Aftgerglow lives on

The eyebrows are gone, but the memories linger.

A show always looks the best, I think, in the days immediately after. Gaffes tend to be forgotten, laughs from jokes inflated and the tunefulness of our songs emphasized. People who liked the show tend to make a point of telling the participants right away how good they were, while critics, I suspect, don't see the point of letting their views known.

The age of instant videos and U-Tube have diminished this phenomenon somewhat, but it still carries on. Still, in my case, it is a bit stunning to reconcile how I thought I looked and sounded and what the technology actually recorded. I guess there really is a reason I had a day job for all of those years.

The instant videos, I think, also diminish the quality of the responders - the government officials and politicians who get up when we are done and try to even the score a little bit with their remarks. Not too many years ago, what they said would be laughed at and commented on that night, but then pretty much forgotten after that.

I recall that all changed when Hillary Clinton was running for the Senate and spoke at the show, in the year 2000, an event that was recorded by dozens of cameras. Now whatever is said lives on indefinitely.

One thing we know for sure: there will be plenty of fodder to feed our writers next year.