If you watched Arnold in True Lies when you were younger or Brad and Angelina in Mr. and Mrs. Smith more recently then you might’ve thought to you yourself, do these private spying agencies actually exist? If not, then why not? Here’s a great article I found in The New Yorker magazine about a real life entrepreneur of espionage. Her name: Rita Katz. An Iraqi Jew, whose father’s execution at the hands of Saddam Hussein’s regime in front of hundreds of thousands of people in the public square in Baghdad seems to have shaped her course in life. Now she works in an undisclosed northeastern U.S. city on the seventh floor of an old building with a sign outside the door for a nonexistent business. The CIA often goes to her for information and she sells her product to anyone who his will to pay. The article is well researched and the detail is great.
Click Here
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Monday, May 15, 2006
#45 Finkle is Einhorn
This could be the greatest case of life imitating art that I have ever seen. This article, at Sports Illustrated, sounds like it was taken straight from the movie Ace Ventura. You might say it fits the storyline like a glove. Now all we have to do is wait and see if he escapes from Shady Acres. Click the link below to see the article.
Click Here
Click Here
Thursday, May 11, 2006
#44 McLaren on Da Vinci
Here’s a solid article by Brian McLaren from Sojourners Magazine (Jim Wallis’ magazine). Whether you boycott, “othercott” (that is go see another movie the weekend The Da Vinci Code comes out), or watch to take note and bash it point by point, McLaren has pointed out a subtly positive effect that the movie could, and hopefully will, have. I didn’t know McLaren and Wallis’ knew or even worked so closely together. But that’s interesting.
Brian McLaren on The Da Vinci Code
An interview by Lisa Ann Cockrel
With The Da Vinci Code poised to go from bestseller list to the big screen on May 19, pastor and writer (and Sojourners board member) Brian McLaren talks about why he thinks there's truth in the controversial book's fiction.
What do you think the popularity of The Da Vinci Code reveals about pop culture attitudes toward Christianity and the church?
Brian McLaren: I think a lot of people have read the book, not just as a popular page-turner but also as an experience in shared frustration with status-quo, male-dominated, power-oriented, cover-up-prone organized Christian religion. We need to ask ourselves why the vision of Jesus hinted at in Dan Brown's book is more interesting, attractive, and intriguing to these people than the standard vision of Jesus they hear about in church. Why would so many people be disappointed to find that Brown's version of Jesus has been largely discredited as fanciful and inaccurate, leaving only the church's conventional version? Is it possible that, even though Brown's fictional version misleads in many ways, it at least serves to open up the possibility that the church's conventional version of Jesus may not do him justice?
So you think The Da Vinci Code taps into dissatisfaction with Jesus as we know him?
McLaren: For all the flaws of Brown's book, I think what he's doing is suggesting that the dominant religious institutions have created their own caricature of Jesus. And I think people have a sense that that's true. It's my honest feeling that anyone trying to share their faith in America today has to realize that the Religious Right has polluted the air. The name "Jesus" and the word "Christianity" are associated with something judgmental, hostile, hypocritical, angry, negative, defensive, anti-homosexual, etc. Many of our churches, even though they feel they represent the truth, actually are upholding something that's distorted and false.
I also think that the whole issue of male domination is huge and that Brown's suggestion that the real Jesus was not as misogynist or anti-woman as the Christian religion often has been is very attractive. Brown's book is about exposing hypocrisy and cover-up in organized religion, and it is exposing organized religion's grasping for power. Again, there's something in that that people resonate with in the age of pedophilia scandals, televangelists, and religious political alliances. As a follower of Jesus I resonate with their concerns as well.
Do you think the book contains any significantly detrimental distortions of the Christian faith?
McLaren: The book is fiction and it's filled with a lot of fiction about a lot of things that a lot of people have already debunked. But frankly, I don't think it has more harmful ideas in it than the Left Behind novels. And in a certain way, what the Left Behind novels do, the way they twist scripture toward a certain theological and political end, I think Brown is twisting scripture, just to other political ends. But at the end of the day, the difference is I don't think Brown really cares that much about theology. He just wanted to write a page-turner and he was very successful at that.
Many Christians are also reading this book and it's rocking their preconceived notions - or lack of preconceived notions - about Christ's life and the early years of the church. So many people don't know how we got the canon, for example. Should this book be a clarion call to the church to say, "Hey, we need to have a body of believers who are much more literate in church history." Is that something the church needs to be thinking about more strategically?
