I was sitting in a restaurant today across a table from my former manager. At a particular lull in the conversation and menu perusal we both allowed our gazes to drift up to the television hanging over the adjacent bar. Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, was giving a press conference of some sort. His halo seemed to have dimmed the slightest bit since the inauguration; his hair appeared to have been given the slightest bit of darkening. But his jaw was set with a new rigidity. He had a suppleness about him. He didn't just look presidential. He looked thoroughly consequential.

Early last year I fled New York and ended up staying with my father and his wife for a few months in Nashville. One of my favorite activities to share with my father during this time was the afternoon viewing of various political punditry available on digital cable. We would surf between the favorites, talk back to the television, argue and agree while consuming questionable quantities of Blue Bell ice cream. The election was swinging into high gear and there was plenty of steamy, fabricated discourse to digest.

Having not watched a lot of news programming in the years leading up to this, I would find myself occasionally hypnotized by the complexity of the swirling banners and embedded messages that constantly introduced the programs and surrounded the main frame of their broadcasts. When I was a child, my mother used to tell me that there were Satanic and otherwise hedonistic messages recorded backwards on the vinyl albums of rock bands. This was 25 years ago. The possibilities for subliminal mind control in this network cable swirl of pageantry made Led Zeppelin seem like the TeleTubbies.

Well, that was a heady time. Now, I have my own apartment again, but I do not own a television. So I was particularly struck today by the solemnity that seemed to surround President Obama's remarks. Even more, I was knocked out by the soundbyte primers that underlined his muted speech: "OBAMA TO SAVE ECONOMY AND ENVIRONMENT" is one that comes to mind.