I went to the Whoopi Goldberg/Mark Twain award presentation at the Kennedy
Center a couple of years ago. Sure, it was mostly about Whoopi Goldberg, and
the audience was filled with people who knew the in-jokes and references of
a
bunch of strange people who seem to inhabit television shows with Whoopi
Goldberg.

None of that was Twain. But there was a portion of the show set aside for a
bit of entertaining education about Twain. It wasn't more than ten or so
minutes of the hour or more of the show, but it was not bad and went out to
a
wide audience that doesn't watch too many documentaries or care much about
scholarship.

Perhaps award shows such as this one should be judged for what they are and
not what others might want them to be.

Dennis Kelly