this world and that, this time and that.
September 5th
You never smile, asks Piorot, the cunning Belgian detective.
My doctor has advised against it, notes Daisy Armstrong's grandmother in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. And so movie night ended on the train after a long conversation with Mom about her grandfather's garden in Columbus, chatting with her granddaughter Sophia about the old days, the first week of class finally at an end.
September 6th
I met Gene and Norman at Brighten Beach, on a hot Saturday. Gene was talking about Motherhood, a history of feminism in Russian. This is where he came on his first day in the US. I was reading Confessions of the Fox , a 2018 historical metafiction novel by American writer and scholar Jordy Rosenberg that reimagines the life of the legendary 18th-century English thief Jack Sheppard. Swimming and reading away the afternoon. We eventually stopped on the boardwalk as the magic hour light poured on the bikers and swimmers. Some guys had a punching bag with Putin's face, waving a Ukraine flag. The next in line is worse, noted Gene. We looked at the people, the boardwalk, stacked at Eurasia Cafe, and chatted into the night.
September 7th
The college kid looking through old posters, deciding which flyers to keep up, which to bring to Germany, we started digging through my old posters from the room in Dallas, from decades ago, a TSOL here, a Circle Jerks show there, a picture from Katie, another from Eric, John in Brigadoon 1984, a flyer for New Order at the Bronco Bowl, The Judy's at the Archadia, SPAM at Clearwater, time travel between scenes, growing up, holding on, letting go, a bit of you here, another there, someone here, while you are there, a part of you there, when you are here, long ago, postcards from long ago friends, drawings and demos that reminded you, summer passing, back to college, back to classes, the old pain, the growing up, the finding yourself in between it all, not sure what it means, trying to make sense of it, still here for now
September 8th
It felt like everyone was out in Red Hook, so we kept on riding, past Lady Liberty, looking at the sun sparkle in the water, past the ships, between lives, port of embarkation, an old dining spot, the Red Hook Farm, down Hamilton, out to Smith Street, Sunset Park, Greenwood Cemetery, stopped at Sea Witch on Fifth, talking about music, and living, the warm sun greeting us, running into the college kid with their crew on the way back home, the older out St Marks Place, as I sit on the roof thinking about it all, here there, together, apart, through time.
September 9th
And we're on, classes in full swing, homework, questions about midterms, the AfD in Germany, 9/11 stories, the college kid about to go to Germany, and Emily at Barbes, with the crew, pics approved. Fall in full swing.
September 10th and 11th
"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows" said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Violence and military conflict cannot build a lasting or just society. Jeremy Varon sent us the invite for the Standing Together: A Vigil and Walk with September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Arriving, I thought about seeing LAK on September 12 here. I ran into Elissa and Yana. Elissa carried the sign she held here a quarter century prior with the message: "May our sorrow be tempered by our reason." We talked about the moment before vengeance when Union Square became a peace vigil after the bombs. We hoped for something beyond a pavlovian reaction action reaction dynamic. The families who lost someone hoped that anguish would not continue, playing out again and again ad infinitum. Our grief is not a cry for war .Two wrongs don't make a right. One peace activist told me about elevating the Pentagon in 1965. Is this your first peace demo, I asked another. She shook her head. No. That was just a dream.
There have been so many 9/11s. But not everyone sees them. But we want them to. Some see them. Others ignore them.
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows met September 10th, 2026 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11 through remembrance, reflection, and a collective call for a more peaceful tomorrow.
25 years, a long time, a lot of loss. Then as now, our grief is not a cry for war.
The Event
Standing Together: A Vigil and Walk with September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. It will be on Sept. 10, begin at 5 pm and end at roughly 7:30. (Given all the official commemorations, doing something on 9/11 is not possible.) A post is here: https://www.peacefultomorrows.org/.../25th-commemoration...
This 9/11 anniversary — the 25th — will feature a rare surge of attention to 9/11 and its aftermath. Our goal is to center peace and peacemaking efforts in commemorations of 9/11 and the larger memory of the “war on terror.” We also seek to rededicate ourselves to the work of peace and justice, addressing the conflicts and possibilities in a new era of violence.
