Where Were You?
We crowded into the conference room to watch the inauguration of the 44th President on a large screen TV. There was applause. There was standing room only. There was an hour and change without any work getting done.
My favorite part, “We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”
January 20th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I watched from home, folding laundry before and after the big speech.
About an hour after the ceremony, NPR fielded listener calls answering the same question. Best responses:
1. A guy who had a root canal during the ceremony, in the sole room of a dentist’s office that had a TV, who now wonders if he’ll have Clockwork Orange-esque associations between Obama’s historic speech and dental pain.
2. Someone who watched it on his cubicle as co-workers were getting laid off. Sad, but a true sign of the times.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:59 am
At my work we all gathered to watch, but lacking the simplest technology of a television we projected streaming video on our conference wall. The audio was fine but the video would occasionally freeze at a single frame, creating a surreal cinematic effect of random punctuations. Mostly moving still images of the crowd and close-ups of people smiling and crying, but also a few unsettling shots of Cheney sneering from his wheelchair and Bush with his eyes closed looking like he was asleep.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:57 am
Bunch of us from work walked down to Independence Hall to watch on the large 70″ screen they had set up.