zeitgeist2Greetings, Zoners, and happy July 4th weekend to our American friends! While Stephen and the TCR crew begin their much-deserved vacation, this seems like a good time to catch up on some of the news that’s been finding its way to me this week. So relax, kick back with your favorite beverage (the adult kind, if you’re legal) and enjoy your zeitgeist for July 3rd.

  • Finally some Stonewall coverage… from Colbert – MediaMatters.org: Lamenting the lack of major media coverage of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, this article notes that at least Stephen covered it on June 25th with The WØRD — Stonewalling and his interview with Jim Fouratt.

  • Colbert lends hand to honor Young – Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Peach Buzz column): As Ms. I posted earlier this week, Stephen recorded a tribute to Andrew Young on the occasion of his being presented with the Governor’s Award at the Southeastern Emmys last week. Apparently Ambassador Young didn’t know about the tribute until he saw it. “Southeastern Emmys governor’s award recipient Andrew Young got an unexpected video tribute from a certain high-profile TV friend during the awards ceremony over the weekend in Atlanta… We hear that Young was delighted by Colbert’s greeting.”

  • Writer of the Week: Jon Jackson – American Songwriter: In an interview with songwriter Jon Jackson, who also ran for Congress in Tennessee, he was asked who he would choose to co-write songs with if he could choose any living songwriter. His answer: “Does Stephen Colbert count? It seems like I remember seeing him rap once. I bet we could write a big country hit for Toby Keith together.”

  • Adam Schlesinger – The Fountains of Wayne member and “Colbert Christmas” songwriter talked with the Hudson Valley’s Times Herald-Record about his various musical projects, including writing songs for Stephen: “There are no plans for another Christmas special, although I would love to do more stuff with Stephen Colbert, if he ever asks. He’s a genius, so I’d love to work with him as much as possible.”

  • Rockford native makes good on Mt. Everest promise with Stephen Colbert – WREX, Rockford, IL: This interview with last night’s guest, Ed Viesturs, doesn’t actually say much about the fact that he took a Colbert Nation flag to the top of Mt. Everest. But it does mention something that didn’t come up in the TCR interview: his seventh summit of Everest was very likely his last. “When asked if that makes his 7th summit more special Viesturs replies, ‘It’s special knowing that I’m pretty sure it’s going to be my last time. So I kind of absorbed the whole event and made sure at the summit I took a look around and said, ‘ok i don’t think i’ll be here again.’ It’s been a big part of my career.’”

  • Espresso to the rescue for Dean – TimesArgus.com: When Howard Dean appeared on TCR recently to promote his new book on health care, he didn’t have an actual book to hold up because it wasn’t published yet. So his publisher, Chelsea Green, asked for help from the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont. They have an Espresso Book Machine, which can print and bind books on demand. All they needed was a few files from the publisher, and presto, instant paperback book. I found this fascinating because I’m in the book business, although this isn’t the type of thing that would give me any job security (the opposite, in fact). For any other book geeks out there who are interested, I found this article from the Boston Globe that discusses the Espresso Book Machine in more detail, and also includes a demonstration video.

  • “I was on the Twitter this weekend, and I saw a tweetening of the most tragic thing I ever entwattered…” – I’m still cracking up over the great sendup of the “Jeff Goldblum is dead” rumor on Monday’s Report. It was a perfect way to both dispel and satirize the rumor. There was much approval of this segment’s brilliance around the Interwebs, but I’ll just provide a few links: the Arts Beat blog at the New York Times thinks it’s great that Stephen got Jeff Goldblum’s reaction to his own death; E! Online is glad that it was only a rumor, especially when you can get some good laughs out of it; Monsters and Critics was impressed that Goldblum eulogized himself; and the Geeks of Doom blog approved of the segment’s commentary on the “journalistic accuracy” of Twitter.

(h/t Ms I and Jennie)

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