The event starts with a program at Union Square, site of some of the first peace actions after 9/11. For the program, we are having speakers address the 7 original goals of Peaceful Tomorrows, which remain great lodestars in their calls for justice, peace, transparency, accountability, and the rule of law. Kathy Kelly is confirmed, as is Masuda Sultan (an Afghani-American woman who tirelessly advocated for the civilian victims of the US invasion). We will have as well human rights attorneys, antiwar vets, new Peaceful Tomorrows members, and people addressing the scourge of Islamophobia.
At 6 pm or so we will begin walking to Ground Zero, echoing the “Walk for Healing and Peace” that family members took in the fall of 2001. The event will conclude with a silent vigil at ground zero, for which we have the appropriate permissions. The suite of events could be very powerful.
Sadly, endless war continues, and War on Terror policies/practices live on in extrajudicial killings, the wanton and abusive detention of immigrates, and constant threats of more invasions. Our message is as relevant as ever, as are our hopes for more peaceful tomorrows.
The Asks
- above all, please come to any or all of the event! Ideal is to RSVP from the above link!
- advertise the event within your own group or community and help us build turnout! We are aiming for several hundred people. Please craft an outreach message that works best in your networks. Ask me if you need anything to facilitate outreach, like social media materials.
- bring signs and banners! We want a sumptuous visible display of our values. Bear in mind, we wish to stress a positive message of peace and compassion. The walk and concluding vigil are meant to be deeply inclusive, oriented to both remembrance and hope.
Thanks so much everyone! I am equally much a historian as an activist. How we remember and represent the past has a vital bearing on the futures we make.
Jeremy
Rev Micah Bucey
A Prayer for Our Collective Memory
(on the anniversary of September 11th):
May you be an action and not an excuse,
A horizon, not a hiding place,
A warm nudge, not a wielded weapon,
A threshold, not a wall.
May you open wide enough to embrace our anguish
And grow deep enough to invite our imaginations.
May you upend our assumptions.
May you transcend our consumption.
May you spin grief into gumption.
May you re-collect us, re-connect us,
Re-member and resurrect us,
Until the past is not just blood on our hands,
But blood that beats new rhythms into our hearts,
Until the present is not just broken bodies,
But bodies that break the molds and model wholly different ways of being,
Until the future is not just the next breath we hope will come to us,
But the interconnected oxygen that we freely offer to everyone else,
Until memory is not just a thing we pray to never lose,
But the gift that is gained every time our prayers push us to become more than memorials,
More than our mourning,
More like the morning light that not only promises a new day but sticks around to see it through.
Amen
September 12
All we ever talked about was music. Music in carpool. Dates, shows,Stevie Ray Vaughan playing on Bowies new album, the Laurie Anderson record, the new Clash album, through the trials of growing up, with dates and divorces, boys boys boys music music music girls girls girls. That feeling was with me thinking about going to Olivia's show tonight, John Cage and Revolution #9. Make a little spark, with Funkrest Brass Band out in Sunset Park. Biked out to Prospect Park to catch up with Virginia, riding from 15th out to 36th to Industry City where Funkrast Brass were playing, talking with Ella and Phil, back to Prospect, past kids playing in the fire hydrants, more bands, music in the streets, talking with everyone, Ken about the invisible city, zach about caravan Prague, Andrew about Yana's party, Jamie about Sarah's book, Christine about Lula, Brandon about Pele's last game, Judy about men, and where to meet, on the way out, past Pay It No Mind, Marsha P Johnson Park out to Greenpoint to see Olivia Block's QUADRAPHONICS at light and sound...tripping on imagination, music and light, inside and outside, music and cities, Dallas and Chicago, Brooklyn and Berlin, music, music music, friends, friends, friends, into the night...
