'World Inside the World': A Post-9/11 Song by Rhett Miller

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About That Day by Rhett Miller
The Atlantic, September 2011

Flames shoot out either side of both towers. Flames shoot out of the building that houses the Amish Market, where we grocery shop. Bodies drop from a hundred floors up. One lands on the median, right in our line of sight. Firefighters and paramedics surround it, roll it on a stretcher, and carry it off.

I feel the beginning of something that’s hard to put into words. A mechanism that I developed during my adolescence, surviving in a broken home. I am distancing myself. I know it’s real. And I know it’s bad. But I’m not going to think, right now, about what it means.
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Jennie Rothenberg Gritz is an Atlantic senior editor. More

Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, an Atlantic senior editor, began her association with the magazine in 2002, shortly after graduating from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. An early highlight of her Atlantic career was a visit with Harold Bloom, during which the renowned literary critic addressed her as "my little bear."

In January 2006, Jennie joined the Atlantic staff full time. She currently oversees a number of different areas -- producing the online edition of the magazine and its special features, editing TheAtlantic.com's National channel, and creating original videos for the website.

Before coming to The Atlantic, Jennie was senior editor of Moment, a national magazine founded by Elie Wiesel, where she remains a contributing editor. Her writing has also appeared in The Chicago Tribune and in the book The Kindness of Strangers, a Lonely Planet travel writing anthology.

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