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On Sept. 11, the hijackers did more than destroy thousands of lives, topple towers and penetrate the Pentagon. They also managed to shut down street fairs, silence nighclubs and, perhaps contrary to the alleged fundamentalist Muslim terrorists’ desires, close down Arab and Islamic cultural events: the second half of the Arab Film Festival and an Asian Art Museum demonstration of Islamic calligraphy in San Francisco.
Everything related to arts and entertainment — ordinarily my obsession — fell away. All that mattered was watching TV and monitoring the developments surrounding the tragic events in New York, DC and Pennsylvania. Life and death issues were at stake. War rhetoric was in the air. The threat of violence hung in the air. Candlelight vigils supplanted rock shows, as performers were met with canceled flights or simply lost the desire to even step on stage. Anyone singing was warbling “God Bless America.”
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