On the first anniversary of September 11th, the Chicago Tribune released a commemorative CD-ROM encapsulating the tragedies of that day. For many Chicagoans, I imagine that the information on that disc was a welcome aid with the potential to draw out a coherent yet concise synopsis of that week's events. It contained diagrams and interactive graphics of the felled towers and their surrounding buildings, layouts of the planes and the subway underground. In short, it endeavored to make the incomprehensible accessible.

While I appreciate the need for understanding and also for closure, particularly for those who did lose relatives and friends, the topical collection of photographs and timelines, blueprints and material analyses contained in that CD-ROM too tidily stitched up the biggest rend to ever occur in the American collective consciousness. The disc, like most media surrounding the event, was placating in its blind patriotism and moreover, it dispensed a story to tell ourselves as we fall asleep: this is what happened.

I feel that that story shouldn't be handed to you in such a way that a conglomeration of information can pass for understanding without provoking thought in the user, viewer, reader. So many accounts or portrayals of September 11th neglect to even address what could possibly inspire such an act while filling in every other imaginable blank.

I want the flipbook because it lacks the very commentary I seek. In acquiring it, I am forced to question a desire for an object that will sometimes evoke feeling from me and at other times will not. I want the responsibility of its narration for myself. Culpability does not fall solely on those that organized the attacks, we shoulder a certain responsibility in living the American lifestyle without questioning those elements that make our privileges possible.

K Torpy