Colin Quinn Long Story Short: From Cave Paintings to Tweeting -This About Covers It
by Karen Tortora-Lee on December 26, 2010
My parents spent a great deal of money on my education. First they chose a strict parochial grammar school for 8 years, then I was sent off to an exclusive prep school for 4 years, and finally my education was capped off with a fancy private college. All this was done to ensure that I had a good working knowledge of the world. Yet my European-born mother still sadly shakes her head when I make such public blunders as exclaiming to a roomful of people that I have no idea where Holland is in relation to Norway. “I always thought they were the same place!” I remark, blithely, with not even a hint of embarrassment. “Aren’t they, though?” I go on – digging the hole deeper. Oh – American Education – how you failed me. Surely someone could have made politics, history, and geography stick in my brain in a way that made sense so that I don’t continually shame my family?
After spending a night with Colin Quinn as he delivered his one-man show Long Story Short (directed by Jerry Seinfeld) it’s obvious that he was that someone. Colin Quinn is like that teacher who comes into the urban school and makes all the tough kids love learning. But he already knows that. In fact, at some point during Long Story Short, he even does a spot on send-up of every To Sir With Love / Stand and Deliver / Dangerous Minds movie ever spit out by Hollywood — though his version ends with the teacher taking a job at the cushy prep school at the end of it all. The very prep school where I would have benefited so much! So you see how we’ve come full circle here. But wait! That’s only the introduction . . .
