It felt like I should go down and see the inaugural today since I’m a D.C. resident. But “seeing” is not quite what happened. Amid the crowds, the immense security plan (in which city buses were used more to block streets than to transport people), and the panoply of cheap event souvenirs (condoms to bookmarks), it turned out we could only get as close as the Washington Monument.
That wasn’t so bad. Like most people closer in on the mall, we had to rely on a JumboTron showing what was going on. How did people hear inaugurations before such things were invented? It would have been tough to catch live speeches from the Congressional platform alone.
The JumboTron had it all – the live, mesmerizing, commentary-free feed from CSPAN, big sound system, the illusion of being there. And while it worked fine while the various dignitaries were introduced as they entered, just as the event began, the video began to freeze or pop to black, only to come back in a second. An irritant at first, it soon became clear it was going to be impossible to really take it in because of the technical snafus.
Sen. Charles Schumer began repeating words and wagging his head as if he were heir to Max Headroom, the stuttering TV personality of yore.. Bad as that was, the music was even worse: queasy, seasick tones that brought everything off key even as it was also pocked with silence and frozen images.
But even as the administered oaths began, nobody was protesting, storming the truck or urgently yelling logical fixes (take the halting audio off and just play CSPAN radio instead). We were either a well behaved crowd of Americans or a bunch of hopeless sheep who’d take whatever was given us.
When James Taylor’s version of “America” turned tuneless and every fifth word of Obama’s speech unclear, it was time to start walking back. We were in Dupont Circle by the time Beyonce was singing the national anthem. We ducked into the City Grill to catch it. Amazingly, no technical problems.
Then the rest of the day was spent the way most Americans could capture the day’s event, on CSPAN: watching the walk down the parade route, the parade itself, all the way to the balls and the unusual dances (same song, different balls). They may not have seemed like the most exciting parties I’ve ever seen. But at least the audio was working.
No, Lincoln never had this problem.