Maureen Dowd on Stephen Colbert, A Wit for All Seasons:
He (Stephen Colbert) describes himself as “an omnivore,” who loves everything from “A Man for All Seasons” to “Jackass,” from hip-hop to Ovid in the original Latin. He had 10 older siblings. But after his father and the two brothers closest to him in age died in a plane crash when he was 10 and the older kids went off to college, he said, he was “pretty much left to himself, with a lot of books.” He said he loved the “strange, sad poetry” of a song called “Holland 1945” by an indie band from Athens, Ga., called Neutral Milk Hotel and sent me the lyrics, which included this heartbreaking bit:
“But now we must pick up every piece
Of the life we used to love
Just to keep ourselves
At least enough to carry on. . . .
And here is the room where your brothers were born
Indentions in the sheets
Where their bodies once moved but don’t move anymore.”
Read Dowd’s full article in the NY Times: A Wit for All Seasons.
Notes:
- Related Post: The enormity of the the room whose door has now quietly shut
- Image Credit: Evgeny Parfenov, Splashnology. Parfenov is a freelance illustrator from Russia.