And so it begins (day 168)

Well that was that.   I joined the millions (?) who streamed the opening ceremonies.  I wasn't going to.  There was an event at the Candahar Bar that I wanted to go to but my exhausted self won the argument and voted for a retreat homeward.  Once home, the pull of the stream was irresistible.  I had heard from Rob who attended the dress rehearsal for the ceremonies that it was amazing and I was curious.  The best part of streaming were the simultaneous tweets coming in from others who were watching.  Now I understand the push for TVs to have twitter feeds as a feature.  Especially because the ceremonies were something I could watch while doing other things and twitters were a reminder that something interesting might be happening.

I enjoyed parts of the ceremony like the athlete entrance, the fiddle players and tap dancers, spoken word by Shane Koyczan, and k.d. lang.  I know this will sound a bit strange but I thought there was way too much use of projections and lights.  If there was any controversy about the power used for Vectorial Elevation, it should now have found another target.  The stream ended abruptly before the cauldron arrived on the scene so I actually have no idea what the malfunction was all about and how it all ended.  Who knew the word cauldron would become so searchable on Twitter.

One of the odd things about television is how they have to keep moving.  Even during the minute of silence for the Georgian Luge athlete who died, they just kept on showing images every few seconds.  It was a very unfortunate choice.  Shouldn't the images have observed a moment of silence too?  And after the minute of silence, there was no closure.  No 'thank you'.  No 'you may sit down'.  Just a continuation of the show.   Sometimes I think we add these moments of silence without actually understanding what they're for.

I was very happy to see all the athletes march in.  They seemed so happy.  I was happy for them.  I felt my mood lift.   I didn't get national pride.  I just put out a wish that one day we'll do this without an overhang of inequality and war.

A song for this post.