Dad and I at Ellis Island Museum, c. 1994
The Spark of Darkness
Archive | Past Matters
Dad and I at Ellis Island Museum, c. 1994
Today is the 108th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The worst industrial disaster in NYC history, 146 garment workers—123 of them women—died in a Washington Square factory fire because doors and windows were locked to ensure workers didn’t take breaks or steal. The events of that day helped launch the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, now known as UNITE, which protects the rights and safety of textile workers and where I worked as an organizer. This picture was taken 25 years ago at the site of that disaster. I am the dark-haired butch in the left-hand corner, talking to NYC tweens who’d been inspired to support their mothers being mistreated in sweatshops. Oh, how I wish things were more improved today.
We are gliding into a more matter-of-factly fourth-dimensional, energy-is-matter Age of Aquarius. Think I’m being lofty? Consider the new-fangled electronics you count on that even ten years ago would have been inconceivable. Consider how the pull of digital information is now as real as the pull of “real life.” And consider how speculative fiction and animation now deliver more plausible interpretations of modern life than the navel-gazing, self-important balderdash that conventionally passes as serious fiction and live-action. It all comes down to a new plane in which gravity responds to time like any other object. Our feelings fold chronologies and our passions warp each other’s paths. Continue Reading →