I have my camera out,
as usual, as we go past
gaily painted barricades
and through the revolving
doors of Sears Tower
street level Sky Deck
entrance. Two guards
are quick to shout--
"No Pictures!" "I thought
this was America," I say.
"It used to be," one of the
men manning the new
metal detectors replies.
He and his partner laugh
but the woman who yelled
at me stays mad. She's
the one who'll do best under
the coming system of snitches
and witch-hunts.
|
We have the
spacious elevator to ourselves. It travels
straight to the top, 1600 feet per minute.
I'm watching the green
digital readout quickly tick off
the floors when--boom!--sound
of explosion, an alarm goes off, and on
the overhead viewscreen there's a
fireball, a voice saying, "Remain
calm...." It's a gag, of course, a
60-second video riffing on Willie Wonka's
ending where the elevator goes through the
roof of the chocolate factory. But it's
genuinely startling and somewhat scary.
Not the kind of thing you'd expect to see
in a tall building after Sep 11. |
If
you
find
your
self
riding
the
Sears
Tower terror-
vator,
just
keep
telling
your
self,
"It's
only a
movie,
it's
only a
movie,
it's
only
a--"
|