McLaren: Yes! You're exactly right. One of the problems is that the average Christian in the average church who listens to the average Christian broadcasting has such an oversimplified understanding of both the Bible and of church history - it would be deeply disturbing for them to really learn about church history. I think the disturbing would do them good. But a lot of times education is disturbing for people. And so if The Da Vinci Code causes people to ask questions and Christians have to dig deeper, that's a great thing, a great opportunity for growth. And it does show a weakness in the church giving either no understanding of church history or a very stilted, one-sided, sugarcoated version.
On the other hand, it's important for me to say I don't think anyone can learn good church history from Brown. There's been a lot of debunking of what he calls facts. But again, the guy's writing fiction so nobody should be surprised about that. The sad thing is there's an awful lot of us who claim to be telling objective truth and we actually have our own propaganda and our own versions of history as well.
Let me mention one other thing about Brown's book that I think is appealing to people. The church goes through a pendulum swing at times from overemphasizing the deity of Christ to overemphasizing the humanity of Christ. So a book like Brown's that overemphasizes the humanity of Christ can be a mirror to us saying that we might be underemphasizing the humanity of Christ.
In light of The Da Vinci Code movie that is soon to be released, how do you hope churches will engage this story?
McLaren: I would like to see churches teach their people how to have intelligent dialogue that doesn't degenerate into argument. We have to teach people that the Holy Spirit works in the middle of conversation. We see it time and time again - Jesus enters into dialogue with people; Paul and Peter and the apostles enter into dialogue with people. We tend to think that the Holy Spirit can only work in the middle of a monologue where we are doing the speaking.
So if our churches can encourage people to, if you see someone reading the book or you know someone who's gone to the movie, say, "What do you think about Jesus and what do you think about this or that," and to ask questions instead of getting into arguments, that would be wonderful. The more we can keep conversations open and going the more chances we give the Holy Spirit to work. But too often people want to get into an argument right away. And, you know, Jesus has handled 2,000 years of questions, skepticism, and attacks, and he's gonna come through just fine. So we don't have to be worried.
Ultimately, The Da Vinci Code is telling us important things about the image of Jesus that is being portrayed by the dominant Christian voices. [Readers] don't find that satisfactory, genuine, or authentic, so they're looking for something that seems more real and authentic.
Brian McLaren on The Da Vinci Code
An interview by Lisa Ann Cockrel
With The Da Vinci Code poised to go from bestseller list to the big screen on May 19, pastor and writer (and Sojourners board member) Brian McLaren talks about why he thinks there's truth in the controversial book's fiction.
What do you think the popularity of The Da Vinci Code reveals about pop culture attitudes toward Christianity and the church?
Brian McLaren: I think a lot of people have read the book, not just as a popular page-turner but also as an experience in shared frustration with status-quo, male-dominated, power-oriented, cover-up-prone organized Christian religion. We need to ask ourselves why the vision of Jesus hinted at in Dan Brown's book is more interesting, attractive, and intriguing to these people than the standard vision of Jesus they hear about in church. Why would so many people be disappointed to find that Brown's version of Jesus has been largely discredited as fanciful and inaccurate, leaving only the church's conventional version? Is it possible that, even though Brown's fictional version misleads in many ways, it at least serves to open up the possibility that the church's conventional version of Jesus may not do him justice?
So you think The Da Vinci Code taps into dissatisfaction with Jesus as we know him?
McLaren: For all the flaws of Brown's book, I think what he's doing is suggesting that the dominant religious institutions have created their own caricature of Jesus. And I think people have a sense that that's true. It's my honest feeling that anyone trying to share their faith in America today has to realize that the Religious Right has polluted the air. The name "Jesus" and the word "Christianity" are associated with something judgmental, hostile, hypocritical, angry, negative, defensive, anti-homosexual, etc. Many of our churches, even though they feel they represent the truth, actually are upholding something that's distorted and false.
I also think that the whole issue of male domination is huge and that Brown's suggestion that the real Jesus was not as misogynist or anti-woman as the Christian religion often has been is very attractive. Brown's book is about exposing hypocrisy and cover-up in organized religion, and it is exposing organized religion's grasping for power. Again, there's something in that that people resonate with in the age of pedophilia scandals, televangelists, and religious political alliances. As a follower of Jesus I resonate with their concerns as well.
Do you think the book contains any significantly detrimental distortions of the Christian faith?
