Did Stephen Colbert Apologize to Kate Middleton?
Most of the time, we agree on what people are trying to do when they speak.
When Donald Trump or Joe Biden speaks at a rally, we know they are trying to persuade people to vote for them -- they are giving political speeches. When Shane Gillis gives a monologue on Saturday Night Live, he is trying to be funny. When we turn on the nightly news, Anderson Cooper is attempting to inform us. Even when someone doesn't do a good job with their speech -- for example, Al Pacino delivering one of the strangest Best Picture presentations of all time, failing to name the nominees and cryptically saying "my eyes see Oppenheimer..." as a way to announce the winner -- we generally agree on what kind of activity they are trying to do.
So one aspect I found interesting about Colbert's Kate Middleton statement was that the media disagreed on whether he was even attempting to apologize or not. My take: he wasn't trying to apologize. Instead, he was doing something more unusual, and in this situation, perhaps more honest and valuable. You can read about it here:
Sorry Not Sorry: Stephen Colbert Found His Own Line with Kate Middleton - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
A 2023 Column Contest grand-prize winner, Laurence Pevsner’s Sorry Not Sorry investigates why we’re sick of everyone apologizing all the time—and h...
Thanks to reader Jen Davis for the tip-off on this one. I'm always looking for more interesting examples of apologies/non-apologies in public discourse, so please send me any you come across -- I might write about it!
Just for newsletter readers, I'll let you know that if I had more space, I would've compared Colbert's statement to my favorite late night monologue of all time, by another CBS host, the great Craig Ferguson. Craig famously surprised his audience by refusing to do any jokes about Britney Spears shaving her head, and apologized for his "aim having been off" in his recent jokes. You can watch the moving monologue here. But you'll have to wait for my book (know any agents? forward them this newsletter!) to get a fuller analysis.
If you read my Noema essay about chasing total solar eclipses, you may be wondering if I had any luck on Monday. I did! And it was, predictably, totally different from the last two I saw. Amidst hazy clouds, this one looked like someone had taken a hole puncher to the sky. We shouted when we saw brilliant magenta solar prominences flaring off the lower left of the corona. I'd never seen anything like that. Magic. My dad (again) captured stunning images that (again) do not do justice to the experience. Hope to see some newly inaugurated chasers in Spain 2026!
