I just recently visited the 9/11 Memorial Museum and once you pass security, which is as strict as at an airport, everyone inside is friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. I can’t believe it’s been 14 years. The guards, now as fundamentally a part of American life as baseball and apple pie, are behind you and passing through this familiar indignity becomes part of the museum experience itself, which is all about sharp contrasts of mood and meaning, and the basic antinomies of life in a democracy that is also rapidly becoming a security state. It can be, at times, an overwhelming experience.
