Sulkyblue's Blog

I finally got around to watching the inauguration ceremony tonight, my Sky box in a fit of right-wing ness refused to record it on Tuesday and I had to wait for it to turn up on iplayer.

The BBC production was pretty week I thought, the graphics of the manic blue and red bubbles was really tacky, looked like that thing you do at school to make ugly paper out of water with ink and bubbles. I wasn't particularly impressed by the commentary and reporting teams either, they talked over things and failed to talk over the silent bits. I'm not sure whether it was the iplayer encoding or actually the live feed, but bits were also out of focus and with awful colour balance/exposures too. I had been looking forward to watching the BBC coverage as I thought they'd do a nice job and have some interesting commentary, this felt amateurish.

I found the constant commenting on the fact that Obama is the first black president to be a little annoying. I'm not sure I can put it into words properly. It seems hypocritical somehow to be commenting on the colour of his skin as an indication that the colour of his skin doesn't matter anymore. There is so much more to this man than the fact he is black (like he fact he is actually of mixed race parents), the biggest contrast between the 44th president and the 43rd is not skin colour! He did not win the election because he's black, or despite the fact that he's black... he won it because of a lot of complex elements and making it a one issue campaign does a diservice to all involved. I understand it's an important milestone, but I'm not sure I heard the word 'democrat' a single time during the commentary.

On a less serious note - George Bush Snr looked pretty heavily medicated, Jimmy Carter looked perky and spry on the other hand. Dick Cheney was in a wheelchair apparently because he strained his back packing boxes. Hillary Clinton looked like she'd plastered her smile and Michelle Obama looked like she was wearing curtains.

I was intrigued by the singing of My Country Tis of Thee. It turns out the song has a couple of interesting connections. Martin Luther King Jr referenced it in his I Have A Dream speech. It was also sung by Marian Anderson on the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 after she had been refused permission to sing at a concert in a white school and Eleanor Roosevelt helped arrange a new concert for her, attended by 75,000 people.

John Williams's Air and Simple Gifts (an arrangement of The Lord of the Dance) was beautiful and the musicians looked to be having so much fun... it's a real shame they were miming because it was too cold for the instruments. It felt like a strange piece of music to play, I was expecting something a lot more powerful, loud and boastful, instead it was simple, uplifting and joyful. Also it was so cool to me that Yo-Yo Ma played for President Bartlett on the West Wing too

The swearing in itself was something of a comedy of errors. Honestly it's like 8 lines! Although apparently the presidency changes at noon regardless of whether Obama had said the oath or not!

The inaugural address had a lot to live up to and delivered pretty impressively. I liked that the crowd, or at least those near the microphones had the decency to not boo the thanking of Bush for his service. It was an interesting, gutsy and impressive declaration of intent; not holding back in telling off pretty much everyone. I like the language used to give digs - "we have chosen hope over fear", "As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." I loved the mention that the US is made up not just of different religions - but also non-believers. It was eloquent, it was intelligent, it was inspiring... it was like watching a Bartlett speech. "All this we can do. All this we will do." - God I hope so!

After that, anything would be a bit of a let down , but I could definitely have lived without the poetry... maybe it was actually brilliant and I just didn't get it, maybe it was just badly delivered... but it kinda killed the mood.

The benediction took a while to get going, but was powerful when it did. The ending making everyone laugh and say amen together was perfect.

Sadly after that there was a slightly chaotic playing of Sousa (I think the Liberty Bell?) which seemed to have two bands playing a couple of bars out of synch, maybe it was a PA failure. Then it was back to inane chattering from the BBC 'experts' and the Helicopter of Happiness taking Bush away to a happy retirement dribbling into his golf shirt.