Watching today’s pre-Inauguration events (click here for NY Times video) tonight on TV, I kept thinking…don’t make it so good, hold some back for Tuesday’s Inauguration Speech! Obama’s poetic, historical drawing-together of the stone and marble memorials surrounding himself and today’s vast crowd with this living generation was as powerful and personally hopeful as it was succinct: 

Color Guard:

Performances included U2:

Shakira, Usher…and the great Stevie Wonder (who met MLK Jr. when he was 14):

Early this morning, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: