The intersection of Clinton and Stanton is blocked off with yellow crime scene tape this morning, and two police cruisers squat in the middle of the road. A little further down the block, there is a fairly extensive trail of blood and a bloodied man's undershirt.

I didn't at first connect it with the string of loud bangs that woke us last night shortly after midnight. "Sounded like someone kicking a door," said M. as we both sat up in bed. "Meh," I said, replaying the sounds in my mind: one bang, momentary hesitation, then three more bangs in quick succession, evenly spaced. "Handgun, semi-automatic, sounded louder than last time. At least two rounds left in the clip, probably more." I thought to myself and then immediately went back to sleep, forgetting all about it. Apparently the analytical part of my mind works well enough when woken from a deep sleep, but either I've become blasé about gun violence or my sense of urgency takes longer to wake up.

Bowery Boogie describes the incident as "an altercation" that apparently involved both stabbing and shooting. From the lack of other news coverage, I'm guessing that it was non-fatal and that (happily) no one actually got four rounds of 9mm for Christmas. If that's correct, the owner of the undershirt was probably the stabbee and is presumably celebrating the holiday in hospital.

The blood has now been washed away, the tape is down, and the police cars are gone. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Christmas Day.

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The intersection of Pine and Nassau was jammed solid. From my vantage point on the side of a building on Pine, I could just make out a line of pale blue helmets and dark blue uniforms, threaded through the more colorful and heterogeneous mass of the protesters. From time to time, chants of "Shame! Shame!" and "The world is watching! The world is watching!" signaled that the police were trying to put zip-ties on someone.

If the world was indeed watching, there was a good chance that its view was pretty similar to mine. I had ended up on the corner of Pine in a small nest of photographers and videographers, some amateur, some professional. I suspected that the professionals might have picked that spot because it was close enough to the center of any likely action, but just enough on the fringes that their expensive gear wouldn't be in danger if the NYPD decided to go in swinging. Or maybe it was simply that there were so many cameras and video-cameras at that demonstration that wherever you stood you were likely to find yourself within arms-reach of not less than fifteen cameras of various makes and models.

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In 2001, I was still living in Paris. Some time in the mid-afternoon I happened to glance at a news site and read that two aircraft had struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been hit by what was thought to be a rocket. M., a native New Yorker, happened to be staying with me at the time. I called her and told her: "This looks very serious. You should call your friends and family."