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New Yorker Festival: Stephen Colbert is a Special Guy
Filed under: New Yorker Festival Tagged: Ariel Levy, Del Close, Stephen Colbert
The Colbert event on Saturday night was likely to be the high point of the Festival, and certainly nothing that happened in the NYC Cathedral contradicts that. It was pretty great. Colbert and Jon Stewart hold a special place in urbane consciousness right now, and I hope they are able to maintain that status in an Obama presidency (knock wood). Colbert's chops as an entertainer and as a kind of public moral authority (albeit skewed) are tough to beat right now. The love flowing from the audience in that room was considerable.
Looking at my notes, there is hardly anything that isn't covered in Rachel Sklar's exemplary and exhaustive account at The Huffington Post so I'm going to link you to that! I concur on all particulars.
I have only one additional point to make about Colbert, and it's a rather esoteric one. Seeing him in person drives home the extent to which Colbert is not only a product of the Chicago improvisational method but quite possibly its apotheosis as well. If you've spent any time at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater and witnessed the improvisational concepts of "raising the stakes," "finding the game of the scene," and "promoting a yes-and ethic," just about everything Colbert says—whether in character or out of it—will seem familiar and vital, in the very best sense.
I'm not an expert on improv, merely a consumer of it, but I venture that that's part of the reason why he can conduct interviews so well in character, he's just the best improviser out there, and he's raised the stakes in the best possible way (by getting a TV show, interviewing important people, running for president etc.).
Somewhere Del Close is smiling.
Stephen Colbert, Ariel Levy
Stephen Colbert
(photo credit: Alex Oliveira/startraksphoto.com)
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Emdashes, founded in 2004, is currently written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. (Unsigned posts through October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.)
The site is designed and maintained by House of Pretty and illustrated by Jesse Ewing for Inkleaf Studio. Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (who also draws our daily comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The kissable Emdashes logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World; PDF, p. 20)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, man about town, and New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Report: Learning to read with comic books--that are edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Proposal: a better-designed Metrocard (for A Brief Message)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Micro-essay: on saving time through inspiration (for A Brief Message)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
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Comments
It's uncanny to see that illustration of Emily and read Martin.
But wouldn't it be uncanny in a good way to see just the hand holding the badge for Festival posts? And read Martin.
Would that we had the budget for new illustrations! It's true, though. For next year, we can shake our tin cups in the street and gather a few coins for just such a project.
Didn't know you were into improv, Del Close's teachings, etc. Very cool.
It should come as little surprise that Colbert was one of Del's students at The Second City in Chicago.