What we have here is a warthe war of matter and spirit. In the classical era, spirit was in harmony with matter. Matter used to condense spirit. What was unseenthe ghost of Hamlets fatherwas seenin the conscience of the king. The spirit was trapped in the matter of theater. The theater made the unseen, seen. In the Romantic era, spirit overwhelms matter. The glass of champagne cant contain the bubbles. But never in the history of humanity has spirit been at war with matter. And that is what we have today. The war of banks and religion. Its what I wrote in Prayers of the Dawn, that in New York City, banks tower over cathedrals. Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion. When I came back to midtown a week after the attackI mournedbut not in a personal wayit was a cosmic mourningsomething that I could not specify because I didnt know any of the dead. I felt grief without knowing its origin. Maybe it was the grief of being an immigrant and of not having roots. Not being able to participate in the whole affair as a family member but as a foreigner, as a strangerestranged in myself and confusedI saw the windows of Bergdorf and Sakswhat a theater of the unexpectedmy mother would have criedthere were only black curtains, black drapesshowing the mourning of the storesno mannequins, just veilsblack veils. When the mannequins appeared again weeks laternone of them had blond hair. I dont know if it was because of the mourning rituals or whether the mannequins were afraid to be blondtargets of terrorists. Even they didnt want to look American. They were out of fashion after the Twin Towers fell. To the point, that even though I had just dyed my hair blond because I was writing Hamlet and Hamlet is blond, I went back to my coiffeur immediately and told himdye my hair black. It was a matter of life and death, why look like an American. When naturally I look like an Arab and walk like an Egyptian.