September 13th
Stephanie was reading poetry @villageworks. Rachel stopped by. And we talked with Caroline about Sharonanne and PEPFAR. And Damian was on his way. So was Dominique, who wore the same brown shirt as Damian. There were not enough chairs. Ally the store cat wanted one of them. The city took away the benches because the homeless were sleeping on them. Anne Christine, the lesbian avenger, came afterwards, talking about her upcoming trip to Naples. Stephanie
talked about Surviving Patriarchy on Steroids. We meditated on St Marks Place. Hold sisters by their hands and uplift them. Do not let kisses ever
end. Next poem to Damian and Dominique and Joe and the bookstore on St Marks Place. Fire cannot be extinguished. Kiss the earth. Fire cannot be extinguished. 13 is a witchy number. Shadows block the Williamsburg Bridge. Elliana had refused to sell in Wburg.Trumpian developers looming. I saw a homesick tag. So many Americans are homesick for their country. We were enveloped in actions and partying, kissing a girl at the clit club. And my friend died two days later. I wasn't going to leave this chaos. I have a right to be here, to do ICEwatch so the US doesn't disappear people like Argentina in the 1970s. We have a right to be here. So the reading ended, the whole street applauding. Ann C just arrived. Met Bear for nachos on Essex and made our way home. Activism and poetry and a city still alive, still haunting.
Rebecca Solnit notes:
You try to steal elections when you cannot win them fairly; you can see all these efforts to thwart, trick (including Musk's fake election site), suppress the vote as signs the party of Trump knows it will lose a free and fair election. It's our responsibility to make it as free and fair with as huge a turnout as possible.
Tobias Barrington Wolff notes: The Court, by a 7–2 vote, has denied the Regime's request to lift the injunction that stops them from implementing their chaos plan to undermine voting by mail. Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence once again asking everyone to like him. Justices Thomas and Alito dissented. I will offer a bit more analysis in the next few days but the takeaway is that the states can implement voting by mail as per normal and everyone should proceed with their plans to vote the fascist enablers in Congress TF out.
September 14th
MONDAY Sept 14 5:30-6:30
NO ICE PARKING IN NYC!
ICE OUT of ICON in TRIBECA! With word of ICE on hand, parking in NYC to disappear people like Argentina in the 1970s, we met at the corner of Greenwich & Harrison Sts to say No. Basta. The Rude Mechanical Orchestra performing Bella Ciao, Rise and Resist lead the chants: "We are many! Hear us shout, we won't stop till ice gets out!" "No ice here. No ice there. No ice parking anywhere."
Back for a long summer, we drove from Boston to New York, an archaeology dig in Alabama, punk shows and a broken fibula in nyc, a little pain here, the fun here, frustrations there, lots of conversations about literature and music, Dr's appointments, road trips to and from Vermont, x files and Babylon Berlin episodes, trips to Staten Island and Princeton, afternoons at Village Works, trips to grandpas up the street, hanging with their sister, connection and separation, the dialectic of modern living, life's series of hellos and goodbyes, getting attached again before they are off for the year in Germany
September 15th
Incredible night with the 25th Anniversary of the ACT UP Oral History Project: A Celebration with Jim Hubbard & Sarah Schulman. Michael Petrelis on hand to say hi and ask for video of a Lavender Hill Mob Zap. A selfie with the actup demo diva Ryan, my cd buddy. The wise Sarah Schulman holding court. Matt Brimm, of CLAGS thanked the group. Anne Northrop argued: "I'm concerned with the historical amnesia. People just don't know what happened... " she said recalling movements that really fought back. "Thats part of the horrors were living with now." Sarah followed, "but there are people fighting back. There is a lot of activism that is not amplified. I also see a lot of complicity in the administrative classes,official complicity. We are in a fascist cataclysm. It's not easy to get out of this. These are times for strategic alliances. The Catholic Church, priests doing civil disobedience against ice....movements are effective when they make lives better, with sex, joy, guilting people does not make it... movements based in radical democracy are going to do far more than forced consensus."
Riding home from the graduate center last night, a car sped down Houston, took a speeding U turn, against a row of cars and cyclists. It's scary out there. Zero enforcement of speeding, unsafe driving. Is #visionary possible ? I hope so.
And you wake up and look around and all the kids are gone. We thought we'd done this. Then they came home. Hung out. We got used to them. They rubbed off on us. Their paintings stared at us, their voices, echoed, and then disappeared. I still hear the greetings in the morning. Songs. "Livin' in the Woods in a Tree..."
