The passage of time continues to stump me. Below is a clip my friend/colleague/fellow insufferable music geek Drew sent me this afternoon from 2003, specifically of a Ted Leo + the Pharmacists performance down at South Street Seaport during the blackout of August of that year. The events depicted in the video below happened eight years ago next month, but it still feels so recent.
The blackout of 2003 isn't recent at all, of course. In the ensuing eight years since that event, I've personally changed jobs three times and had two children, which is to say nothing of the innumerable global events that have altered the course of our world since then. But I still vividly recall the day those lights went out. Here in New York, although we were already a couple of years on from the events of September 11th, 2001, there was still an unmistakable atmosphere of shock and expectation. It seemed that there was a collective anticipation of the dropping of the other shoe.
I remember being in my office that afternoon at the TIME Magazine news desk, surrounded by my colleagues when suddenly all the computers in the room shut down. After a few moments of eye-rolling and predictable profane exclamation, one of us glanced out the window and noticed all the lights in all the surrounding buildings going out and a chill fell over the room. My colleague Christy started getting shaken up. "What now?" we all thought.
As it happens, my wife Peggy was away that week -- sequestered with some college friends up in Maine, ironically on an island without electricity. I didn't have anywhere to rush off to (and did not yet have a child's welfare to fret about), so I ended up spending the night at the office, listening to a battery-operated radio and staring out into the eerie blackness of the darkest New York City night I'd ever seen (I was ten years old when the fabled `77 blackout happened, but completely missed it, as I was spending my summer out in Long Island at the time). My co-worker John wandered out into the ominous evening to head home and said the experience of walking south through Herald Square in the pitch black was completely unreal.
The fears that this blackout was the result of an act of terrorism, that something horrific was about to happen and that there'd be a rash of violent, hysterical looting all proved to be mercifully unfounded. By and large, people behaved with civility. Ultimately, everything turned out alright. But at the time, it was pretty screwed up.
Ted Leo was able to perform via the aid of a generator from a Starbucks van. Whether you enjoy Leo's high-powered brand of scissor-kickin' rock or not, the footage of New York City residents dealing with the commute-by-foot in the below clip is a compelling glimpse back into the experience and uncertainty of that day. Plus, Ted Leo does kick ass.
Enjoy.
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