Washington DC–January 20, 2017

So, it was Inauguration Day, and I have decided to break one of my self-imposed rules of not including people in pictures. This was a public event, so there was no expectation of privacy, and I figured that “anything goes.” And by anything, I mean anything, as you can see from the following pictures, especially the last of these:

I really liked these scarves. I talked with the guy wearing the Dr. Who scarf. He liked David Tennant’s Doctor best; his friend (not pictured here) liked Matt Smith and couldn’t stand Peter Capaldi’s Doctor.

I see that Pres. Trump’s influence has not taken over completely; the sign says “Media” instead of “Dishonest, lying Media.”

Here were a couple of protest signs; there really were not many protestors on the National Mall itself.

And this person, whom I saw after the speeches were done.

This is a long view of the crowd up at the Capitol:

But on the National Mall back at 7th Street (where I was), there was plenty of open space, even at 10:45 a.m., and when the inauguration itself was taking place at noon, there was still at least a foot of space between people. It was nowhere near “sardine city.”

Jumbotron

I got a picture of the back of a Jumbotron (I had never taken note of them before), plus a closeup of the pixels. Just because I could.

My Day (An Episodic Summary)

I went to the inauguration wearing this cap:

A lot of people thought it was a “Make America Great Again” cap, and it was great to see some people read it more carefully and do a double take. This happened at one point when two people from CNN were interviewing me (not live, thank goodness). The camera person noticed the correct reading immediately, but the interviewer didn’t, and so about halfway through the interview, he says, “As a Trump supporter, do you...” and I said, “I’m not a Trump supporter” and pointed to the cap, which the interviewer read again and stopped dead in his tracks for a few seconds. The video person chided the interviewer for not having noticed. It was wonderful.

I also was interviewed by a couple of people from KFI, a (conservative, if I recall correctly) radio station in Los Angeles. One of them asked why gay people were against Trump; [I’m paraphrasing here] after all, his sex life is far from sedate, and he hasn’t said anything one way or another about gay rights. I said that I was more concerned with Vice-President Pence, who is no supporter of LGBT rights, and would have the President’s ear.

Three or four groups of young students did notice the hat, said they really liked it, and asked to take pictures of it to put on Snapchat.

I had brought along two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and was taking them out when this one young guy asks me, “Is that peanut butter and jelly?” I said it was, and he said, “I’m really hungry. Can I have part of one of them?” I gave him a whole sandwich, and that was that.

I was talking with one person from Toronto who was here doing some sort of architectural design contract work and had the day off. He said, “You call this an election. In Canada, we call it an IQ test—and you failed.”

When President Obama was shown leaving the White House, one lady next to me said, “I’m trying hard not to boo.” Another person said “I glad we can get over the past eight years.” I said, “Yes, I can hardly wait for the economy and stock market to get back to where they were in 2008.” The guy didn’t realize I was being sarcastic.

As for the speeches: Sen. Schumer’s speech was terrible. President Trump’s was by no means a masterpiece of rhetoric, and, as far as I was concerned, it was pretty much a rehashed campaign speech. I almost was deafened by the intensity of the dog whistles in the speech. I was especially not thrilled with his comment that we have “an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge...” All knowledge? That’s about an 11 on the hyperbole meter.

President Trump also said, “We will follow two simple rules; buy American and hire American.” I wonder how many of the people who were buying cheap Trump souvenirs were taking those rules to heart and checking whether those buttons, T-shirts, etc. were produced in the USA or not.

Hirshhorn Museum

OK, enough of politics. I also went to the Hirshhorn Museum to see what they had there. Here are some of the highlights.

There was a display of clocks by Bettina Pousttchi; large photos of 24 clocks, one per time zone, all taken at 1:55.

And these graceful lines drawn along the entire second floor. I wasn’t much impressed with them until the guard told me that the artist Linn Meyers had drawn the entire piece with markers over several weeks.