In this performance, however, it began with howls of pain, bleak utterances ground into the cello's strings and the piano keyboard (manipulated with forceful assurance by Dejan Lazic, Mr. Wispelwey's equal and worthy partner).
Visitors will be able to ascend the newly restored grand marble steps to a public viewing balcony overlooking the bleak panorama of the ground zero void.
Los Angeles, meanwhile, has a 51-mile long cement gutter, a linear dumping ground so bleak that it's best known for providing a post-apocalyptic backdrop in Hollywood movies.
And when visitors turn from the bleak panorama of the ground zero void to view the living trees and the Hudson River to the west, Ric Clark, president and chief executive of Brookfield Properties, owner of the World Financial Center, said, the palms are likely "to have special meaning".
Even this bleak weekend there are grounds for hope.
This bleak spectre keeps Mr Howard grounded on his home turf more than ever.On October 15th a poll gave Labor a 12-point lead after the distribution of second votes under Australia's preferential system.
Not that that would happen of course, because SALEM are not that kind of band – they dwell in the dark recesses of shadowy forests and the oily puddles soaking the grounds of bleak abandoned factories.
From Vietnam to the Middle East to the streets of Paris, Mexico City and across the United States, the view from the ground was bloody and bleak.
That was in fact the common sentiment around ground zero during those bleak months, and it is as authentic as the shrine in Brogan's father's bar.
On the ground the mood is bleaker.
