IN PITTSBURGH WATCHING THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS IN THE SUPER BOWL
I'm trying to finish my posts about the Inaugural, but the Super Bowl is on, and our Steelers are in it. Hard to concentrate. Somehow, the Inaugural is receding into the mists of time... already it seems so five minutes ago... Groundhog day is upon us... then Valentine's Day... then St. Patrick's...
Oh, never mind.
My daughters are sacked out on the sofa in our second floor family room, stubbornly refusing to explain to me what is going on. It's 10-7, but, I wonder aloud, vaguely, is the momentum with the Cardinals? ... How would I know?
Leslie and Annie will also not cooperate with my attempts at picture taking.
The Cardinals just received a 5 yard penalty but I'm still not sure what it all means. My husband is at the Post-Gazette, having volunteered to work that evening... do you think it was to get away from my questions? I'm not sure why. Indeed, there is so very, very much I am not sure of in this world... But one thing I DO know is that Maira Kalman's piece in the NY Times about the Inaugural was far more artistic than anything I would ever post. You can look at it
here.
Anyway, let's make a long story short: On Monday, Jan. 19th, I went down to 14th and U to meet Bob Witeck, a K Street lobbyist for GLBT causes... he's extremely nice and very plugged in. He told me he was going to the Huffington Post Ball that night. We had lunch at a Thai restaurant, then walked down the street to Ben's Chili Bowl, which Obama had visited a few days earlier. Here's a picture of him emerging from the eatery, having just ordered and consumed a chili "half-smoke."
By the time Bob and I got there, it was bedlam. Long lines of people outside, snaking back into the alley, patiently waiting for a chance to visit what had become something of a shrine. Here are not-great photo from my BlackBerry of the lines heading back into the alley behind Ben's Chili Bowl:
And here are some folks in the street in front of Ben's. The police had parked in front and were politely asking people to get on the sidewalk.
Oh. Back to the Super Bowl. James Harrison just ran down the field and nearly broke his neck making a touchdown for the Steelers. The longest play in Super Bowl history. At least I think he made a touchdown. They're
reviewing it.
John Madden just said James Harrison ran like James Brown. Bob Costas says it's one of the biggest turnarounds in Super Bowl history.
They're already calling it the Immaculate Interception.
Okay. Back to the Inaugural. It's a good thing that I was down at 14th and U that day... I hadn't planned on doing much reporting, trying to save my energies for the next day down on the National Mall. But at 5 pm, while I was preparing to move from my dad's apartment to Georgetown to camp out overnight at a Washington Post editor's apartment -- within walking distance of the Mall -- I got a call from the PG: Seems that the editor had decided we needed an Inaugural "set up" piece for the next day's paper.
He decided that at 5 pm, and they needed me to write it.
I was furious. Ready to quit. They'd had ALL DAY to figure this out.
After having a few nervous breakdowns, and cussing in front of my father, who was driving me to Georgetown ("I don't mind, I understand," he said. What a great guy.) I let myself in to my friend's apartment, hooked up my laptop and started writing. I had only a few hours to do it, and had to interrupt my work with a trip back to my father's apartment to pick up a credential I'd left behind. My sister Camilla came to pick me up. There she is, on the left, in this photo taken about ten years ago, since I don't have anything more recent... our stepsister Carolyn is on the right.
Camilla was a calming influence... Broadway show tunes were blaring on her XM satellite car radio, and when Edie Adams came on, as Eileen, to sing "I'm a Little Bit in Love," from the musical "Wonderful Town"
-- the VERY SONG I HAD SUNG when I played Eileen in the Princeton Day School musical -- I knew it was a good omen. Especially with my sister Camilla (THE musical comedy queen in Princeton's Triangle Club, ca. 1977-78) right there!
Anyway, I wrote the Inaugural setup story. It's perfectly fine, but it could have been better. I died a thousand deaths while writing it, though. You can read it
here.TUESDAY, Jan. 20.
I got up early and headed towards DuPont Circle, my old stomping grounds.
I used to live on O Street, between 21st and 22nd. Memories came at me from every corner... the Rathskeller... Second Story Books... the CVS (in my day known as People's Drug Store).
I got on the DuPont Circle Metro. The trains were crowded but not unmanageable. When I emerged from Metro Center onto the streets of downtown Washington (near 11th and G?) I was greeted with an extraordinary sight: wide boulevards thronged with people, not cars, moving inexorably towards the mall, only to be rerouted around whole city blocks, past vendors hawking organic food and cappucino... a carnival atmosphere... two million people, most of whom seemed to be in some kind of state of euphoria. At some point, when I can figure it out, I will post videos that I shot with the Flip camera the newspaper gave me that document that extraordinary scene. But I haven't figured quite how to do that yet.
I think it's time to stop now and watch the end of the Super Bowl. To be continued...
Actually, we were kind of stuck in the office for the most of the day. It was like being lodged deep in the internal gears of some huge vast machine that was grinding away... and you could HEAR the grinding... BOM BOM boom BOM BOM boom WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU...
I think this is a picture of Bruce Springsteen from the Super Bowl. That massive, leonine head...
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