Inaugural Concert, And The Balls
Here are the details about Sunday's concert down at the Lincoln Memorial. Except for the massive fups about censoring Gene Robinson's invocation and the non-free reality of the "free" broadcast (see link for the whole story on both), I liked the concert.
There was much talk about Martin Luther King's appearance at the venue, but I was all a-twitter about Marian Anderson, whom no one had mentioned until Queen Latifah got up to say her piece. I've always admired Anderson, and worked a reproductive rights rally on those same stairs fifty years to the day after she gave her concert there, invited by Eleanor Roosevelt after being refused the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Shame on the Daughters! I could be one, but I won't. For Anderson's sake. Obama is a lot more forgiving than I am. But yikes, I'd never actually heard Anderson's voice, and those few bars of My Country 'Tis of Thee make my ears hurt. Very, very, very operatic and very, very, very soprano. Eeeee!
Anyway, immediately following that, they had the same number performed by two soloists and a gay men's chorus, and I did tear up. I also cried a bit during This Land Is My Land but got the giggles when they sang the socialist verse. Pete Seeger sang it with the original "private property" and "relief office" verses, bwah-hah! It did my heart good to imagine, say, George Will's reaction to that.
Re tears of joy, I've been holding pretty steady so far, but I expect to weep like a fountain at some bar today at noon, where we are meeting Friend X and her husband and Arbor to watch the oath in a crowd. X is hosting a "ball" at her house which will be a very few people dressing up as much as we possibly can... to watch TV. Oh, well.
I went to Clinton's first Inaugural Ball - the one down at Union Station - and it was great. I was there as a worker, but they wouldn't let me work because of my mobility problems, so I sat there as the sole audience for Manhattan Transfer as they warmed up in the gloriously empty, gloriously acoustic marble hall for over an hour...and then tucked myself out of the way until the ball proper started.
Laugh, but what astonished me the most back in 2000 were the elderly men openly, even proudly, towing hookers behind them. Maybe they were trophy wives, I don't know, but the men (and there were at least a dozen) were clearly very rich and very old, and their escorts were semi-nude, super-tall in comparison, and had an average age of, say, 21. I'm a bit prudish about formalwear, but really, these women were seriously exposed. And no, they weren't daughters or granddaughters or nieces.
I remember Hillary and Bill dancing. She wore an eggplant gown with lace of the same overlaying the sleeves and bodice. He wore whatever it is that men wear, and played the saxophone. I wish I could have gone to at least the Power and Pride Disability Ball, though Obama will not be there; but most of all, I wish I could be down on the Mall today.
Before noon? LOOK!