The city of New York is bringing back the “Tribute in Light” spotlight beams on Thursday, and I’m reprising my own tribute in light, too. Just like last year, you’ll be able to watch my “solemn light show” live on my webcam.

I spent pretty much all evening setting it up — putting up the lights, getting the webcam working, etc. — and I’ll have quite a bit more work to do tomorrow, too. Why do I do this, you ask? I don’t quite know. I suppose it’s just my own personal way of marking the occasion and memorializing the dead. (I tend to cope with things through photography, web design and publishing.)

My former copy-editing professor and, later, internship supervisor, Los Angeles Times Magazine Managing Editor Ann Herold, told me that my light show was the only 9/11-related event that actually brought a tear to her eye all day on Sept. 11 last year. I don’t know quite why — maybe the simplicity of it? But anyway, yeah, it’ll be here again, so come back Thursday morning and watch.

Check out this week’s Village Voice cover story, Hillary Potter and the Senate Chamber of Secrets. Hee hee hee. Excerpt:

On her way to the elevators, she ran into her two closest allies, who couldn’t contain their excitement.

“But the Death Eaters aren’t waiting, Hillary. And they’ve put a Gibberish Charm on all the other candidates. What if you’re the only one who can stop—” as he glanced furtively around, George Weaslopoulos’s voice dropped to a whisper—”He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Re-Elected?”

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Seen in Greenwich Village:

Simon and Garfunkel are reuniting again for a tour!!!

It’s primary day here in New York (just like it was on 9/11), and there’s a particularly nasty race going on in Brooklyn, where incumbent City Council member Diana Reyna is being accused of anti-Semitism (or at least anti-Hasidism) after a supporter and fellow councilman sent out a campaign flyer stating that Hasidic Jews and other “powerful interests” oppose Reyna’s candidacy because she supports affordable housing. Reyna, who has been the subject of previous campaign flyers placing her inside a “target” and insinuating that she is a prostitute, is standing by the flyers.

In other news, I’m on my lunch break, and one of my bosses’ dogs spent the last 10 minutes staring at me as I ate my sandwich, and occasionally barking. He has now apparently given up, and left. :)

It’s a good thing this is top secret.

A beautiful Tuesday in the second week of September… not a cloud in the sky… what does that remind me of? :(

Hurricane Isabel has 125 mile-per-hour winds as of 5:00 PM, and is forecast to strengthen further tomorrow.

Isabel will probably become Category Four soon (maybe in a few minutes, when the 11:00 advisory comes out!), and could eventually get stronger than Fabian ever did. The forecast brings it up to 145 miles per hour in 24 hours — and the Hurricane Center admits, “the intensity forecast could easily be too low given that the outflow pattern is expected to continue to improve…the vertical shear is forecast to remain less than 10 kt…and Isabel will be moving over 28c and warmer [sea surface temperatures].”

(UPDATE: Yup, it became Category Four at 11:00 PM. Now it’s up to 135 mph.)

Even more importantly, Isabel, unlike Fabian, could impact the northern Caribbean islands — though it’s too soon to say for sure — and if so, that would put it on a course that’s more likely to eventually impact the U.S. East Coast than Fabian ever was. So, stay tuned.

Meanwhile, a new system, Tropical Depression 14, has formed off the African coast, and it’s forecast to be a hurricane within three days. Hey, they don’t call the first two weeks in September the peak of the hurricane season for nothing!

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I’m working on fixing the time zone on this blog, so for at least a little while, the times on a lot of old posts will be wrong. Please bear with me. :) However, new posts, including this one, are now in the correct time zone, and labeled as such.

UPDATE: All September posts now have the correct EDT time. Prior to Sept. 1, however, the time listed on all posts is actually in Pacific, even if the time-zone label says something else. (Each label is correct based on what time zone I was in that day, but I have to go back and manually adjust the actual times, since the blog’s internal clock has always been set on Pacific time until now.)

The webcam at my office, which got bumped out of place Friday night and knocked offline altogether on Saturday, is back and better than ever! And now it’s linked to the rest of the site, so it is officially the Jobs & the City webcam. Woohoo! :)

The NYPD is increasingly worried about a chemical attack in the subway, according to the Post. And I’ve already felt the effects — not of a chemical attack, thank God, but of the NYPD’s worries. I think the train I was on this morning may have been subject to one of the “random inspections of subway cars when they pull into the stations” that the Post article promises.

My A train ride from 190th Street to Canal Street was halted briefly at the 125th Street station for what the conductor described as a “police investigation.” The delay was no longer than a minute or two, and police officers didn’t come into the car where I was, but I’m guessing maybe they checked another car and then sent us on our way.

I don’t mind the slight inconvenience, but at the same time, I don’t feel remotely reassured by the “increased security” that this is supposed to represent. It seems to me this strategy has virtually no chance whatsoever of actually stopping an attack, since suicidal terrorists aren’t going to be deterred by the chance of getting caught, and “random” inspections have only a very small percentage chance of stopping an attack in progress.

Here I am on Fire Island today, standing in front of the surf kicked up by Hurricane Fabian out in the Atlantic Ocean:

And here are a bunch more pictures that I took at the beach:

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