Disco Inferno

One of my favorite little bits of information that has come from reading the extended accounts of the post-election was this from Newsweek:

During one of the debate preps, the lights blew, flickering on and off like a strobe light from the 1970s disco craze. Obama stood behind the podium, quietly singing the song "Disco Inferno," last popular in the heyday of "Saturday Night Fever."

It's more than likely Barack Obama was humming, "Burn, Baby, Burn," the famous chorus from that song, itself a reshaping of the term used during the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, itself stolen from the famous radio call by Magnificent Montague.

So we have an African-American candidate who is making a joke about disco, humming a song that itself has refigured a term twice from its original context in both political and popular culture terms. Perhaps in some deeper context, Barack Obama knew this relationship himself, but regardless it seems a remarkable journey for a phrase--from disc jockey to a future president humming it in a context that at once showed how long a cultural distance the country has traveled and how odd the twists of popular culture are.

--J.S.

Obama and the Blackberry

I don't have a Blackberry or an iPhone, but I suspect it won't be long until I get one; I had a phone where I could check the Internet abroad and loved it.

As you may have been reading in the last few weeks, Barack Obama has had to face the possibility that he may have to give up his beloved Blackberry, one of the ways the presidency is going to change his life.

Owning a Blackberry is hardly remarkable, and it would have probably been more surprising if Barack Obama--junior senator, law professor, and avid reader--did not have one. Nonetheless, it says something that our president-elect has one and does not want to give it up. 

*He's busy, someone who doesn't want to wait to read emails, and perhaps important, because he needs to read his emails.

*Obviously he has a facility with technology, a symbol of person engaged with the current in American culture.

*And to build on that, he's independent--he wants to read his own emails, despite being a senator and a presidential candidate, rather than have someone read for him. 

*The articles do focus on the way losing direct access to his friends will further tend to isolate him. But having a Blackberry also has its own intrinsic technological pleasures--I suspect that friendship is only part of the reason he wants to give up his Blackberry.  Knowing what is happening with the world, on your own terms, with your own effort (by clicking and scrolling) is one of the joys of the Web. Of course, being president allows a certain amount of control too....

--J.S.

The Victory Plate!

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http://victoryplate.com

SemiObama wants to know if any of its readers have bought the plate.

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Chicago photos

Recently I was in Chicago and thought it was an appropriate time to take some photographs in Barack Obama's home town. Not unexpectedly, the level of Obamawear was very high, but there were also some interesting contexts and juxtaposition.

Sorry about the blurriness here--I was working with a disposable camera. This is a magnet of a bag of grocieries, saying "Put Food Back on the The Table: Vote Obama 2008," a clear nod to the economic crisis.
As you can probably tell, this was taken on Michigan Avenue. We see Chicago-nalia,  shirts, mixed with an Obama shirt. 
This is from the Tribune building, current owners of the Cubs. We can see balance between McCain and Obama here, mixed with the Cubs.

There is supposed balance here, but we can see three Obama shirts compared to one McCain.
A Hebrew sign with a more typical sign.

Here is an Obama shirt within a Chicago context--a Bears shirt and an Al Capone one.
In this particular Walgreens in Hyde Park, a variety of merchandise was on sale.
I'm sure this shirt exists somewhere else outside Chicago, but it adds to the diversity of Obama wear available.

A number of books, including the widely panned Jerome Corsi book, were available at the airport bookstore...

...as was another Obama shirt next to a Cubs division championship shirt. Obama had better luck in his playoff than the Cubs...

---J.S.

Obama Ape

The Obama Ape image at this funky celebrity-as-ape site is almost as interesting as the thread of comments about it.

Racist or comic?

You decide.

(We vote racist. No matter how many other images there are of celebrities on the site, the history behind the image is immutable.)

The front page

Since we began here at SemiObama, we have spent a lot of time discussing the covers of newspapers and magazines, despite the fact that newspapers and magazines are losing their grip on American journalism.

As much as we love blogs and watch television, there is still something different about newspapers and magazines that make them crucial when an historical moment happens. We know this, and sales of The New York Times and Washington Post, days after the Obama election, or the cumulative effect of something like this, show how strong an effect the tangible has on us. 

In the case of a long election that ended in history, the need for the tangible may be overwhelming. Television news was thrilling, reading the blogs surprisingly less so, but reading the newspapers and the commemorative magazines, though decried as cynical by some observers, gives people a sense that something real has happened.

--J.S.

More decoding

Actually this piece on the Obama cabinet is less openly interpretative than the previous one. But the word code is prominently displayed in the headline...