Planes struck the towers while I was in the shower. A roommate was downtown taking photographs and, in the rudest way, received information about what would later be called “9/11”; he witnessed dozens of people choose the brief terror of jumping over the prospect of burning alive. I was blissfully ignorant for an hour. As I walked from Alphabet City to Washington Square, two miles from the World Trade Center, I missed the relevant information—“change blindness” prevented me from noticing the Twin Towers were missing from the skyline. Even as I witnessed streams of businesspeople walking north, truth eluded me. (Those whose proximity to the collapse had covered them in soot were further downtown.) It was the day of the mayoral primaries, and I interpreted the unusual migration as a trip to the polls. What a turnout, what a day for democracy!