September 11

New York magazine's The Encyclopedia of 9/11 contains archives & new material. It's an excellent resource.

PS: A gentle reminder that people experienced this tragedy differently. Telling others to "get over it" is never ever a good way to start a conversation about that day or any other catastrophe. It's going to end that conversation, though.

(photograph via Instacane via Cup of Jo)

Japan, One Year Later

To dear friends & relatives in Japan, our hearts go out to you on this anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake & tsunami. For an excellent comprehensive update, see The Japan Times Online 3/11 anniversary page.

For a more personal update, read Sapphire's One Year After the Disaster. She has lovely photographs, as always & an introduction to alternative energy sources now that nuclear energy's future in Japan is (finally) under intense examination.

xoxo/GG & her editor

(lovely plum (ume) blossoms by moriyu)

September 11 - Bearing Witness to History

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of September 11, the National Museum of American History is providing visitors with a close-up view of more than 50 objects recovered from the three sites attacked that fateful day—New York, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pa.—as well as recent acquisitions that relate to how American lives have changed since then. The Museum's presentation will be an unusual blend of a public program and a simple display of artifacts—a display, not a full exhibition. For nine days only, the objects will be shown on open tables, without cases. The intent is to give visitors an intimate experience that will help make this historic day more real in their memories and stimulate them to reflect on its significance. --National Museum of American History.

The exhibit is soon to close but there is still time to see it if you are in the Washington, DC-area. The website is worth a visit even if you are not. Here is a link to educational resources about September 11, 2011.

(Sunflowers in Somerset County by Harry Hunt; his Somerset County Flight 93 flickr set)

Coast of France, June 1944

A solemn anniversary. New-to-us terrific photographs.

"It's no mystery why images of shocking, unremitting violence spring to mind when one hears the deceptively simple term, "D-Day." We've all seen -- in black-and-white photos, movies, old news reels -- what happened on the beaches of Normandy as the Allies unleashed an historic assault against German defenses on June 6, 1944.

But in rare, color photos taken before and after the invasion, LIFE photographer Frank Scherschel captured countless other, lesser-known scenes from the run-up to the onslaught and the heady weeks after: American troops training in small English towns; the French countryside, implausibly lush after the spectral landscape of the beachheads; the reception GIs enjoyed en route to the capital; the liberation of Paris. As presented here, in masterfully restored color on the anniversary of D-Day, Scherschel's pictures feel at-once profoundly familiar and somehow utterly, vividly new." - via LIFE.

See the gallery here.