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There are no Jumbotrons this year because there is no crowd. #InaugurationDay 
The announcers prepare the way for the event by giving the audience a quick tour of the "architecture" as a spatial review of national time
It was President Reagan who moved the inauguration from the East to the West. I can't help but think of the nod to the California strategy nationalizing
The Marine Corps band, socially distanced, on a platform built above the fountains, begins the ceremony. Music is how we often begin to mark the opening of ritual time within a space
The lawn is empty of the living but filled with markers for the dead. 400,000 USians have died in the past 10 months. What began as a debate about the crowd size at Trump's inauguration in 2016 has become a gathering of the afterlives of the demos, a cemetery.
The announcers return to how many cameras they have (30). They have angles on the ceremony that the networks do not. https://www.inaugural.senate.gov/live
It is as if inauguration has "always been this way." Even as every ceremony changes. Nations, but also sacred ceremonies have that management of space and time that can seem to restore this moment now to always. This is what architecture is often for.
There is only a sentence or so needed to actually complete succession. But we prepare the way for speech acts. We make the frame that gives words meaning, and which confirms the role of the speaker and the willingness to accept what is spoken.
This year there are so few chairs that people can get up and move around and socialize with one another.
Every President in attendance and First Ladies are announced. And so the line of succession in generational time/history of the office begins. They are accompanied by the herald trumpets. The Supreme Court Justices come next. And then there are families.
I always try to think about the ways several forms of authority work together. Succession is a matter of the people's choice, the recognition of prior officials in the same post, the several branches of government, and the family.
Given we've had dynastic political moments -- the Bush family, the Clintons, etc. -- family matters.
Given we have two SCOTUS justices from the same high school, kinship forms and matter.
Given we have two SCOTUS justices from the same high school, kinship forms and matter.
It's remarkable that DJT has not come. A line of succession breaks. If he is alive, will he ever come to an inauguration again? Will he abandon the dais?
Eugene O. Goodman today serves a ceremonial role. He stands out in his tan coat. He is both on duty and also part of the procession. A crescendo of applause but no one mentions or narrates why. The insurrection plays no explicit role in the ceremony. But the audience knows.
Jill Biden wears a light blue. Melanie did as well if I recall. Different shades.
The "commonplace and miraculous": three branches of govt renew their commitment to "a more perfect union". The administration is a new beginning, a future orientation. There are references to the distant past and to what will come.
The religious invocation is themed around confession and renewal. Love for one another is explicitly a feature of "American Patriotism." To govern is to pray for the heart to be open to knowing the difference between right & wrong.
Lady Gaga performs the anthem. Known for her costumes she wears hair braided up, bleached to blonde, a huge red skirt, fitted black top, and a large golden eagle on her lapel. It's a remarkable centering from "the monsters."
My kids are very excited.
My kids are very excited.
Sonia Sotomayor performs the swearing-in of Kamala Harris. Here is a succession of "firsts" as power transfers. Between the representatives of law and the executive branch is the Bible.
Jennifer Lopez comes next to sing "This Land is Your Land," the Woody Guthrie tune based on an earlier melody from the Carter Family (as in June Carter Cash, wife of Johnny). Two singers who have also done Superbowl half-time shows.
Ordinarily, camera overlays & dissolves visually laminate the performances to the audience. Not today. The crowd is a sea of flags. "This land was made for you and me" & JLo ending by speaking in Spanish is uncanny. The dead come disproportionately from Latinx & Black communities
The will of the people has been heeded. Democracy has prevailed. The language is restoration, renewal, unity, the future, repair. He's laying out a strategy past covid, insurrection, white supremacy, and towards racial justice, unification as an American cause.
Unity is the path forward from this crisis. Let's start fresh from here. It's like renewing marriage vows. It is a call to end "an uncivil war." It is time to face the pandemic as one nation. It is a moment of repair of alliances.
Biden's 1st act as President begins with silence. The prayer is for the dead, the families of the dead, for the nation. Ordinarily, this is a move to confirm democracy as bodies come home from war. I wonder ahead if there will be moments like this for victims of climate crisis.
Garth Brooks, who has friends in low places, performs Amazing Grace. He asks people to sing the last verse with him. There are no people here. He asks that we sing at home. It is a song about seeing grace, a prophetic vision, a way forward with new understanding.
President Obama sang Amazing Grace, a song of poetry and prayer. Now comes Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet. She is from Los Angeles, the daughter of a teacher. She recites "The Hill We Climb."
Poetry is a key medium for mythologizing the state.
Poetry is a key medium for mythologizing the state.
"Being American is the past we step into and how we repair it."
This is the moment of "just redemption." We were not prepared at founding but now we are ready to take on catastrophe. We rise to rebuild, reconcile, and recover. "There is always life if only we are brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to be it."
Rev. Silvester Beaman, Bethel AME in DE, performs the benediction. He interprets the unity theme in calls to care for one another, seek rehabilitation, make friends with enemies, sustain the environment. Recognizing indigeneity, slavery, & immigration are part of reconciliation
