The Story Behind 9/11's Most Infamous Photograph

[ view in browser.   add esquire@newsletter.esquire.com to your address book ]             FOLLOW US       The Story Behind 9/11's Most Infamous Photograph   In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity's divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, or frock, is billowing free of his black pants. His black high-tops are still on his feet. In all the other pictures, the people who did what he did—who jumped—appear to be struggling against horrific discrepancies of scale. They are made puny by the backdrop of the towers, which loom like colossi, and then by the event itself. Some of them are shirtless; their shoes fly off as they flail and fall; they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain. The man in the picture, by contrast, is perfectly vertical, and so is in accord with the lines of the buildings behind him. He splits them, bisects them: Everything to the left of him in the picture is the North Tower; everything to the right, the South. Though oblivious to the geometric balance he has achieved, he is the essential element in the creation of a new flag, a banner composed entirely of steel bars shining in the sun. Some people who look at the picture see stoicism, willpower, a portrait of resignation; others see something else—something discordant and therefore terrible: freedom. There is something almost rebellious in the man's posture, as though once faced with the inevitability of death, he decided to get on with it; as though he were a missile, a spear, bent on attaining his own end. He is, fifteen seconds past 9:41 a.m. EST, the moment the picture is taken, in the clutches of pure physics, accelerating at a rate of thirty-two feet per second squared. He will soon be traveling at upwards of 150 miles per hour, and he is upside down. In the picture, he is frozen; in his life outside the frame, he drops and keeps dropping until he disappears. READ MORE       A Nation's Grief Was Hijacked on the Afternoon of September 11, 2001   While most people were thinking and praying for friends and relatives in New York City, and just generally walking around stunned and hurting, there were people in government already planning to use the attacks as an opportunity to carry out the imperial projects about which they'd been dreaming for decades. For all practical purposes, the Iraq War, with all its terrible consequences, intended and unintended, was launched on September 11, 2001. Read On         My Escape From the 81st Floor of the World Trade Center   "How do you describe the sound of a 110-story building coming down directly above you? It sounded like what it was: a deafening tidal wave of building material coming down on my head. It appeared to be falling on the street directly where I was headed." At 8:48 on the morning of September 11, Michael Wright was a thirty-year-old account executive working high in the World Trade Center. Two hours later, he was something else. Read On         Why Does Donald Trump Behave Like This in the Face of a Massive Human Tragedy Like 9/11?   No Collusion. That was the first thing the leader of the country thought of when he awoke on September 11, 2018. He doesn't even pause for a moment to remark on the monumental human catastrophe unfolding before him, as thousands of his fellow New Yorkers are lost, their many thousands of relatives permanently bereft, as a shroud of death encircles his hometown. None of that matters in the slightest. Read On         Greetings, America. My Name is Osama bin Laden.   From Esquire February 1999, a conversation between John Miller and the most dangerous man in the world. Read On         Disproving 9 of the Biggest 9/11 Conspiracy Theories   There are an untold number of theories about what really happened that day. They are the subject of a well-known documentary film, and they have spawned countless websites. Most of them are weird, and some are almost comical. But exploring these theories involves venturing into the darkest corners of our imagination, where confusion and despair bleed into reactionary paranoia, and the enduring sacrifice of the innocent people who died that day is almost cheapened by slander and suspicion. Read On       Unsubscribe •  Privacy Notice   esquire.com ©2018 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Email Privacy, 300 W 57th St., Fl. 19 (sta 1-1), New York, NY 10019