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Sorry, Sam. You should have come down to the Mall. It unfolded just like a movie about a civil rights march, even a Ron Howard movie. Me and some friends and our many children followed a Kenyan band from Brooklyn down to the Washington monument.They played "We Shall Overcome" over and over and over and no one really seemedto mind. We ran over many ankles with our motorcade of strollers and people smiledgraciously and told us the kids were cute. Along the way, we met people from all four quadrants of D.C. - first time that's ever happened to me. It was freezing cold and scary crowded and still, I was complaint and irony free for several hours.
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Michelle Obama really is avoiding the First Lady fashion cliches (Oscar de la Renta, Escada), isn't she? With the debut of the ivory Jason Wu column Jessica wrote about tonight, we can add Wu's name, too, to the list of semi-obscure fashion names that average American women now know. (Is there a Target diffusion line in Wu's future?) Style.com pegs Wu as a designer who "has the immaculate Park Avenue thing down cold"; Michelle has been wearing his work since last year.
Love the feathery texture and the drapey skirt. Not as sure about the bridal color and the asymmetrical strap. What do you guys think?
(Oh and Dayo, you're right that the men are stepping up their fashion game today: How'd you like Jay-Z's Urkel-ish glasses at the Neighborhood Ball? He pulls them off, no?)
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Though she chose chartreuse for the swearing in, Michelle donned a white, vaguely Wilma Flintstoneish one-shouldered Jason Wu gown at the Neighborhood Ball. She looked fantastic, Flintstone notwithstanding. The same could not be said of Beyonce, who sang Etta James' anthem "At Last" while the Presidential couple took their first twirl. B's ill-fitting satin dress was…unfortunate at best. Even though her stylist should be shot for subjecting Beyonce to breast crimes of Barrymore proportions, her voice sounded better than ever. We're currently watching Jill and Joe Biden dance to "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You." My boyfriend's fashion commentary on Jill's tastefully low cut crimson dress: "pretty foxy."
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Greetings, ladies, in the aftermath of the wildest day in Washington since 1968. The press pit of which Eve speaks did carry a whiff of writerly aloofness; but the decidedly unjaded corps of celebrities more than compensated—livening up the already thrilling festivities.
The A-listers behaved themselves when George W. Bush, Cheney and John Boehner were introduced and a gurgle of boos came up from the mall, but Maria Shriver and her guest were first to pick up the rolling chant of “O-Ba-Ma” begun by some proud soul among the two million thronged behind us.
Call outs: Denzel Washington standing and slow-clapping through the last half of Obama’s speech (no one told him to sit down); Jay-Z and P. Diddy high-fiving one another (three times, with feeling) over the head of a delighted Beyonce Knowles; Oprah furtively snapping pictures of Angela Bassett, Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel, mugging for the cameras just below the podium. And Chris Tucker jockeying for a family picture with the Rev. Jesse Jackson—and overheard complimenting the Rev. Joseph Lowery on his “mellow yellow” benediction: “I knew he was going to say something fly, I just knew it… He couldn’t contain himself.”
And, lest male fashion be deemed totally out of XX bounds, a note on hatwear (besides Aretha’s): Though John Kennedy’s 1960 inauguration supposedly killed off the man hat, several senators—and former NBA player and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson (who attended with DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee) wore traditional fedoras today—a snazzier way, perhaps, to keep heat from escaping than your typical ski cap. And Jay-Z, as Eve notes, was jubilant—having conscripted the luxuriant pelt of some poor animal to keep his own head warm. Spread it!
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I was out on the Mall today, freezing and not minding a bit, with two great women named Betty. Here's more.
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To Eve and the others who were there: Tell me everything! Did you make, like, a million friends with fellow inauguration observers? Were there sweet-faced octogenarians telling you about how they never thought this day would come? California hippies who had driven across the country in the same beat-up VW bus they took to Woodstock, just to be there?
I had told myself it would be too chaotic and cold and crammed in D.C. to be worth making the trip down there, but from my silent office desk right now I can't help but wonder if I made a mistake. I already missed the glowing camaraderie of election night—I was working at Newsweek then, and I knew when I received the e-mail about the Nov. 4 food schedule (dinner at 7 p.m., sandwiches at 1 a.m., breakfast at 7 a.m.) that the night wasn't going to end as I had pictured. For me, there was no hugging strangers in the streets of Brooklyn, no stopping traffic with our impromptu dance party. Just fluorescent office lights, crusty early-morning sandwiches, and the faint screams from Columbus Circle wafting in the open windows.
As it turns out, that's basically what I got today, too. A small gathering of co-workers watching the screen, trying to ignore the sounds of the printer (what could possibly be worth printing during a moment of freakin' historic proportions?), each other's frantic BlackBerrying, and the TV in some office down the hall that broadcast everything about three seconds before ours did, resulting in a dizzying echo, especially during what were supposed to be dramatic silences. So please, give me something I can vicariously hold onto, that makes me feel like I am a woman of the people, not a slave to my office building.