McLaren: The book is fiction and it's filled with a lot of fiction about a lot of things that a lot of people have already debunked. But frankly, I don't think it has more harmful ideas in it than the Left Behind novels. And in a certain way, what the Left Behind novels do, the way they twist scripture toward a certain theological and political end, I think Brown is twisting scripture, just to other political ends. But at the end of the day, the difference is I don't think Brown really cares that much about theology. He just wanted to write a page-turner and he was very successful at that.
Many Christians are also reading this book and it's rocking their preconceived notions - or lack of preconceived notions - about Christ's life and the early years of the church. So many people don't know how we got the canon, for example. Should this book be a clarion call to the church to say, "Hey, we need to have a body of believers who are much more literate in church history." Is that something the church needs to be thinking about more strategically?
McLaren: Yes! You're exactly right. One of the problems is that the average Christian in the average church who listens to the average Christian broadcasting has such an oversimplified understanding of both the Bible and of church history - it would be deeply disturbing for them to really learn about church history. I think the disturbing would do them good. But a lot of times education is disturbing for people. And so if The Da Vinci Code causes people to ask questions and Christians have to dig deeper, that's a great thing, a great opportunity for growth. And it does show a weakness in the church giving either no understanding of church history or a very stilted, one-sided, sugarcoated version.
On the other hand, it's important for me to say I don't think anyone can learn good church history from Brown. There's been a lot of debunking of what he calls facts. But again, the guy's writing fiction so nobody should be surprised about that. The sad thing is there's an awful lot of us who claim to be telling objective truth and we actually have our own propaganda and our own versions of history as well.
Let me mention one other thing about Brown's book that I think is appealing to people. The church goes through a pendulum swing at times from overemphasizing the deity of Christ to overemphasizing the humanity of Christ. So a book like Brown's that overemphasizes the humanity of Christ can be a mirror to us saying that we might be underemphasizing the humanity of Christ.
In light of The Da Vinci Code movie that is soon to be released, how do you hope churches will engage this story?
McLaren: I would like to see churches teach their people how to have intelligent dialogue that doesn't degenerate into argument. We have to teach people that the Holy Spirit works in the middle of conversation. We see it time and time again - Jesus enters into dialogue with people; Paul and Peter and the apostles enter into dialogue with people. We tend to think that the Holy Spirit can only work in the middle of a monologue where we are doing the speaking.
So if our churches can encourage people to, if you see someone reading the book or you know someone who's gone to the movie, say, "What do you think about Jesus and what do you think about this or that," and to ask questions instead of getting into arguments, that would be wonderful. The more we can keep conversations open and going the more chances we give the Holy Spirit to work. But too often people want to get into an argument right away. And, you know, Jesus has handled 2,000 years of questions, skepticism, and attacks, and he's gonna come through just fine. So we don't have to be worried.
Ultimately, The Da Vinci Code is telling us important things about the image of Jesus that is being portrayed by the dominant Christian voices. [Readers] don't find that satisfactory, genuine, or authentic, so they're looking for something that seems more real and authentic.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
#43 Bonnaroo 2006
So of course, a couple of months ago, Rachel and I decided to spend our life savings on tickets to Bonnaroo. A valuable investment already considering the likes of Beck, Tom Petty, Radiohead, Ben Folds, and a great band I saw on Austin City Limits called Robert Randolph and the Family Band will be there and I can’t wait. So I’m scanning through the new artist additions last week and notice Infradig is going to be there. So that pretty much rules. I got to see them a couple of times in Chattanooga and am looking forward to the experience again in Manchester. Hey, anyone else that’s reading this going to Bonnaroo this year? Maybe we can get together, cause a ruckus, party like rock stars, throw down, etc.
Monday, May 08, 2006
#42 Review of Calvin's Institutes - First Half
Now that I’m exactly half-way through Calvin’s Institutes, I feel like it’s about time to review what I’ve come across so far. My original purpose in reading Institutes was part of a larger project to read the books that are widely considered to be the most important books in the history of Christianity. I decided I’d start with Calvin and work my way back through Luther, Aquinas, and Augustine. These are the men that have influenced hundreds to thousands of years worth of minds. What they have to say must be fantastic.
