The Lexicographer's Rules

"Above and beyond everything, the one thing I will never forget to my dying day, is the view of the people on the roof and higher floors of the World Trade Center lined up in the windows and on railings. You cannot see their expressions, but it is amazing what a 40 power telescrope reveals. They often huddled, probably talked about their chances, and sometimes went back into the building, or maybe, just laid on the floor. But then, some went to the edge, and jumped. Some jumped in pairs, holding hands. I doubt if they were married or lovers. I think it was just two people, alone, desparate, black, white, oriental,who caresÑthe telescope looking through the heat waves and smoke didn't allow me to distinguish age and race. They would just pair up and jump."

—Andrew @ Diary X. "As each building imploded, an immense amount of burning kerosene, moulten aluminum, white hot steel, cement heated into dust, and sundry smouldering flammables spread out in an inverted mushroom cloudÑinverted in that it spread along the earth, and unlike an atom bomb did not spread out above. As each building imploded, this burning cloud of asbestos laden dust spread out from river to river and as high as the original erect World Trade Centers. I imagine that most of the deaths of the rescue workers came from being enveloped in this thousand degree dust cloud. On one ambulance caught up in the cloud, all of the paint was burned off of one side, according to one radio report."'

"I am resuming my life, as difficult as that is, to pick up and go on when so many people I know are missing. Dealing with a missing person case is so much more difficult than a confirmed death. The possibilities lurk, dancing across the mind, whispering 'maybe.' I can't say that I wouldn't hear 'maybe' either, if it were me."

—Party Girl. "On the eve of the seventh day since the attack, I report with great sadness that we still have not found my friend's husband. We went home to her, to be with her, but she does not want to speak with usÑthe NYC contingent. She sees in our eyes the devastation we have seen and the reality that we know and she is not ready for it."'

"The Japanese need for context, the desire to have things explained to them in a precise, detailed manner, manifests itself in some odd ways sometimes. Few TV news features, for example, are complete without one of the presenters holding up a little placard bearing some important statistics, which they then have to hold steady as the camera zooms in on it. It's not that they can't, or don't, use digital graphics, it's just that sometimes they feel the need to make the presentation of this information more personal, more involved; they'd rather hold the viewer's hand and talk them through something, pointing out the salient bits along the way... I used to think it was odd; now I just think it's Japanese. All the same, last week's mission on the part of the TV networks to explain the events of Tuesday to the masses left me a little shocked."

—Fictionsuits. "One of the networks on Wednesday used an intricate little desktop model of the World Trade Center complete with scale-model 767s on stalks, which they manoevered, by hand, up to the sides of the buildings. The aircraft nudged lamely to a stop and I noticed, with a mixture of approval and despair, that they'd set the heights of the stalks to correspond to the exact heights of the collisions. Christ, why not go the whole hog? If only they'd bothered to make the towers out of paper, they could have had the planes actually ripping into the interiors of the skyscrapers."'

"The most terrifying part of the day was when I was hanging out in the triage center, doing my EMT thing, and suddenly heard, 'Go, go, go!' Turned to see people flooding off the wreckage of the Towers, into the building where I was. We all ran for the back of the building, but the door was blocked, so we jumped out the window. I didn't know why I was running, but I had no choiceÑa flood of people carries you as surely as water. Out the window, and running down the street, blocks and blocks, jumping the debris piles and running. Finally we slowed."

—Godfuckingdamnit. A report from Ground Zero by an emergency medical technician.

"Aside from the refreshing check-in with loved ones, the best thing about getting out of the city was the simple fact that I didn't watch a single damn news report for the entire time. We've definitely reached a tipping point as far as 24-hr coverage is concerned, and the same things which were meant to help and inform are now inflicting their own form of damage. Patriotism is morphing into jingoism, pride to prejudice. People are losing sight of common sense, and simply allowing the media to soup them up for any kind of violence."

—Catchdubs. Catch them while you can: pictures from around New York City during the past week, and pin-point meta-commentary. "Another problem is that we have been completely saturated and overwhelmed by so many powerful images from this past week, almost to the point of becoming desensitized to it."'