I'll say it here and I'll say it anywhere: Jon Stewart is one of the most brilliant working artists of our time. I feel so lucky to be alive at a time when he, and Stephen Colbert, are producing new work every day. They're an inspiration to me in so many ways, not the least of which is their prolificness, which is one of the things I most aspire to as an artist.
So it was something of a "pilgrimage" to go see a taping of The Daily Show on 733 11th Avenue in Manhattan yesterday! It was worth the hours of waiting in line with cold red fingers. While waiting outside, we were told, "Jon likes to get to know his audience," i.e. we'd have a Q&A period before the show. But it quickly became clear to me that it was for his benefit, as a warm-up, to get his comic muscles loose and energy flowing. It was fascinating to watch.
We'd been told to "not ask for stupid things," and I was dismayed when the first person to raise her hand asked him to be on her hometown's radio show, and the second person asked him to be his class's graduation speaker. (He was from Harvard. Jon roundly mocked him. It was great.) Originally I was going to ask, "How do you get to be a writer on the show?", but I thought that'd be asinine, and besides, I can do my own research. So instead I asked, "Have you ever been to Africa?" I assumed that he had (why did I assume that?) and would chuckle about his youth, hitching through Mauritania or something. But no! He hadn't. And confessed he really wanted to. He asked me if I'd been there, and I said Yes, to Ethiopia, and he asked me what I'd been doing there and I said, Researching a novel. He said, "Is the novel about...a girl who travels to Ethiopia?" I laughed along with everyone else, thinking, Ouch, touche. But it was titillating to think that Jon Stewart knew about Passage, even if he forgot about it ten seconds later. Maybe someday I'll be a guest on his show, and remind him :) --MCB