GARRISON KEILLOR: MIDWESTERN ENIGMA
Cedar Falls SUPPERCLUB
Delivered November 18, 2014 by G. Scott Cawelti
Garrison
Keillor, writer, radio personality, humorist, satirist, all-around enigma, and
I come from the same cohort—born eleven months apart, he in August, ‘42 and me
in July, ‘43, graduating from high school in ‘60 and ‘61, respectively—he in
Anoka, Minnesota, and me in Cedar Falls, Iowa, 235 miles South-Southeast. We both played in high school rock bands, he
in the Pharaohs of Rhythm and me in the Ramrods.
We
both loved Buddy Holly’s singing and his songs—“Peggy Sue,” “Every Day,” “That’ll be the Day,” “Not Fade Away.” Indeed, we both performed them. And we
both grew up in the fifties—in Midwest small towns, the heart of the heart of
the country. Our hometowns were both
originally settled by Scandinavians—Norwegians for Anoka, Danish for Cedar
Falls. He majored in English with a
strong side interest in music. I majored
in Music with a strong pull toward serious reading, and eventually jumped the
fence into English.
To
get really personal, Keillor remarried for the third time in 1995, and I
remarried for the third time in 1996.
We
have so much in common, including radio punditry and political outlook, that,
except for degrees of fame and fortune, we’re kindred spirits.
So
over the years I’ve been drawn to his work in recognition, admiration, and—yes--envy.
As
a matter of fact, years ago I met Garrison—I can’t call him Gary— when I
performed with Robert Waller on the KUNI version of Prairie Home
Companion. He brought his cast and crew
to Lang Hall in the late seventies, not for broadcast—we weren’t ready for
prime time—but as a KUNI fundraiser. He was unhappy with us for playing an extra
song, and didn’t seem interested in any personal connection whatsoever.
I
didn’t take his distance personally, but felt surprised that his real self
wasn’t the downhome, warm and fuzzy persona he projects on air. He was cold,
distant, even angry that we played an extra song. That ended our Prairie Home Companion
career and our fifteen minutes of fame.
(Mine,
anyway; Waller went on to untold riches and notoriety.)
Still,
I followed his career like I would a brother’s, and this paper represents a
culmination of my examination of Garrison Keillor as an enigmatic
personality.
For
the past few months I’ve been reading Keillor monologues, novels, memoirs, a book
of jokes, and his recently published book of poems, O WHAT A LUXURY: VERSES LYRICAL, VULGAR, PATHETIC, AND PROFOUND.
If nothing else, Garrison Keillor seems
utterly untroubled by writer’s block.
Our
hero is a gathering of contradictions: mellow
but angry, poor but rich, depressed but funny, angry but beloved, a successful performer
and writer who lives like a Republican but thinks like a Democrat.
He’s
shy and reclusive, resenting intrusions on his privacy in the form of questions
about his marriages, his affairs, and his wealth. His net worth approaches 1.5 million, and
that doesn’t square with his downhome, egalitarian Democrat folksy persona. Yet that’s a persona that he cannot abandon
without forsaking millions of fans, who take him as the archetypal Midwesterner.
What
redeems him from every flaw, hypocrisy, crankiness, and mood swing, is his
storytelling. A master storyteller
captivates listeners and readers so skillfully that personal failings are
forgotten or ignored.
Garrison
spins Lake Wobegone tales impromptu, giving them an aura of spontaneity and
freshness. I’ve watched and heard him unfold
extended and coherent stories onstage, with never so much as a nod at a
notecard or prompt. He glances around
the audience stoically inscrutable; occasionally a sly smile will cross his
features, but he never breaks out into a guffaw or even a chuckle; I’ve never
heard or seen him actually laugh. He’d make a great poker player.
I’ve
compared written versions in his collections with spoken monologues with the
same titles on CDs, and they’re quite different—evidence that he makes them up
as he goes along. He’s told audiences
that writing is a process of discovery, and he’s always discovering as he talks—on
radio, in front of a live audience. It’s
a verbal high wire act.
The
only comparable radio personality I know of is Orson Welles, who had an
equivalent pillowy resonant baritone voice, and a similar gift for making up
compelling stories on the spot. Of
course, Welles was a genuine genius, and Keillor is not, but damn close at
times.
His
monologues begin and end with the same phrases, signaling that we’re entering
and leaving his imaginative re-creation of life in a small Minnesota town: “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegone, my
hometown . . .” and ends with “And that’s the news from Lake Wobegone, where
all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children
are above average.”
Between
those phrases he engenders serious laughter, and a lot of it. That’s his trifecta: story, delivery, and humor. “Prairie
Home Companion” tickets regularly sell out, and millions tune in weekly. It began on July 6, 1974, and is still going
strong from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, and all around the country
during various tours; you might have noticed that it originated from Des Moines
recently.
As
of last July, that’s 40 years. GK, as
he’s known in Robert Altman’s 2006 film, Prairie Home Companion, began the show
when he was a lad in his early thirties.
He’s now 72, refusing to retire after a couple of scares—a heart problem
that required open-heart surgery and a minor stroke. He took two years off in Copenhagen in the
late 1980s for a second marriage to a Danish woman he met in high school when
she attended Anoka High School as a Danish foreign exchange student. Incidentally, his current third and longest
marriage (1995) is to violinist Jenny Lind Nillson, who also grew up in
Anoka.