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To all you lady reporters who were up front underneath the stage in the press seating (hey hey, Dayo!), did you ever find yourself wishing you had braved the unticketed masses out on the Mall instead?
Joseph Lowery's benediction was still breathtaking and Obama's speech still powerful, but the mood up front was less once-in-a-lifetime historic moment and more, well, office party. On the right side of the Capitol steps, where members of the House of Representatives were seated, a mustached rep in a long camel-hair coat—I think it was Jose Serrano of New York—led others standing on his riser in drunken-sounding chants like "Rahmbo! Rahmbo! Rahmbo!" [referring to badass Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel] and "Hey, Steny [that's Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader], we love ya!"
Meanwhile, on the Senate side of the Capitol steps, practically every failed presidential hopeful—John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Arlen Specter, a regally smiling Chris Dodd—casually meandered as close as possible to the coveted presidential podium, acting out their commander-in-chief fantasies by gripping the white railing tightly and waving at nobody in particular.
There was one thrilling, if short, moment. At one point, maybe half an hour before the inauguration began, people began standing up on their chairs down in the press section. The reporters all turned backward to gaze out at the thronged Mall and started to pull out cameras. I stood up on my seat, too, and felt suddenly moved: Here was the supposedly cynical press corps, turning en masse to face the American people and revere the awesome sight of millions gathered in the chill to see the first black man become president.
Then I realized everybody was taking a photo of Jay-Z.
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Could Michelle Obama have better color sense? Like Dana, I am loving her apolitically chartreuse outfit. (Although there is some fussiness in the scarf's interface with the ribbon that ties the coat closed, and I don't love the white lining that peeks out when she walks. Why not a lemon-lime lining, too?) But my favorite touches are her yellowish leaf-green gloves (from J. Crew, apparently) and ocean-hued blue-green pumps. I love the intensity of the colors, and the way they artfully clash. Down with matchy-matchiness. Long live Michelle!
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Julia and Dana, though Michelle Obama looked bold and resplendent in her pale yellow chartreuse Isabel Toledo frock and matching coat, I think we can all agree that Aretha Franklin stole the sartorial show with her enormous bedazzled bow-bedecked hat. Though the signature chapeau might not work on most Washington women, the Queen of Soul really owned it. Or maybe I'm wrong, and Aretha's hat will be the D.C. accessory of the season, inspiring head coverings of Kentucky Derby proportions. Either way: Aretha for the win.
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In the absence of any "ask not what your country can do for you"-grade catchphrase from Obama's speech (though I did love that flight of rhetoric at the end comparing our nation's current moment to winter in Valley Forge), can I free-associate about Michelle's dress and coat (which, as Julia points out, come from edgy Cuban-American designer Isabel Toledo)? What was most remarkable about her outfit was how unpolitically coded it seemed. It didn't quote any former first lady (no Reagan red, no Jackie Kennedy pillbox or cinched waist, no Democratic blue or bringing-it-together purple). The color was utterly weird and daring, a chartreuse-y yellow which, while it looked great with her coloring and the forest-green gloves she had on, seemed to carry no intrinsic message besides "I look awesome in this." Newsday would have it that, since Elizabethan times, yellow has symbolized hope, but this was no sunshine-y, baby-duck, Easter-morning yellow—it had an almost unsettling greenish cast, like absinthe, which set it apart from the wholesome primary colors seen on the other women on the podium (poet Elizabeth Alexander's red suit, Hillary's blue coat). To me, that dress was a reassuring message for those (including some of us here) who've feared that Michelle will have to disappear into bland First Ladydom.
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I had a bad feeling when I saw Chief Justice John Roberts was not reading the oath but was going to show off that he had memorized it—it's like the waiter who won't write down your order, then brings you steak instead of duck. The chief justice misplaced his faithfully, and you could see Obama looking at him wondering whether he should correct the oath or repeat the mistake. Well, it doesn't matter. As CNN helpfully pointed out, even though the inaugural was running late, Obama became president at noon anyway, oath or no oath. I have the feeling that for the rest of his life Roberts will awake from a recurring nightmare in which he says, "Repeat after me: I, Saddam Hussein Obama do solemnly ..."
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Sound the trumpets. Not for Obama's inauguration. Even better. The Bachelor is featuring its first ever "single dad" this season. Or so everyone says. "Single Dad a First for The Bachelor," reads a headline in the Chicago Tribune. His bio on the show's site calls him "a handsome single dad—the first in the series' history." And in a post on Glamour's Web site called "The Bachelor: Enter the (HOT) Single Dad," Christina Coppa raves about the "single, smingle dad": "Did you catch the sunset silhouette of Jason with his little son on his shoulders? Stop. Movie moment!"
