Mark Lepore was my graduate advisor and mentor at Mass Art.
The first day of my second year of grad school was 9/11.
I got caught in traffic and arrived late for Mark’s graduate seminar. As the only one who knew what was going on outside the dark, soundproof room where the class met, it fell to me to tell Mark and the other grad students what I’d been hearing on the radio on the way in. Mark, an ex-New Yorker like me, freaked out and we all ran down the hall to a tiny office where a janitor was watching the news on a beaten-down black & white TV. We arrived just in time to see the second tower collapse.
Mark took his own life on Sept 11, 2005. I think of him often but especially on that date.