Obama '08! A2K Inauguration Party

Those secret service guys are starting to look a little winded. LOL

Beau Biden is also not painful to look at. Mmmmm.

The Obama's must be exhausted. No trouble sleeping in a new place tonight.

I hereby retract my qualms spoken on another thread, somewhat about expense, and the "big wedding" phenomenon, re all inaugurations... but mostly about security and re people being exposed to the cold for so long.
Gads, I was wrong. I'm thrilled to be wrong.



Baking Obama presidency cookies as I speak: oatmeal, flour, butter, canola, eggs, chopped almond, cranberries and currents soaks in marsala, chocolate chips, vanilla, bla bla.

And gads, I'm happy. (Have you ever seen me happy? as my friend Bonnie used to say...)

Not "yes" -- it's "yo"!

Anyone see that little boy with the cymbals in the parade? Oh god, how cute was that?

Ma and Perlman were phantastic, as expected. The composition: solid, professional, but I found it a bit boring. To my ear -- and these things are always subjective -- the composer seemed to be triangulating as he created this piece. It's somewhere in the middle between modern and classical-classical, somewhere between classics and folk and pop. Not particularly bad, not particularly good.

The interpreters saved the piece though though.

I think that was Copland's Appalachian Spring, an orchestral suite composed in '44. That or another Copland, haven't checked. Big piece of american music..

http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/milestones/991027.motm.apspring.html

It was called Air and Simple Gifts. It was an arrangement of variations on the old Shaker hymn.

http://letterv.blogspot.com/2009/01/inaugural-music.html

I found it quite touching and understated. I found the whole ceremony understated. Just the right tone for the times.

I've been enjoying the whole inauguration. Obama has such a great presence!

It's just very sad about Senator Kennedy taking ill though. Hope he's ok!

Aha, thanks, Swimpy. Got it..

CNN had an update on Kennedy at some point and they were saying that he is doing much better. The episode (some sort of seizure) has been ascribed to simple fatigue.

Thanks, Thomas and Swimpy, for further info on the classical piece...

they say (CNN) that he'll be able to go home in the morning.

Thanks for the updates!

It was fun and spectacular. Obama's speech was great, IMHO.

But I couldn't resist the feeling that I was watching something similar to a Roman Triumph, from the times of the Caesars. Sooo imperial!

Oh, but wait...

the first dance - (don't know how to imbed video that isn't youtube)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/20/the-obamas-first-inaugura_n_159522.html

Happy Inauguration Day Americans

Hi, Eorl, and thanks.

I wanted to go up to Times Square and watch everything on the Jumbo-Tron, but I got stuck at work and just barely managed to escape upstairs at noon where there is a little radio. Rolling the dial away from Z105 Fresh!, I found NPR and settled in to listen. Luckily, and very American-like, everything was running late, so in the midst of Yo Yo Ma playing an Air and Simple Gifts, the commentator broke in to whisper that it was 12:01 and that even though Barrack Obama hadn't taken the oath of office, the Presidency of George W. Bush was at an end. I felt very, very happy. I felt like my country had just survived some kind of accident.
No one came upstairs during the speech, I don't think anybody was moving in the city. The pictures of Times Square I saw later showed I wouldn't have been able to get within a mile of the Jumbo-Tron. What a happy crowd that was. So, it was just me and the little radio.
I liked the speech. I thought it was solid, thoughtful and forward reaching.
I liked being there with just the radio. It reminded me of listening to baseball games and boxing matches long, long ago. I made all the pictures then, I made all the pictures yesterday. I imagined the crowd. I imagined the faces. I imagined what all of them were thinking.
I floated through the afternoon. I haven't this happy about my country in a long time.
Of course, I was wrong.
Last night, I watched the whole thing again on a re-play: the crowd? Much, much bigger and much, much much more full of joy and anticipation and hope than I could have ever imagined.

Joe(from every mountainside, let Freedom ring.)Nation