A paragraph today

Ed Asner looked handsome and aged in a simple tuxedo, his 82 year-old frame reinforced by a mahogany colored cane. But his wit remains nimble, unharmed by time, very much like the Santa he played in the movie Elf. An almost jumbo-tron screen with a cartoon face in the left corner hovered high behind him on the stage at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Eyes squinting and subtle sweat beading from the lights above, Asner introduced the audience to a video clip of Will Ferrell, who that night was awarded the fourteenth Mark Twain Prize for Humor (and was, as Ferrell would later note, the eleventh Caucasian recipient). Then he introduced them to Tim Meadows, also there to honor Ferrell. Meadows and Ferrell fortified a late 1990s cast of Saturday Night Live that preceded an era of pedestrian comedy on the 36 year-old show. Meadows too emerged with dapper flare: a black tux, his white shirt collar corralled by a black Windsor knot, thick-rimmed glasses and a less-salt-more-pepper goatee divided attention drawn to his face. The mostly middle-aged crowd--dressed in attire saved for evening affairs at the Kennedy Center--brought its brief applause to an end. "Wow...I know what you're thinking," Meadows deadpanned. "What's Don Cheadle doing here?"