Spending a lot of time around the reformed part of the church, I know that Calvin is perhaps the most revered of all of these, though you could make perhaps a better argument for Augustine. What I also noticed in my time around the reformed church is that no one I knew, Calvinist or not, had actually ever read Calvin and rarely if ever quoted Calvin. In light of this experience and being a 24 year old, I found myself asking, “Is Calvin relevant to our generation?” I assumed that Calvin must’ve said some really, really insightful stuff that has to be relevant to all generations to be this revered to this day.
Now, while I thought Part II came closer, on occasion, to relevance, on the whole (considering I’ve only read half), I feel like Institutes was a major let down for three reasons.
#1 Calvin does not add any value to the ongoing theological conversation
Please, please, please provide any comments to the contrary. I would love to hear them. But from where I stand, I fail to see where Calvin brings anything to the table in terms of thorough research, wrestling with issues, and trying to discover the true meaning of the text. Maybe I’m spoiled in that I went from reading N.T. Wright’s COQG series to Institutes, but whereas I feel that Wright has actually advanced the conversation including doing the hard digging for evidence, I feel that Calvin has taken the easy way out and given us a meandering polemic full of speculation.
Most of the book is a rant against various heresies of the day but he rarely provides quality reasoning that makes any sense. I believe this is because the Bible doesn’t address all the issued that Calvin wants it to address. But that is, I think, the number one mistake of biblical interpretation: Forcing the Bible to address issues it was never meant to address.
In business they have the phrase “to add value.” A product goes from being manufactured to being in a warehouse to being sold in a retail store. The manufacturing plant and retail store are general considered to add value to the product. The warehouse is not. The manufacturing plant adds value by putting various zero-value parts together to make something of value, thus adding value to the parts. The retail store adds value to the product for the consumer by getting it to them in an efficient way. The warehouse is just a place where you store extra product while waiting for retail to request it. Value got added on the assembly line, then it was in a holding pattern in the warehouse and then value got added at the retail point of sale. I see Calvin’s Institutes as a warehouse in the production of theology. He adds nothing to the conversation.
#2 Calvin is an expert at saying a lot without really saying anything
This particular problem makes a review especially difficult. During my reading and as I think back, I’m trying desperately to see somewhere that Calvin has actually done the work of a theologian and helped readers to understand God better. I can’t come up with a single quote, passage, chapter, or part that I would recommend to anyone. I can come up with more than a few where I just have to stop and say, “Where the hell is he getting this from. Here is a quote from Book I chapter 15 that sounds like it is right out of Plato, not (Sola) Scriptura,
“Furthermore, that man consists of a soul and a body ought to be beyond controversy... Now I understand by the term ‘soul’ and immortal yet created essence, which is his nobler part. It is of course true that while men are tied to earth more than they should be they grow dull... Now the very knowledge of God sufficiently proves that souls, which transcend the world, are immortal, for no transient energy could penetrate to the fountain of life.”
Beyond controversy? Nobler part? More than they should be? Sufficiently proves? Transient energy? Clearly this is straight out of the 16th century. If you talked this way in today’s theological discourse you wouldn’t get published, but rather laughed at.
And by the way, forget Plato. That quote sounds like it is straight out of the newly released Gospel of Judas and fits in line with nearly every one of the Nag Hammadi texts (sometimes called extra-canonical gospels such as Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, etc.). Compare Calvin’s quote above with this one out of Judas, “But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” It seems the Calvin had fallen back, at least partially, into the Gnosticism that the early church fathers had battled so hard to avoid.
This is obviously an example of something I just simply disagree with Calvin on, but the point is that Calvin assumes all this but provides no support. The larger point is perhaps that he doesn’t provide much of anything I can either agree or disagree with. He just doesn’t say much. Any support he does provide is in the form of proof-texts stretched way further than they were ever meant to go. To sum up this point, Calvin reminds me of those professor’s (we all had at least one) in college who would talk for like an hour and a half, and after you got out of the class, you’d ask yourself, “Did he actually say anything whatsoever in all that time?”
#3 Calvin addresses issues that are irrelevant today.
Throughout the book, Calvin addresses numerous little “disagreements” he is having with what he would consider fools. The majority of these not even considered issues to be debated any longer today. Though in the 16th century he may have been arguing against real person, his book today argues against a straw man, or I should say an army of straw men. This goes along with point #1. If anyone ever reads this, please try and refute me on the above three points.
Other questions:
A. How do you spell TULIP in French, the language that Calvin wrote?
B. Who invented that first acronym and dug it out of Calvin’s writings?
C. Calvin is certain (book II, chapter XIII) that when Jesus called himself the Son of Man, he was referring to the fact that he was truly man. Had theologians not discovered, at the time of Calvin’s writings, that the Son of Man was a reference to the book of Daniel? Calvin doesn’t even seem to be aware of this important allusion in Jesus’ self-identity.
