And on a *completely* shallow note

[tzikeh]

Some time in the months after 9/11, I was visiting cesperanza and astolat in NYC, pounding some first season West Wing into them. We were rollicking along and having a good time, when we came to the episode "He Shall, from Time to Time", in which Donna and Josh discuss how they always keep someone from the line of Presidential succession out of the audience during the State of the Union Address, just in case.

DONNA
I don't know why you're picking the secretary of agriculture.

JOSH
Because the secretaries of defense, state
and treasury are famous faces, and we want the camera to find them.

DONNA
So, if the Capitol Building blows up...

JOSH
Yes.

DONNA
The man my country will be looking to is the secretary of agriculture.

JOSH
It's my country too.

DONNA
Yeah, but you'll be dead.

JOSH
Which is why I really don't care that much.

DONNA
Josh?

JOSH
Donna, I really don't anticipate the Capitol Building exploding.

DONNA
What percentage of things exploding have been anticipated?

JOSH
Now you're just bringing me down.

DONNA
I would think so.

I remember laughing my ass off when I first saw this scene. This time, I just looked at my friends and said, "Wow, that used to be a really funny line." Cesca said "Yeah, I can tell."

Comments

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

Actually, right after September 11, I was glued to WPIX for a week because the only person I knew well who lived in the area was my friend Emily who is an EMT. Her husband is a New York City cop. Em wasn't responding to her e-mail and I was really worried so I just kept watching the background to see if I could see either one of them in the rescue crew.

My first foray back into fiction was Saturday night when our friend Ed came over to watch Buffy. Ed didn't have a TV and we had slowly been catching him up on season five. That night we watched the SEason 5 finale.

Remember that Ep where the crazed cultists were trying to suck the Earth into a hell dimension and Buffy had to fight her way up to the top of a tall tower to rescue her sister and ended up sacrificing herself in the effort?

Yeah, that one.

I think that was a more powerful moment for me than watching the first tower go down. I had spent that whole week in a shocked daze. Watching Buffy, I started to process what it meant.