The Blue Angels. I really don't get why people hate on them so much. Yeah, it's loud—that's kind of the point. When I was a kid, before they passed laws about how you can't hit the speed of sound above residential areas, the Blue Angels came so close to buzzing the top of our house (we were sitting on the roof, I think I was about 3) that a big branch just snapped off of the gigantic evergreen tree in our yard. I get that they are a symbol of our military might, which has inspired only complex, conflicted feelings in smart people since [arguably] Dien Bien Phu. But pardon our noise, motherfuckers, it's the sound of freedom.

Really amazing photo by Winners Circle, which is apparently some store next to the old Anne B.

Oh yeah, one other thing. I used to work at Martha Stewart, in the Starrett-Lehigh building on 26th at the Hudson River. In the days right after 9/11 there were F-18s flying routines down the river, so close that the building — a beautiful, strong old building by the same architect that did the Empire State building — would shake. Right at that point, I don't mind saying, I was glad for it. It's really complicated, the admiration you feel for these things, and the hope that we'll never have to (or decide to) use them again.