We take our holidays pretty seriously these days, and that means we don’t look at the newspaper if we can help it. But we’re grateful for certain industrious parties who obsess on the dirty work. So we heard from Rex that Garrison Keillor’s first newspaper column appeared this weekend, and we shuffled across the digital alley to read it.
We got a bit further than Rex did, but it wasn’t particularly edifying. We’ve been saying for years that, no matter what you think of Keillor, you have to be awestruck by how prolific the man has been in the last ten years. Salon, Time, the Nation–is there a magazine he hasn’t written for on a semi-weekly basis, in addition to writing the entire PHC show, along with a couple of novels, the Writers Almanac, and a barnstorming audio CD? But his hectic schedule may be telling on him, judging by the new column; it’s pretty thin grits. (Said with the longstanding disclosure and caveat: We briefly worked for Keillor, and the experience ended badly. We still think he’s the nation’s greatest living humorist–and in no way diminished by the critical shortage of humorists today. But we also think we’ve noticed a few cracks appearing in his most beloved, flawless brand.)
Anyway, the column. Two things are obvious: Garrison Keillor is tired. And Garrison Keillor is grumpy about editors. In the first place, anyone who has ever attempted humor knows how hard it is. You have to do giggly little jumping jacks every day to keep your funny-bone limber. Writing one funny joke–much less a truly humorous sketch or a monologue–can be a full day’s work, and none of it all that interesting or mirthful. When Garrison Keillor writes 800 words without managing to make us laugh once, then we figure he’s too tired to get that chin up to the bar this time.
In the second place, Keillor clearly has a “no edit” clause. We count at least three serious prepositional danglers–often an artifact of someone who “writes to the ear” (that is, writes for out-loud recital). Keillor, of course, writes for print all the time, but we suppose it’s possible that his editors have always done him the service of making all those subtle little line edits that make a story behave on the page.
We did like this little bit, though:
“On the Fourth, honoring one tidal change that did happen, the adoption of Mr. Jefferson’s little peroration against the King, you sit in the shade and think of America at its best, a generous and redemptive land, an amiable people. A nation of optimistic sentimental humorists. Europeans can be shocked at how instantly friendly we can be with people we don’t know. We meet strangers over a cup of coffee and suddenly we’re telling about the crazy uncle who ran off with the church secretary. We rally to help people we never met. Amiability is the basis of civil politics: You don’t cheat people you like, you don’t abuse people who might become your friends.”
We like that not so much because of its empty self-flattery, but because it reminds us of a wonderful article in the current issue of Harvard magazine. It’s about the profound importance of sleep (much of it cribbed from the prescient work of Austrian philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner, by the way), and in the context, writer Craig Lambert mentions that coffee has now become the world’s second biggest cash commodity–second only to oil. In an aside, Lambert also mentions that one small Starbuck’s coffee has 1,000 miligrams of caffeine (the normal cup of Folger’s is around 100 mg). Zoiks!
So, Mr. Keillor, our unsolicited advice to you is this: Drink a little less coffee, stay away from Starbucks at the airport, don;t skimp on the jumping jacks, try to get a little sleep, and please accept the assistance of your modest copyeditor, who after all is only trying to make you look better.
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