September 20
Looking out at the day, the fall feeling looked to extend into the distance. The life-size buffalo puppets for the public art spectacle "Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi" roamed Abolitionist Place in downtown Brooklyn, one after another, bands, music, noise, car horns for blocked cars. Sorry the Buffalo are roaming I thought. You are gonna have to slow down. Rode my bike to the Lower East Side to find my friends reading poems at the
Siempre Verde Garden
Verde Verses
OPEN MIC
Saturday, Sept 19th
Southside at 181 Stanton Street
east of Clinton & closer to Attorney. On the way, I rode past Children's Magical Garden, bands playing, kids about, books on sale. We used to dig through the dirt there. At Siempre Verde
Anne Lee lead, with her Walt Whitman verses, Wendy followed,with 22 other events to attend in the day, Ari talked about his subway poems, stories written between stops, Rebekah read Persian Sufi poet Rumi writes "Don't grieve, anything you lose comes around in another form." His outlook shifted dramatically after meeting the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz, inspiring his famous spiritual poetry.
I read the blue poems about Albania. Colin looked for "Freewheelin's Tattoo" by Michael McClure, recalling John Penley, the story telling machine, full of leads, headlines for the tabloids, looking about it all, his departure sent me in motion, back through time, spinning, texting sascha, who recalled more of the stories, about a beach in paradise in Oaxaca, getting high with Johnny Thunders. I can see you two on the park benches at tomkins, chatting away, I replied. My favorite pastime. I'm reading all the stories I can about him. Johnny Thunders, ny dolls now and 4ever. I'm on the train back to mom's. I was in the gardens reading poems. But took moms hearing aids home with me last night. It's ok. I love the train. Love the ride, talking with John and Jenn about ICE occupying Minneapolis, neighbors looking out, over a beer, back on the train, before I rode home, kids in sparkling skirts, at Madison Square garden, people grabbing Pakistani food, food on 28th, back on the mystery train with Joe Strummer and Steve Buscemi in the 1989, bonfires and consciousness changing, echoes from train whistles, Buffalo on the streets of Brooklyn.
RIP John Penley
"New York is a multicultural city. You find everything here but you don’t find everything at NYU. Students are getting an education, but not a cultural one. If only they could help some of the bright kids from the projects. None of the Puerto Ricans who are being forced out of this neighborhood have any hope of getting an education.
Q.
What is your reaction to having been described as a leader of the protests in this neighborhood?
A.
I’m a hillbilly from North Carolina; I’m not a leader of anything. I couldn’t get a bunch of drunk punks to get together and go to an open bar with free booze. The only reason I got anything going with the protests is because people shared my anger against the changes in the neighborhood"
September 20/21
That was a full one in the life. The day started with a discussion of the theology of Dolly Parton at Judson memorial, act justly, be fair, be compassionate, don't judge others, before book group, ending with a hardcore show, with Physique, Destruct, Flower, PTDS at the Wood Shop, 21a Meadow St, Brooklyn, heavy, distorted noise and crust punk, a showcase of bands from Olympia, Virginia, and here, a mosh pit of fury and sweat, bodies flying from stage, lots of sweat, bodies lunging, leather and dog collars, band posters, noise deep in Brooklyn... Book group on Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg, a 2018 historical metafiction novel that reimagines the life of legendary 18th-century London thief and jailbreaker Jack Sheppard as a transgender man. Some loved it, others felt talked down to. Nora said she liked The Extinction of Irena Rey, more. B Booker Prize-winning translator Jennifer Croft, a strange satire that explores the obsessive and symbiotic relationship between authors and translators. None of us knew what to read next. We talked about
Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life, the realist novel by English author George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans), published in eight installments between 1871 and 187, as a possibility. I thought Rosenberg's shade about Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite, was a little over the top. As a college kid, I was thrilled with this very real autobiographical book edited by philosopher Michel Foucault and published in French in 1978 and English in 1980. Its author: Herculine Barbin (1838–1868), was a 19th-century French intersex person. Michel Foucault found the memoir in the archives of the French Department of Public Hygiene. The text is a first-person account of Barbin's life raised as a female in a Catholic convent, her romantic relationships, her forced legal and physical reclassification as a man, and her subsequent isolation and tragic death. These books open a story of a geography of the city, a way to find yourself, away from family or judgement. Book Club discussion for the ages.
