The Daily Background

On Thursday as I was walking from work to the subway here in Chicago, I noticed on the CBS2 jumbotron in Daley Plaza that President Obama was at the Chicago Cultural Center. That’s only a block or two past the L station I was heading to, so I just kept going to see what was going on there.

Sure enough, there was a bit of a crowd waiting to catch a glimpse of him. After waiting several minutes two guys wearing white uniforms that I didn’t recognize started waving people down with handheld metal detectors and motioning them through the barricade. I asked a cop what where those people were going and she told me “They’re going through there to see the president of the United States.”

“Well, I suppose I can wait in line for that,” I replied, laughing. So after the security guys looked in my backpack I went into this cordoned off area across the street from the Cultural Center. After another several minutes (okay, more like an hour), Obama came out and waved at the crowd of a few hundred that had assembled for about 30 seconds. Cool. I’ve attached a really low quality video I made with my iPhone. Here are a few photos as well.

This was the fourth time I’ve seen Obama in person, not counting election night in Chicago at the party (since I only saw him on the jumbotron that time). The first two times had been at campaign events in New Hampshire (see my posts with photos here and here– the second one of those has some great closer up photos), and the third time was right after his first press conference as president-elect walking out of the back of the Chicago Hilton.

I noticed two things that I didn’t notice when seeing him before. The first was a guy whose arm was handcuffed to his briefcase– presumably he was the nuclear football carrier (the person who accompanies the president everywhere he or she goes carrying the nuclear launch codes should they be necessary).

The second thing I noticed this time was a cultural observation: everyone had a camera or camera phone. I have difficulty believing that anyone really left home to go there on purpose trying to see him. Instead, everybody was probably just a passerby who saw the police barricades and was curious what was going on. It struck me that these days wherever you go somebody probably has the ability to take a picture of something they think is extraordinary. I find this especially neat from my perspective rooted in documentary film.

Sure enough, after a quick Flickr search, I was able to find some more photos that people had posted from the spur of the moment sighting…

Photo by Flickr user Mark 2400.

Photo by Flickr user ozmodiar.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog