inauguration

Of course, my favorite part was that Traveler (yes, I wish he didn't have that name) was present!  I just about resisted the temptation to have my photo taken with him.  I don't know if he led the platform party up to the stage: all faculty (and staff! and students! and school kids!) were kept round the corner in the sun for a while to roast, especially if their ceremonial robes are from Oxford and made of wool.

But in the end we all processed, and listened to many welcome statements, and to a good speech by Eric Garcetti (whose grandfather used to be the barber for many USC faculty), and a surprisingly honest one by the Chair of the Trustees, Rick Caruso, saying that this was about the future, and about Redemption, and that USC had gone astray, and lost sight of its values (etc).  Indeed, if one knew anything about the context (and most people, of course, did), it was seriously critical of Nikias.

Then Carol Folt was chained, or whatever the phrase is, and all the white doves were released - like they are at Commencement - only one stayed behind, over her head, listening, or taking care of her, till she'd finished -. and indeed, she did make me non-cynically proud of our new leader: she spoke about the value of immigrants and DACA, and community, and sustainability ... And Leonard Bernstein's "My Home" was sung somewhere in the middle.

And then we all went off to eat our sustainable, compostable lunches - it was excellent to have the company of my new colleague Lisa, and her husband Jim - not least because among many other things, Lisa is an expert in Early Modern Venetian pageantry, and kept comparing it (fairly favorably, since we didn't fight) with pageants there some 500 years ago.