Spending a lot of time around the reformed part of the church, I know that Calvin is perhaps the most revered of all of these, though you could make perhaps a better argument for Augustine. What I also noticed in my time around the reformed church is that no one I knew, Calvinist or not, had actually ever read Calvin and rarely if ever quoted Calvin. In light of this experience and being a 24 year old, I found myself asking, “Is Calvin relevant to our generation?” I assumed that Calvin must’ve said some really, really insightful stuff that has to be relevant to all generations to be this revered to this day.
Now, while I thought Part II came closer, on occasion, to relevance, on the whole (considering I’ve only read half), I feel like Institutes was a major let down for three reasons.
#1 Calvin does not add any value to the ongoing theological conversation
Please, please, please provide any comments to the contrary. I would love to hear them. But from where I stand, I fail to see where Calvin brings anything to the table in terms of thorough research, wrestling with issues, and trying to discover the true meaning of the text. Maybe I’m spoiled in that I went from reading N.T. Wright’s COQG series to Institutes, but whereas I feel that Wright has actually advanced the conversation including doing the hard digging for evidence, I feel that Calvin has taken the easy way out and given us a meandering polemic full of speculation.
Most of the book is a rant against various heresies of the day but he rarely provides quality reasoning that makes any sense. I believe this is because the Bible doesn’t address all the issued that Calvin wants it to address. But that is, I think, the number one mistake of biblical interpretation: Forcing the Bible to address issues it was never meant to address.
In business they have the phrase “to add value.” A product goes from being manufactured to being in a warehouse to being sold in a retail store. The manufacturing plant and retail store are general considered to add value to the product. The warehouse is not. The manufacturing plant adds value by putting various zero-value parts together to make something of value, thus adding value to the parts. The retail store adds value to the product for the consumer by getting it to them in an efficient way. The warehouse is just a place where you store extra product while waiting for retail to request it. Value got added on the assembly line, then it was in a holding pattern in the warehouse and then value got added at the retail point of sale. I see Calvin’s Institutes as a warehouse in the production of theology. He adds nothing to the conversation.
#2 Calvin is an expert at saying a lot without really saying anything
This particular problem makes a review especially difficult. During my reading and as I think back, I’m trying desperately to see somewhere that Calvin has actually done the work of a theologian and helped readers to understand God better. I can’t come up with a single quote, passage, chapter, or part that I would recommend to anyone. I can come up with more than a few where I just have to stop and say, “Where the hell is he getting this from. Here is a quote from Book I chapter 15 that sounds like it is right out of Plato, not (Sola) Scriptura,
“Furthermore, that man consists of a soul and a body ought to be beyond controversy... Now I understand by the term ‘soul’ and immortal yet created essence, which is his nobler part. It is of course true that while men are tied to earth more than they should be they grow dull... Now the very knowledge of God sufficiently proves that souls, which transcend the world, are immortal, for no transient energy could penetrate to the fountain of life.”
Beyond controversy? Nobler part? More than they should be? Sufficiently proves? Transient energy? Clearly this is straight out of the 16th century. If you talked this way in today’s theological discourse you wouldn’t get published, but rather laughed at.
And by the way, forget Plato. That quote sounds like it is straight out of the newly released Gospel of Judas and fits in line with nearly every one of the Nag Hammadi texts (sometimes called extra-canonical gospels such as Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, etc.). Compare Calvin’s quote above with this one out of Judas, “But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” It seems the Calvin had fallen back, at least partially, into the Gnosticism that the early church fathers had battled so hard to avoid.
This is obviously an example of something I just simply disagree with Calvin on, but the point is that Calvin assumes all this but provides no support. The larger point is perhaps that he doesn’t provide much of anything I can either agree or disagree with. He just doesn’t say much. Any support he does provide is in the form of proof-texts stretched way further than they were ever meant to go. To sum up this point, Calvin reminds me of those professor’s (we all had at least one) in college who would talk for like an hour and a half, and after you got out of the class, you’d ask yourself, “Did he actually say anything whatsoever in all that time?”
#3 Calvin addresses issues that are irrelevant today.
