Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The Original Ground Zero

August 7, 2005 D. H. McKee

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In the National Archives in College Park, the reels are numbered 11002 and 11003.
Shot by a U.S. Army Air Forces film crew in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the months after the atomic bombs were dropped, the reels go from one deformed survivor to the next. Women with scalded faces. A man with melted ears. A boy with no skin on his back. A man with such horrific wounds his hands appear to be leprous.
The footage was immediately classified as “top secret” by the military and hidden for nearly three decades.
Images from “the 11000 series,” as archivists refer to the 30 hours of footage shot by the crew of Lt. Col. Daniel A. McGovern, make a rare public appearance on television tonight, the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. The footage, shot in hospitals and across Japan, forms the bulk of the postwar scenes in “Original Child Bomb,” an hour-long film on cable’s Sundance Channel. The documentary, drawing its title and antiwar message from a Thomas Merton poem about the A-bomb, debuts at 8 p.m. and repeats throughout the month.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The Original Ground Zero

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As a guy who occasionally curates art shows and wrangles artists together, I often have to edit and post artist bios, profile pictures, and artwork images. This can be a problem, since many artists and writers aren’t used to selling themselves. Artists rarely know how to present their art for display in a brochure, and writers aren’t used to writing about themselves.

Writers often treat the bio like it’s an interview or something. Maybe like they’re having a conversation with you, the reader. While it may work sometimes, the most common way to write a bio is to write in the 3rd person.

I’m like those writers, and I’m talking to you directly, unlike the common way to do a bio. You should see my About page. It makes sense to me, since this is a bit which describes my blog’s website. When I get famous enough that I don’t have time to talk to you, I’ll have an intern write everything in 3rd person. Until then, you get to talk to me.

Like blogs of old, this one is a personal document of the comings and goings of me. Articles I’ve written, links I’ve posted, videos I liked, etc. Here, a first-person perspective is the way to go, at least for now. So, this is my site. I’m D. H. McKee, a sometimes artist, sometimes writer. Mostly just a guy on the internet.