On what promises to be a sparkling fall-like day, today will be filled with no shortage of events: festivals celebrating beer in Bel Air and the Hampden neighborhood in Baltimore, still another tea party march on the Washington Mall and, perhaps, someone somewhere burning a Quran.
It is a disparate group of events for any day, let alone this one: But the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, arrives at a time of no real consensus on how to mark the day — or even the role the event plays in the nation's history.
"We are still coming to terms with what it means to us," said Jason Loviglio, a professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "We struggle with how to fit it into how we look at the world, and even who is included in the 'we' of America."
Loviglio, who also directs UMBC's media and communications department, has taught seminars and classes looking at the political, historical and cultural impacts of 9/11. That the date itself has a unique resonance sets it apart from other important landmarks in American history, he said.
"9/11 is called 9/11. We don't say, 'Dec. 7,' or 'Aug. 6 and 9' " to refer to the attack on Pearl Harbor or the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Loviglio said. "Those events aren't called by their date the way 9/11 is. It makes the tension [over 9/11] much more profound."
In the first years after 2001, the anniversary of 9/11 was devoted largely to remembrance and calls for national unity. While memorial services will take place on this anniversary as well — most notably at the attack sites of Ground Zero in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington and the field in Shanksville, Pa., where Flight 93 crashed — other events will reflect how much has changed in the intervening years.
On the one hand, the day has been drawn into the current fractious political climate, with the conservative figures Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, for example, hosting a 9/11 rally in Anchorage, Alaska, for which Ticketmaster is selling tickets for up to $200 each — your choice of a wet (alcohol available) or dry section and a VIP package that includes a meet-and-greet with Beck.
And then there are the groups that, in the name of 9/11, either are rallying against the Islamic cultural center proposed near Ground Zero or threatening to burn copies of the Quran today.
But on the other hand, the day has become, in some respects, more like any other day in September. This year, with 9/11 falling on a Saturday, many organizations are holding festivals, sporting events and other gatherings that in earlier years might have been scheduled for another day. The date still gives pause, even if planners ultimately decide to go ahead and have their event..
"For a second, we thought maybe we should change it," said Elizabeth Hanfman, marketing director of DuClaw Brewing, which is holding its third annual Real Ale Festival in Bel Air today. "We always have it on the second Saturday in September, so people were kind of expecting it."
Like others hosting events today, the brewery was somewhat boxed in by the calendar: There aren't that many weekends in September if you're trying to avoid Labor Day or other previously scheduled festivals later in the month.
That is why the Charm City Roller Girls are hosting an all-star bout at the Clarence Du Burns Arena tonight, squeezing it in between the regular season and a series of regional tournaments.
"We have people serving in the military currently — we have one person, a referee, who is going to Afghanistan in a week — so it's not that we don't respect the day," said Hilary Rosensteel, who skates for the Night Terrors as Rosie the Rioter.
Depending on what other participants decide, Rosensteel said, there might be a moment of silence to mark the anniversary, at what otherwise is expected to be a typically lively roller derby night. But unlike a long-standing holiday like Veterans Day, she said, it's not always clear how to mark 9/11.
"It is hard to know what's appropriate," Rosensteel said. "It's still so new."
The dilemma of whether to go about the business of daily life or to stop and remember the attacks and their victims has in some ways "been with us from the start," Loviglio said. To interrupt regular life unduly, he said, was seen as "letting the terrorists win."
"It was like the stoic, stiff upper lip of the British during the Blitz, when you swept the broken glass in the parlor, shaved and went to work. You would not break stride," Loviglio said. "That was an appealing image of resistance."
The day still will be marked in more traditional commemorative fashion here and elsewhere, this year and, especially, next year on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. On Friday, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced that the Maryland 9/11 Memorial would by built at Baltimore's World Trade Center. It is to be installed on next year's anniversary and will include steel from the twin towers in New York.
Today, the Fire Museum of Maryland in Lutherville is hosting "Cruisin' for our Heroes," an annual tribute to police, fire, emergency and military personnel.
And at the Johns Hopkins University, the school's American Red Cross chapter is holding a "Walk or Run But Never Forget 9/11" event, in which participants are asked to wear red, white or blue and to donate to the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Meade. A candlelight vigil will follow.
"The concept was to commemorate [what] the service people have given and commemorate the tragedy that occurred," said third-year student Avik Som, 20, vice president of the Hopkins Red Cross group. "It's still a very somber event, it is a very tragic day, but we want to commemorate all the service that has happened in these nine years."
Som, who plans to graduate from Hopkins this year, was in sixth grade in Houston when the attacks happened, and he remembers the utter confusion and disbelief he felt when he heard that terrorists intentionally flew airplanes into three buildings.
On campuses across the country, 9/11 has entered the curriculum, incorporated into courses on history, politics, international relations and other disciplines.
At UMBC, Joby Taylor, director of the Shriver Peaceworker Fellows Program, is teaching a freshman seminar called "Creating a Culture of Peace." In the coming week, he plans to discuss the controversy over the Florida pastor who threatened to burn copies of the Quran today, comparing and contrasting it with the Catonsville Nine, Catholic activists who drew international attention 42 years ago when they burned draft records to protest the Vietnam War. Some of his students plan to participate in a "Peace Path" along Charles Street today.
Loviglio has used poems and essays about the terrorist attacks to the 9/11 commission's report as classroom texts, showing how observers were trying "to give shape to how we were going to think about it."
This wrestling with the meaning of 9/11 continues today, nine years since another bright, almost-fall day was shattered.
"It's an overwhelming event, and narratives are necessary to get our minds around it," Loviglio said. "There is this struggle, and it's not over yet, over who owns it."
jean.marbella@baltsun.com