Joe Biden’s dream trip

 The  president-elect of the United States is not very talkative about his cultural preferences. Over the years and through interviews, Joe Biden has still left some clues. Here is an artistic journey that we have tailor-made for him.

Charles-Éric Blais-Poulin
Press

A representation of Hamilton

Joe Biden has a special relationship with Broadway, where he and his wife put down luggage year after year.

 The  president-elect has an even more singular link with production Hamilton : An American Musical, composed and written by rapper and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda.

 The  play, built around Alexander Hamilton, one of the architects of the United States Constitution, stars black, Asian and Latino actors as the Founding Fathers, in addition to incorporating many elements of the hip-hop culture. An ode to American history, reconciliation and diversity. Spurred on by a rave review from its president, Barack Obama, Joe Biden attended a preview of the show and met its artisans in July 2015. This visit paid off: last October, the original cast of the musical organized a virtual fundraising campaign for the Democratic candidate.

Musical also in his list: To Kill a Mockingbird

A concert by

 The  Chieftains

In 2012, in an interview with the magazine People, Joe Biden has appointed his favorite group:

 The  Chieftains, legendary Irish fellows active since… 1962. Nine years later, the President-elect’s love for the Celtic tunes of the Dublin band remains intact. So much so that Joe Biden had invited Paddy Moloney’s instrumental troupe to perform at his inauguration ceremony on January 20 in Washington, but the pandemic upset his plans. In 2016, during a visit to the Emerald Isle, the former vice-president did not fail to stop at the pub of Matt Molloy, flautist of

 The  Chieftains. Joe Biden proudly claims his Irish roots, particularly strong in County Louth and Ballina, a twin port city of Scranton, Pa., Where the 46^e President of the United States came into being.

Musical artists also in his list: Bruce Springsteen, Adele, Sam Smith, Coldplay,

 The  Beatles

Listen to a playlist created by Joe and Jill Biden in 2016

A poetry evening with Seamus Heaney

What is Joe Biden’s favorite novel? No media has yet managed to pull the worms out of him. However, in the “poetry” section, these are the lines of the late Seamus Heaney – also Irish! – that he prefers to read and recite. “

 The  story says, don’t hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime, the long-awaited tidal wave of justice may arise, and hope and history rhyme [traduction libre] ”, Declared Joe Biden in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, last August.

 The se words were gleaned from

 The  Cure at Troy, adaptation of the room Philoctète, by Sophocles. Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize for Literature from Derry, Northern Ireland, has written some twenty collections in which the violence of conflicts and the bucolic softness of the landscapes intertwine. Some illuminated passages of hope and solidarity seem written to measure for a leader who wants to be sensitive and unifying.

Listen to Joe Biden recite from Seamus Heaney (in English)

A viewing of Chariots of Fire

We have to go back to 2008 to hear Joe Biden, then Barack Obama’s running mate, clearly state his top 1 cinematographic, on CBS.

 The  chosen ? Chariots of Fire, British feature film by Hugh Hudson released in 1981. Inspired by real life experiences, the story is that of two British athletes, one Jewish, the other a fervent Protestant, who compete in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. Joe Biden salutes the self-sacrifice of the more or less reinvented character of Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), who sacrifices sports competitions held on Sundays on the altar of his religious convictions. Here is “someone who puts his principles before his fame and his glory”, “the mark of a true heroism”, enthuses the former senator of Delaware. Joe Biden was then in the shadow of the future 44^e President of the United States.

Film also in his list:

 The  King’s Speech, the Tom Hooper (2010)

A comic break with Hagar the Horrible

This is a snapshot from Joe Biden’s official photographer who has put the ear – or rather the eye – of comics fans. A comic Hagar the Horrible appears in a frame behind the president-elect’s computer as he announces to Kamala Harris that she will be running for vice-president. Only two boxes: in the first, Dik Browne’s Viking, stranded on a rock in the middle of a storm asks: “Why me? “In the second, Heaven replies:” Why not? In an interview with PBS, Joe Biden said that this excerpt from comic strip echoes a letter written by Joe Kennedy after his son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., was killed in war. In the missive, the bereaved father asks himself metaphysical questions: “Why me? Why did this happen? What is the meaning of life ? “Joe Biden, who lost his eldest son, Beau, remembers that” there is hope and a use [à la vie] when you devote yourself to something that really matters, that matters to you and to the loved one you have lost ”.

 The  boxes of Hagar the Horrible, prominently displayed on his desk, are there to remind him.

A vernissage of Hunter Biden

Joe Biden is not considered an esthete, but his unconditional “pride” in his son Hunter could take him to a New York art gallery in the coming months.

 The  enfant terrible of the family, a former drug addict entangled in financial and political scandals, has found refuge in creation. “Painting literally keeps me sane,” Hunter Biden told the New York Times. According to

 The  New York Post – founded by a certain Alexander Hamilton – the youngest of the Biden clan would even have signed with the Georges Bergès Gallery, where his first solo exhibition would be presented in 2021. If the critics are stunned in the face of a “generic illustration of post-zombie formalism” , the artist’s father gives his blessing. “I am proud of my son,” he commented laconically.