1.20.2025

AMERICA THE INCONSOLABLE

Photo: Bruce Tang

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The nation’s in disorder
There’s chaos in my heart
—Marc Almond

It took me some time
but I feel
like a grandmother
to half the wailing republic.

There, there.

Look at this—
the back of my hand.

Ridges, troughs.
Rivers running blue.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Another birthday, and every four years another presidential inauguration. My own version of having been born on Leap Day.

I was five hours and thirty-seven minutes old at noon on January 20, 1949, when Harry S. Truman took the oath of office for his first and only full term. Then came Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the First, Clinton, Bush the Second, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump. Seen it all, survived it all, hope to carry on.

So.

Who of note is attending the inauguration? Who will show up for the swearing-in but skip the inaugural luncheon? Who’s blowing the whole thing off in a high-dudgeon hissy fit? The drama!

My wife tells me that people are saying it’s like a new season of The Real Housewives. She won’t watch the inauguration—wants no part of it.

But the backstabbing, the shade-throwing, the cutting-dead at Jimmy Carter’s funeral! And that was just the pilot. For me, a lifelong Proustian, today’s episode is must-see TV. Your mileage may vary.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I am pleased to share a birthday with the lately late and forever superlative David Lynch (1946–2025), who would have turned seventy-nine today. This afternoon, wherever you are at 12:00 Pacific standard time, you can join in a ten-minute worldwide meditation to honor his memory and legacy.

Photo: Michael Tran