Almost five years on, and we still cannot not turn away. Trawling across the wasteland of digital TV, we still have to pause and allow that second plane–filmed from so many angles because its predecessor had done its job of alerting the world–make its inconceivable rendezvous with the South Tower. It doesn’t matter that the rational voices struggle to do their bit to place the catastrophe in context: that day in September was merely the equivalent to a week’s worth of accidents on U.S. highways, or a handful of months’ civilian causalities in Iraq. It still seems, viscerally, an event that ushered in a new era. This new age makes me, at least, somewhat nostalgic for the much-maligned circuses of the 1990s. Even OJ Simpson is preferable to Muhammad Atta

It is arguable that poor old Karlheinz Stockhausen was right on the mark when he claimed that 9/11 was “the greatest work of art ever.” He was vilified for the comments by people who equate art with morality, but cannot 9/11 be recognized as some kind of demonic achievement in that it altered our perspectives on what was possible? The invisible wall separating the everyday–our world–from the Hollywood blockbuster and the sci-fi apocalypse also fell with the towers. But though our viewing of imagery borrowed from a 250 million dollar actioneer was skewed by the knowledge that the rag-dolls drifting past the matrix of glass and steel were not pixallated creations of Industrial Light and Magic, we could react to the footage only in ways learnt in the darkened cinema. If you were fortunate not to be personally connected, the event was filtered as pure spectacle, a diversion from the humdrum. After all, who did much work on the afternoon of 9/11?

But maybe after five years it is time to move on from the footage, or at least to start to question why it continues to rivet. On Monday, CNN is presenting over the Web the original TV coverage of of 9/11/01 “IN ITS ENTIRETY.” How is one expected to prepare for this 15 1/2 extravaganza? With a monster gulp and an extra-large box of M&Ms? And what entertainments will be lined up for the sixth anniversary? Perhaps a special episode of “I Love 2001” in which various C-list children’s presenters and comedians watch “highlights” and share their own carefully fabricated memories of the day. I can imagine Ed Bryrne flicking back a stray lock and saying, “When the second plane went in–well, that’s when it really went loony!”