I think your idea is provocative and I think you should do it. I haven't seen the footage from 9/11 since the day or so after the event, and I remember reading or hearing somewhere that the networks made a specific decision across the board to take it off the television so children and people wouldn't have to relive it, and at the time, I remember that in some weird way, I wanted to see it and, in the same way now, I want to see it. To me, it seemed so quintessentially "American" for our networks to take that image away from us -- it was literally blinding us to what had happened, something that in this country happens so much and so often that we don't even realize it. So since the attacks, I haven't seen much art regarding the event that, to me, in some way, hasn't mirrored the sort of display that was in new york at the time, with the banners and the signs looking for the people. That or the art is splashed with American flags and pictures of firefighters and policemen, etc. etc. That feels false and somehow wrong to me -- it's not an honest memorial, it's an easy one. It's like those ribbons people magnet on their cars or mudflaps with american flags that say we will never forget. How is that remembering anything?

Consequently, something like this is going to be hard for people to swallow and is going to piss people off and make them think you are an asshole, etc. etc, but I don't think that should matter. What matters is that what you are doing is real and raw, and what happened, though most of us would like to remember it as a nice American flag lapel pin and a firefighter helping a person out of a burning building was actually much more than that, and we just tend to wipe that away, the same way we wiped away the image of the buildings exploding and toppling down and replaced it with merchandise.

I think forcing someone to verbalize in some way how they feel about the events of that day is worthy. I guess I'd do it to see the flipbook but also because there haven't been very many -- if any -- chances for people, just normal people who don't have a husband or daughter who died in the attacks and live in Podunk, Nebraska -- to verbalize how they feel about what happened. And in some way, also, I want to be able to have this piece of art that allows me to relive the image in a way that would be private and that I could look at when I wanted on my terms and think about it when I wanted, you know? On my own level and not with a bunch of news commentary and other people's opinions. For you to make this doesn't seem cheap to me -- it seems honest and a real reaction to something that we all felt, no matter where we were or are even now in our lives. Something that is and was so fucked up that it's hard to wrap the head around. We all feel safe and comfortable now and back to normal, and even though we don't have to think about it and look about it every day, I bet a lot of people do. It seems like this is a time when maybe people, instead of all of them getting really pissed off, would welcome the chance to have someone listen to them and read what they have to say.

I think you are right when you say there is good in everything, even stuff that is really bad. I think this project could be an example of that.

I can imagine kids looking at the flipbook and I can imagine that, if their parents explained to them how they got it, presumably they'd have written something to you to get it, and explained what it was, it'd be in a format they could handle and understand, and maybe it would help them in some way to understand. I don't know if that'd happen, but I'd like to think it would.

I don't see this project as you producing something at the expense of mass death and destruction -- granted, I'm an eternal optomist, often times to my own demise, so take what I say for what you will. But I think that, like you said, good can come out of bad. You aren't profiting from this idea. You're forcing people to think. Whether they agree or disagree with you or whether they want to have a flipbook so they can relive that moment or whether they never want to see it again and think you are terrible, they're thinking, and that's more than they would have been doing before.

It makes me feel better to have written what I wrote, even at this moment when I don't know if you'll go on with this project or not, because no one up to this point has ever given me a chance, after the initial moment when the attacks happened, to ever talk about how I feel about any of it now, in hindsight or otherwise. I think its admirable that you are willing to give anyone who wants to take it that chance. I don't think this sort of inspiration is wrong -- I think it's honest and real and not fueled by money, greed, consumerism, false American pride or any other bullshit. And I don't know if Osama would sit in a cave and laugh at your art -- I think he would -- but I also think he'd get it in a way that the naysayers wouldn't. Not in a good way, in a really sick and fucked up way, because he'd probably get some satisfaction of how normal people were affected by him since he's a real psycho, but I think that aside, because we really shouldn't let him affect us, it can do a lot of good if we are honest with ourselves.

Sarah Baker