Repairing the Things in Need of Repair

On account of my workplace being filled with historically mindful liberal people, we had a break in the middle of the day to gather together and watch the inaugural proceedings projected onto a big screen. Said big screen was set up in the manuscript library, where gatherings generally occur, it being not just the most pleasant space in the office but the only one big enough to hold everyone at once.

This allowed me twenty minutes of continued work at my desk while my colleagues filled up the place and chattered, while whatever the hell Chris Matthews was going on about killed some TV time while the inauguration caught up to its schedule. I hope they don't take me for some kind of conservative, I thought, I just need to tune out the news broadcast. Also, okay, I can be kind of a hermit about workplace socializing. And look, these page proofs had corrections within maps and in foreign-alphabet quotations, and just a little bit more attention would finally get them off my desk.

Anyway, I did get to watch the main portion of the inaugural goings on. Some thoughts:

1. Dick Cheney is temporarily in a wheelchair. He pulled something in his back. When he first appeared on screen about eight different people in the room all suggested "Hey, Dr. Strangelove" at the same time. It is true, he's about one mechanical arm shy of it. (Although I think Ken Jennings is probably correct that Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life" is the most uncanny resemblance.)

2. I still can't get exercised about the whole Rick Warren thing, even if I got a taste of the mini-disgusted feeling that public prayers usually leave me with.

3. Obama kind of flubbed a couple of lines while being sworn in. Obviously, along with his secret Indonesian citizenship it proves that he has no intention of upholding the office whatsoever.

4. Speechwise, it continues to amaze me how good Obama is at public speaking.

5. Props to whoever it was in the crowd on the Mall who'd made a big sign saying BUSH! GET DA HELL OUT!!

6. I was glad to see classical music made part of the occasion, although I don't overestimate the tangible importance of its presence either. The five-minute movement John Williams wrote for it -- Air and Simple Gifts -- has a really marvelous Air and a disappointing mishmash of Simple Gifts. (YouTube.) Going back to the tune is just fine, even if it'll always belong to Copland; but basically everything Williams does to it is a cheap knockoff of Appalachian Spring, too. (Incidentally, the quartet-for-the-end-of-time instrumentation gets very close to an actual Copland piece, his vivacious 1930s-vintage "Sextet," which would have been a superb substitute if America had ten extra minutes and a greater appetite for spiky mixed-meter melodies.)

7. Aretha Franklin's rendition of America threw off the right sparks, I thought, even if she doesn't have the pipes she used to.

8. On the other hand, Elizabeth Alexander's poem, excepting a couple of apt phrases, struck me as utterly boring: bland imagery, slack rhythms.

And then we all had lunch from one of New Haven's excellent B-list pizza establishments, and then we all got back to work. New president! Wooo.