Throughout the book, Calvin addresses numerous little “disagreements” he is having with what he would consider fools. The majority of these not even considered issues to be debated any longer today. Though in the 16th century he may have been arguing against real person, his book today argues against a straw man, or I should say an army of straw men. This goes along with point #1. If anyone ever reads this, please try and refute me on the above three points.
Other questions:
A. How do you spell TULIP in French, the language that Calvin wrote?
B. Who invented that first acronym and dug it out of Calvin’s writings?
C. Calvin is certain (book II, chapter XIII) that when Jesus called himself the Son of Man, he was referring to the fact that he was truly man. Had theologians not discovered, at the time of Calvin’s writings, that the Son of Man was a reference to the book of Daniel? Calvin doesn’t even seem to be aware of this important allusion in Jesus’ self-identity.
#41 What Flavor of Christian Are You?
Here is an interesting overgeneralized quiz you can take but interesting nonetheless. Here's what it had to say about me: You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com |
Thursday, May 04, 2006
#40 Steven Colbert and the Death of the Room
This is a great article from TIME magazine that really captured exactly what I was feeling when I watched Steven Colbert’s speech at the National Correspondent’s Dinner. I was flipping through the channels the other day and stopped on CSPAN of all things, noticing that Steven Colbert was all dressed up giving a speech. There he stood, with President Bush (and Laura) about five feet away from him and delivered a long, drawn out, scathing criticism of the President, and every policy of his that you could think of.
I completely expected the secret service or some kind of official to go up there and drag Colbert from the stage kicking and screaming. But it didn’t happen, it just went on and on and on. I thought it was hilarious but was at the same time incredulous that this was actually going on. I kept saying out loud to Rachel, “I can’t believe he’s saying this, I can’t believe he just said that!” Not because I necessarily disagree with him but just that he was being allowed to say things like that, while the president just sat by and faked a smile. The discomfort felt in the room at the dinner was spewing through the TV and into my living room.
But like I said, hilarious, and because of the setting, perhaps one of the great moments in the history of comedy. From what I’ve seen of Andy Kaufmann, he wasn’t the type to make you overtly laugh out loud, but just be amazed and entertained by what you were seeing. This was that type of performance. Although, all of Colbert’s jokes were extremely overt, it took balls to do it where he did and for as long as he did.
A short article in Time Magazine sums up my feelings exactly. Here’s a quote and they also have a link in the article to the video:
“Colbert wasn't playing to the room, I suspect, but to the wide audience of people who would later watch on the Internet. If anything, he was playing against the room... To the audience that would watch Colbert on Comedy Central, the pained, uncomfortable, perhaps-a-little-scared-to-laugh reaction shots were not signs of failure. They were the money shots. They were the whole point. In other words, what anyone fails to get who said Colbert bombed because he didn't win over the room is: the room no longer matters. Not the way it used to. The room, which once would have received and filtered the ritual performance for the rest of us, is now just another subject to be dissected...”
And here’s the link to the article: Click here.
I completely expected the secret service or some kind of official to go up there and drag Colbert from the stage kicking and screaming. But it didn’t happen, it just went on and on and on. I thought it was hilarious but was at the same time incredulous that this was actually going on. I kept saying out loud to Rachel, “I can’t believe he’s saying this, I can’t believe he just said that!” Not because I necessarily disagree with him but just that he was being allowed to say things like that, while the president just sat by and faked a smile. The discomfort felt in the room at the dinner was spewing through the TV and into my living room.
But like I said, hilarious, and because of the setting, perhaps one of the great moments in the history of comedy. From what I’ve seen of Andy Kaufmann, he wasn’t the type to make you overtly laugh out loud, but just be amazed and entertained by what you were seeing. This was that type of performance. Although, all of Colbert’s jokes were extremely overt, it took balls to do it where he did and for as long as he did.
A short article in Time Magazine sums up my feelings exactly. Here’s a quote and they also have a link in the article to the video:
“Colbert wasn't playing to the room, I suspect, but to the wide audience of people who would later watch on the Internet. If anything, he was playing against the room... To the audience that would watch Colbert on Comedy Central, the pained, uncomfortable, perhaps-a-little-scared-to-laugh reaction shots were not signs of failure. They were the money shots. They were the whole point. In other words, what anyone fails to get who said Colbert bombed because he didn't win over the room is: the room no longer matters. Not the way it used to. The room, which once would have received and filtered the ritual performance for the rest of us, is now just another subject to be dissected...”
And here’s the link to the article: Click here.
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