When I was six or seven years old, I went to New York City with my family and saw the World Trade Center for the first time. I remember the vertiginous feeling that came with looking up at the towers, and the thrill of looking down from the observation deck. I clambered on the spherical bronze sculpture in the plaza, too. The strangest thing I saw in the plaza was a tabletop display, in protest of something or other, comprising two dead, rotting octopus. Every arm was curled around or resting atop some object of significance, though what the significance of each object was is anyone's guess. Coins, a key, form letters, an old weekly newspaper, beads, hand cream, a disposable lighter, all meaning something to the woman behind the table, but all I could see were dead animals. I felt pity for them. Perhaps that was the point.
So, to those who've wondered where this peculiar interest of mine started, it started at the World Trade Center.
Clem