Garrison Keillor, Vulgarian

Slate.com ^ | February 13, 2006 | Christopher Hitchens

[Cecily]

Every now and again you come across the real thing: a case of full-blown, corn-fed, white-bread American nativist bloviation. This often used to take the form of populist and pseudo-egalitarian diatribes against the stuck-up English with their fancy ways, of the sort that Charles Dickens encountered in his 1842 journey to the United States (and summarized in his American Notes, as well as lampooned in his worst novel, Martin Chuzzlewit). But more recently, attacks on the effete and the elite have borrowed from that same England's oldest prejudice, and concentrated themselves on the Gallic.

[Cecily]

Christopher is ticked.

[capt. norm]

I think Garrison never really got over not having a date for the Prom.

[Dark Skies]

Hitchens is OK (for an affective sort of egoist)...and he is right about Keilor (who is a "puff daddy" of his own Presbyterian, secular sort).

As far as I can tell, they are way left of the deeply religious right. And they are equally funny!

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Garrison Keillor is the dreadful result of what comes of mixing gefiltefish with Chenin Blanc.

[mkjessup]

I think Garrison never really got over not having a date for the Prom.

Oh he had a date for the prom alright, but his date wore a tie that clashed with Garrison's fine silken neck apparel, and they (*gasp*) were BOTH seen wearing the same black, wingtip shoes.

It isn't easy to recover from a trauma like THAT!

[Cecily]

Do you mean lutefisk?

[HairOfTheDog]

Christopher is ticked.

Maybe, I can't tell what about.

Garrison Keillor is a guilty pleasure of mine. I absolutely adore A Prairie Home Companion, and have seen it live a few times. I treasure listening to his shows with my dad.

[Bahbah]

Or perhaps he just couldn't trust himself to say what he thought about some snooty Parisian poking his big nose in where it wasn't wanted and running down those good folks who look after law and order 'round here.

No, Christopher, Garrison doesn't like this country at all. At least not the conservative, law and order part of it.

[Cecily]

For making nasty comments about a Frenchman who likes America.

[p. henry]

Given his fondness for things Scandinavian, that would be lutefisk rather than gefiltefish.

[VadeRetro]

Garrisson Keillor has billed himself as "America's Tallest Writer" or some such. Not sure about that, but he's about the ugliest man I've seen not actually missing a nose or a lip.

[HairOfTheDog]

Too bad the article is so indecipherable then! I don't know, maybe I'm just tired, but I couldn't get through all the words to find the point.

[WestSylvanian]

Why do you have to slander Presbyterians?

[Billthedrill]

Americans can be distressingly parochial at times and Keillor manages to be both parochial and insufferably snide. Hitchens and the Frog are correct in the matter.

(Yes, that was humor...)

[PetroniusMaximus]

"Why do you have to slander Presbyterians?"

Yes, there doing quite a good job of it on their own.

[Dark Skies]

Sorry...just quoting Keilor. Could have been Methodists or Baptists or Catholics.

[OKIEDOC]

I think Garrison never really got over not having a date for the Prom.

REPLY:

This guy reminds me a smug elitists know it all.

I don't understand why so many on the left thinks this crackpot has any thing to offer man kind.

[Richard Kimball]

I had heard about Lake Wobegone Days, and people comparing him to Will Rogers, etc., so I watched about fifteen minutes of it, expecting, I don't know, something else. It was apparent that his humor was not folksy soft wit, but based on a hatred of people in small town America. He started out by talking about Lake Wobegone, and how all the children were above average, and as he talked, he got more vindictive and scathing, more emotional. More than anything else, he reminded me of George Carlin after he quit being funny and started just complaining during his act. I haven't paid any attention to him since then.

[Viking2002]

This article is like accidentally walking into a room where two hissing queers are having a lover's quarrel, and they're throwing furniture at each other. You are simultaneously repulsed by both, and you really don't care who is 'right' or even what the pissing contest is all about.

A big 'WTF?!?' ping!

[elcid1970]

Oooooo! Not nice, not nice.

(Heh, heh!)