Must read: Colbert article in NYTimes

We don’t get Comedy Central and I don’t have time to watch it online anymore, but I’ve always thought that what Stephen Colbert does on The Colbert Report is absolute genius. 

In Charleston, we lived across from the medical building named after his father, so I walked over to hear him give the graduating class their commencement address a couple of years ago. Hilarious (as always) and also poignant.

So I was glad to read this great New York Times Magazine article about him. It’s good to see that he still has it. His latest shenanigans with the Super PAC that he created and his 501(c)(4) are absolutely perfect - that sweet spot of hilarious AND eye-opening.

If you’re one of the uninitiated or just never “got” what Colbert was about, I recommend reading the article. It tells what he’s been up to recently, but is also revealing about his past and the kind of guy he is. Oh, and it shows how what he does is so genius.

How Many Stephen Colberts Are There?

Nerd moment:I was finishing reading the article in class while my students were working. The next-to-last paragraph has an allusion to Walter Mitty, from the short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” which we had just read the day before.

So I could ask them what it meant that because Colbert is the producer of the show, it means he gets to play Walter Mitty each night. They got it!

Then I could explain that an allusion is like an inside joke and that no one likes to be left out of an inside joke, so that’s one reason why it’s cool to read and know Shakespeare, the Bible, and all those literary works that get alluded to so often.

I love it when things come together like that.