mysterious anthems

Cover of Independence DayIn the first sentence of his brilliant novel Independence Day, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Ford writes: 'In Haddam, summer floats over tree-softened streets like a sweet lotion balm from a careless, languorous god, and the world falls in tune with its own mysterious anthems.”

His evocation of a perfect morning in a New Jersey town came back to me as I sought to puzzle out what I felt was the connection between three dates in my mind: September 11th 2001, January 15th 2007 and January 20th 2007.

The dates, of course, mark the devastating airborne attacks on mainland US in 2001, the miraculous landing on the Hudson River by the improbably named Pilot Chesley Sullenberger and the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States.

The two airline incidents, so terribly different in character and personal effect, are nonetheless worthy of some sort of symbolic equivalence, standing as they do as bookends to the Bush presidency. Their similar architecture – the vehicles and the location – invite and almost require us to re-examine their resonances.

Where the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the crash landing in Pennsylvania caused untold suffering and grief that cast a pall over a country, the world, international relations and the whole of the Bush presidency, the deft touchdown on a near-frozen Hudson River adjacent to ferry terminals with no loss of life was a triumphant assertion of hope over despair. In their own antithetical ways, each offers a context for their time. In the case of the Hudson incident, such resonant glimmers of light in the face of potential tragedy, especially those placed in time and in counterpoint to previous catastrophes, can serve as powerful and valuable metaphors. They can offer a glimpse of the potential for a better world ahead.

What I believe we are seeing is that occasional gift of history, that uniting of medium and message, providing in this case new leadership with a context, a “mysterious anthem”, as Ford puts it, upon which to layer a new type of administration. Where the Bush presidency seemed consciously or subconsciously to take its cue from 9/11 and led the world into impetuous conflict and global financial crisis, perhaps the miracle on the Hudson – the triumph of hope over adversity – will subliminally draw a line in the sand, snow or ice.

The resonant link between leader and context, software and hardware, plant and soil, artist and medium is rich in reference and repetition on many scales. On either a large or small canvas, there are many times when the world offers up a frame that is perfectly suited to a collision of circumstances in which the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. This cuts both ways, of course - dark and light.

Looking to the light, many examples spring to mind. The early Bob Dylan, who Ginsberg said had “something of the Holy Ghost about him” as he watched an improbable performer tremble his words over his percussive strumming. The West façade of Notre Dame de Chartres cathedral, where sculpture and visual narrative unite with architecture to speak louder than words. The soil of the east coast colonies from which modern day America grew. Each of these disparate, accidental collaborations of circumstance can create wonder and greatness as much as they can darkness.

What we’ve seen and experienced these last eight years, that drawn line might assert, is now behind us. Darker alignments are past. We can look the future, if not unencumbered then at least optimistic that we can get our lives, hopes, ambitions and contributions back in synch with an altogether more harmonious and uplifting anthem than the discordant notes of the last eight years.