You may have heard by now that an airplane made a stunning, safe crash landing into the Hudson River this afternoon. Here’s the plane’s flight path from La Guardia, created by Flickr user Imjustsayin:

I saw this from my office window, sort of. Aircraft go up and down the Hudson River all the time, and I remember looking out the window and thinking “Man, that plane is kinda low. I wonder what’s on Twitter?” and then going back to my computer. A fw minutes later I saw a post about the crash and thought “is this for real?”

Then a bunch of my co-workers came right up into my office and started pointing out the window. A building blocked the view of the plane itself, but we could see the ferry and police boats moving around. I work for a cable company, so you know every screen was on CNN moments after that.

Whenever anything bad and big happens in New York, everyone thinks the same thing: “Oh God. Is it another terrorist attack?” The feeling is sudden and irrational, but very powerful and VERY real. And the more people around, the more it’s magnified.

Our CEO’s security guy used to be in NYPD counterterrorism. That guy ALWAYS knows who to call. He made a quick call and told us it was a bird, then said “I know this sounds messed up, but really, this is the best body of water in the world for a plane to crash into. They got the NYPD port right down there, and those ferries comin’ back and forth to Jersey all day long. They’ll be on it fast.”

And they were, too. It’s so amazing, how everyone was saved to quickly and with so few injuries. I stood there, looking out my window like the thousands of New Yorkers who had a view, and all I could do was fantasize about helping. I had this vision of yanking off my tie and diving into the drink.

Instead I stood there and fidgeted with my pen, then went to a meeting. Nobody could really pay attention either. Someone from our office was on the flight. She was fine, like everyone else, just taken to the hospital and treated for a 3rd-degree case of cold and wet and terrified.

It’s a beautiful impulse, really, the human impulse to get involved. It means we care about people that aren’t in our immediate circle. It means that even in a town teeming with dirt, money and murder, at some level we’re all on the same team.

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My friend Jim O’Grady is a Moth GrandSLAM contest winner — a great storyteller and a great guy. He’s been a reporter for the New York Times, and works for some mysterious think tank that he says is “physically located on Wall Street, but in no way associated with finance.”

The thing about these story shows is that they let anybody onstage, which gives the show its spirit and beauty. It keeps it from being the province of writers and actors and “who do you know” and lets the voice of the people come through. It also allows people to weep onstage and do some lame standup comedy from time to time. It’s always a crap shoot, and the surprises are the best part.

Jim’s reliably awesome — he has his nights when he kills, sure. But even when he’s not at his best, he’s still really really good, and whenever he gets picked to come to the stage the audience is in for a treat.

Here he is at a Moth StorySLAM this summer, on the theme of “Respect.”

You can see a story by The Moth’s Juliet here:

Juliet Respects ‘Mannequin Dan’

And two of my stories here:

Royal Quiet Deluxe, Chicken Band
Reverend Al Sharpton Hates Royal Quiet Deluxe, Chicken Band

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Today is national fix-the-country day, and it’s gonna be a long one. No matter what side you’re on, you’re probably sick of the campaigning by now. As a little distraction from all the election-related news you’re sure to be drowning in, I thought I’d post a video of me telling the story of Royal Quiet Deluxe, (chicken band) at The Moth.

By way of comparison, you can read a written version of the story here.

The story links to one of our recordings, made with a primitive drum machine, delay/loop pedal, and my tireless prattling.

The following track, though, is a different sort of sound collage. We recorded it on the front porch of Tim’s parent’s place out in Botetourt County, VA, one hot summer evening. You can hear crickets and locusts in the background, something I think is pretty cool. I am playing the typewriter as percussion here, Tim is playing guitar, and the chickens are pecking and vocalizing. Tim mixed in a recording about Exotic Newcastle Disease in Southern California that was recorded over the telephone many years later, and presto — you have:

Exotic Newcastle Disease, by Royal Quiet Deluxe

There’s one more story in this saga. I’ve told it onstage at a Moth event recently, and I’m waiting to get ahold of the video so I can crunch it and post it here — and I’m working on the text version for those of you that want the full-on boxed-set experience. Suffice it to say that while the Internet has helped me find a whole new audience for this band that I never thought existed, I am 100 percent positive that the Reverend Al Sharpton still thinks the whole concept of Royal Quiet Deluxe is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard.

You can see a story by The Moth’s Jim O’Grady here:

Jim O’Grady on “Respect”

And a story by The Moth’s Juliet here:

Juliet Tells the Tale of ‘Mannequin Dan’

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Emily Gordon is one of the more fantastic new friends I’ve made in New York. In her day life, she’s Managing Editor at Print magazine, and by night (and weekend and I suspect between the cracks at work) she write/edits Emdashes, a uniquely geeky literary blog devoted to loving The New Yorker. It’s written with style, grace, and the obsessive love that only a true nerd can feel for something that will never, ever help them get laid. And between Emily’s love for The New Yorker and my new-found robot fetish, it’s only natural that we’d become fast friends.

I’ve written a guest post on Emdashes today about The New Yorker’s new animated versions of its classic cartoons. Here’s an excerpt:

The whole enterprise would have been a little more interesting if the doctor had said “Relax. You’ll just feel a little pinch and then our benevolent alien overlords will welcome you into the comforts of their heavenly bosom.”

For the rest, click here.

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