'Seinfeld' Is Having a Moment Again

'Seinfeld' Is Having a Moment Again

Though Jerry Seinfeld never truly left our televisions (syndication is a thing of beauty, isn't it?) the man, the myth, and the show have very much returned as we wind down this year. Not only is the Modern Seinfeld account a hit on Twitter, doling out plot summaries for episodes of the eponymous sitcom that will never be, but now the New York Times Magazine has a profile of Seinfeld, the main news-peg being that Seinfeld is still doing what Seinfeld has always done: tell jokes. Jonah Weiner's story, which is worth a read in full, looks at Seinfeld the craftsman doing stand-up that is, somehow, still relevant after all these years. Seinfeld even himself points to the President Obama "jerk store" moment

Seinfeld disagrees that his show was, as the saying goes, about nothing. “I don’t think these things are trivial,” he says, pointing to how political commentators compared President Obama’s renewed bravado the day after his lackluster Colorado debate performance to the “Seinfeld” episode where George, insulted at work, devises a comeback too late.

There may be something a little disorienting reading about this man of the people's Porsche collection (Seinfeld equates his interest in jokes to his interest in the fancy cars, which, sigh), but for the most part this is the Seinfeld we already know: fine tuning a joke about marriage, making wry observations about everyday annoyances, getting lauded by other comedians. Weiner writes: "His best jokes, concerned as they are with the ultra-quotidian, have an understated timelessness." That's something the Modern Seinfeld Twitter account has already proved: even though the show could get a technology update, for the most part it wouldn't change at all.