LIGHTS OUT

摘要

We Learn Most About Power When We Lose It And Are Left Eating Cereal By Candlelight on the front stoop. Or helping the waiter and the hairdresser and the deaf man direct traffic at water. One woman who had lived in Manhattan for 40 years saw the Big Dipper for the first time. You could see Mars hanging over midtown. Outside a Tribeca bar, a patrol car cruising by turned on the bullhorn: "Attention! Make sure you drink your beer before it gets warm." There turn out to be some things you can see only when the lights go out. Some cities still carry scars from past blackouts that turned into festivals of looting and despair. But it was clear that we are living in new times, when at 4:09 Thursday afternoon thp power flickered and died in the largest black out in North American history, and instead of exploding, the cities fell quiet. Horns didn't honk. Though there were nasty exceptions here and there, shopkeepers didn't gouge, and windows didn't shatter, and most of the fires were coming off grills. Ottawa saw more looting than Detroit or Toledo. The latest test of people's nerve and grace found them equipped with both.