Yes, Jason Mesnick is cute (if you go for that clean-cut, cheesily symmetrical look). Yes, he's single—a status he is trying to change by the tried-and-true method of surrounding himself with a bunch of cameras, 25 ridiculously attractive women, and detailed rules about when and how he can spend time with them all. And yes, he's a dad to 3-year-old Ty. But is he really the single dad everyone's holding him up to be? To me (and the male friend who alerted me to this strangely applied label) "single dad" means a dad doing it on his own. A widower, most likely, like the bumbling Dan Aykroyd character in My Girl, or maybe someone abandoned by his wife, like the sweetly depressed couch-bound father in Pretty in Pink. But not a divorced guy splitting parenting "50-50" (although obviously less at times ... like when he's starring in reality-TV shows) with his son's mom.
It's bad enough on the macro level that a hot guy with a kid gets extra strokes for being all sensitive and adorable while a hot woman with a kid is viewed as having baggage. Even child-loving Jason seems to think so: He kicked off two of the four single moms in the first episode! But it's even more appalling on the micro level to picture Ty's mom having to sit at home and watch everyone oooh and ahhh at the commitment of this so-called single dad as Ty plays at her feet. I hope she gets herself some airtime over this, to assert the fact that yes, she is still very much in the picture and involved in raising her son. If Jason is as close to her as he says he is and their approach to Ty's upbringing so collaborative, maybe the ex-wife should get to come on the show, Slade-style, and have a say in which of these ladies gets to join the family.
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Did anyone else catch the incredibly sour looks on their faces as they walked past CNN's cameras? They do think it should be her day. But I'm with you, Eve. What an incredible day. I wish my father were alive to see an African-American being sworn in as president. He wasn't in love with Obama—and he died before the Florida primary last year, although I am quite sure he would have voted for Hillary and might even have voted for McCain in the general election, because he so admired his military service—but he would be so proud to see this today.
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Emily Bazelon is out braving the cold on this inauguration day, and she sent us this photo capturing the calm before the crowds. Photo by Rachel Gross.
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Women's Wear Daily just reported that Michelle Obama will wear Isabel Toledo to Obama's swearing-in this morning. Add Toledo to the list of "Surprisingly Avant Garde Designers Our First Lady Likes." When she took over as creative director of troubled sportswear label Anne Klein a few years ago—an appointment that proved short-lived—Slate fashion critic Josh Patner noted that her work "often had a whisper of kinky seduction grounded in fine technique. Her jersey dresses twisted like serpents around the body. Silk skirts were hitched up at the hips with tiny metal loops; slashes in jersey dresses revealed the less obvious, and therefore more erotic, zones of the clavicle or rib cage." Sounds chilly for a day like today!
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In the past couple of days, walking around the carnival that's U Street in Washington and gaping at the throngs lined up at Busboys and Poets -- which looks likely to become the Obama era's Smith Point and Cafe Milano rolled into one -- I've speculated with a few people about how different a John McCain inaugural would have been.
But you have to wonder what a Hillary inaugural would have looked like, too. A little more than a year ago, that's what we looked bound to have, right? The answer, I'd imagine, is a similar type of thing, with fewer kitsch tables set up outside Ben's Chili Bowl, and a little more Rob Reiner and less Tom Hanks. I suspect a good part of this excitement would have appended itself to any admirable Democrat about to sweep George W. Bush out of office.
Some of Hillary's ardent supporters here still feel wistful about what could have been. In the Washington Hilton on Sunday, I ran into Rep. Maxine Waters, the irrepressible Hillary-booster from L.A., waiting for her huge coat after an EMILY's List lunch. Hillary had just spoken to the EMILY's List women, briefly reminiscing about the "18 million cracks" she made in the glass ceiling and going on to explain how a Secretary of State might be able to improve the lot of women around the world. I asked what Waters thought of Hillary's speech, and Waters gave me a sad smile. "I'm glad she landed on her feet," she shrugged. "So I'm happy for her. But I'm sad for her, too." The city's sense of feeling sad for Hillary was amplified yesterday, of course, when it was reported that Jill Biden had blithely told Oprah that her hubby Joe had been given a choice between the vice-presidential post or Hillary's Secretary of State gig. Politico's Ben Smith wrote that the anecdote "has to make Hillary just slightly insecure about the power of her own job relative to his."
Boo hoo. It's inauguration day. Can we, today, finally put a moratorium on feeling sorry for Hillary Clinton? For ages now, pity has been the dominant emotion associated with Hillary: Pity that her husband embarrassed her, pity that the media mis-covered her, pity that she didn't get the nomination for prez, pity that Obama supposedly never vetted her for veep, pity about her insecurity vis-a-vis Biden, etc. The pity actually diminishes Hillary, because it makes her look fragile, like she can't handle the slightest public diss of the kind that happens to all politicians, eventually. Geez, who even cares if Biden was offered the choice? Maybe Hillary was offered a different choice. I don't feel remotely sorry for her today. She landed in a fascinating, influential role she only would have gotten if Team Obama respected her, and I can't wait to see how she transforms it.