My inauguration highlights.

We got to the mall late—around 10.30—and parked ourselves by the big screen by the Lincoln Memorial. It was cold and crisp and everyone was huddled inside parkas pluming out steam and rubbing their hands together.

George Bush appeared and sat down. Crowd booed, except for a skinny white chick in a mall jacket standing next to me. She tightened her lips.

Obama appeared and sat down. Lots of cheering. Fifty-something black lady behind me in a fur coat started to cry and say “Jesus. Thank you. Jesus.” over and over.

Rick Warren, token Whiskey Tango god freak, praised Jesus and blabbled listlessly for a while. Probably called for the sodomites to be burned and the harlots to be strung up. I don’t know. Crowd was quiet. Mall Jacket Amened him.

Aretha Franklin sang pretty well for a morbidly obese old lady. Clearly she has had her day though. Crowd responded nevertheless.

Some kind of incomprehensible music that only Yo Yo Ma seemed to enjoy.

Obama. The big moment. The oath got mangled but nobody cared. Speech generally received with tears from the old black ladies, clapping and some cheers from the rest of the crowd. Anytime he mentioned smacking down the enemies of lifestyle and liberty, rapturous applause. Puzzled silence at the mention of Muslims though, and only spattered applause for some of the complicated stuff about working with allies and blah blah.

Joseph Lowery. Most everyone was headed out by the time he hit the stage, and there wasn’t much response till he got to beating tanks into tractors, and it seems the oddity of the phrase that caught the crowd rather than anything else. Everybody getting their own vine, however, got them going, and they swung with him into the day when the black man won’t be asked to give back and the yellow will be mellow. “…the red man can get ahead, man” got a laugh (not sure whether the irony there was intentional), and the white man doing right gets a huge chorus of Amens from some whiteys in spandex on bikes who have paused in the course of their exodus from the mall to hear the man out.

Bought an Obama toque on my way out.