Now,
back to that trifecta: story, delivery,
and humor. These go a long ways toward
explaining his immediate appeal, but not his longevity.
Two
other elements assure both longevity and even posterity, since Keillor’s fans
keep creating new fans, his books assure continuance in print form, his
monologues keep getting play on car radios, and Robert Altman’s film made him recognizable
as a screen presence. He’s the utter
center of that film, by the way—it all revolves around him, minus the
uncinematic monologue.
Those
two other elements? Horatian Satire and
Norwegian Bachelor Farmers, i.e. the Scandinavian ethos that undergirds all his
writing and performing. These are the
fourth and fifth essential aspects of Garrison Keillor’s ongoing appeal.
Horatian
satire is so named because of the Roman poet Horace, who made gentle fun of his
fellow Romans’ follies and foibles, revealing them in all their contradictions
and silliness. Horace’s odes are lighthearted,
gentle, and his literary heirs are Chaucer with his Canterbury Tales, Jonathan
Swift with his Gulliver’s Travels, Matt Groening with his Simpsons. And Garrison Keillor with his strong women,
good-looking men, and above average children.
It’s not topical, it’s not slapstick, it’s not gross or physical
humor—fart jokes excepted—instead, it’s gentle ridicule of somebody’s mostly
inadvertent but inescapable foibles—shy, mute, reclusive, almost invisible
people who suppress most evidence of having an ego.
Ridicule
is not necessarily that appealing if you’re the one being made fun of. In fact, it can be a nasty weapon in the
mouth of a bully. But if it’s done in
the Horatian manner—that is, gently and with the clear understanding that it
applies to everyone, including the
speaker or writer, it can be effective and hugely entertaining.
Keillor
insists that he’s one of us, insecure, geeky and nerdy growing up, downright
ugly (I have a face that’s made for radio, he insists) and morbidly shy, except
when he’s performing for millions. There’s that enigma again.
He
tells the story of being completely smitten with one of his beautiful female
classmates at Anoka High but never having the courage to speak to her. One day on a field trip, she was sitting
next to a vacant seat on the school bus as he climbed aboard.
He
dared to sit beside her—it took all of his courage—and then—ever so secretively
and gently—put his arm behind her, not really touching her. She paid no attention, just looking out the
school bus window and treating him as though he were elsewhere. Then his hand grazed the back of her
shoulder, and she turned and looked straight at him. He gazed straight back, hoping for a smile or
at least an acknowledgement of his existence, if not a trace of affection, and
she said: “What?”
He
says he’s been looking for the answer to that question his whole life.
This
self-denigration gives him leeway to make fun of his tribe—that vast subset of
Americans from Ohio to Wyoming, Minnesota to Missouri. And they all seem to be Lutheran.
Keillor
insists that everyone in Minnesota is a Lutheran. The Catholics are Lutheran. So are the Baptists and Episcopalians. Even the atheists are Lutheran—“The God they
don’t believe in is Lutheran.”
He
grew up among Lutherans, even though he was a member of a tiny fundamentalist
sect—the Plymouth Brethren—they too were Lutherans in their behavior and
outlook. They lived extremely quiet,
bland, retiring, virtually ego-free lives, and though they were generous, it was
mostly to other “Lutherans” of their sect.
Their
closed society was a way of making sure every one stayed Lutheran. When someone strayed, they were quietly and
subtly shunned, made to feel there was something wrong with them. Lutherans passively and quietly exercise this
form of social control, and many of Keillor’s stories and novels concern
characters who broke free, who dared to dance and raise hell and smoke and
drink and have wild sex and even leave town to move to Florida and
California—only to return for visits—and leave as quickly as possible, sensing
they’re no longer welcome. A Minnesota
saying: “There’d be more suicides in
Minnesota if it weren’t for what the neighbors would think.”
He
jokes about the Lutheran shipwreck survivor who disappeared for twenty years,
then miraculously found on a tiny island. They pick him up, and he gladly
agrees to leave his lonely patch of land. As he’s getting into the rescue boat, they
notice a small hut with a chimney for his home, and another hut with a cross
over the door. And yet a third hut, unadorned, further back. “So that’s your home,” they notice, “and
there’s your church—what’s that other building back there.” “Ah, yah—that’s the church I used to go to.”
Lutheran
sects sprung up like weeds, constantly and everywhere, due to disagreements
over—well, anything and everything. That’s
Keillor’s oft-repeated assertion.
These
are the good citizens of Lake Wobegone—or rather, that portion of them that
really live and breathe the “Jante” laws of Scandinavia.
Norwegian\Danish
writer Aksel Sandemose wrote a novel, A
Fugitive Crosses His Tracks, published in 1936, in which he posits a small
Danish town, Jante, where everyone without fail follows ten rules.
These
“Jantelovian Commandments” have become a satirical indictment of the
Scandinavian ethos, best exemplified in GK by his Norwegian Bachelor Farmers:
1.
You're
not to think you are anything special.
2.
You're
not to think you are as good as we are.
3.
You're
not to think you are smarter than we are.
4.
You're
not to convince yourself that you are better than we are.
5.
You're
not to think you know more than we do.
6.
You're
not to think you are more important than we are.
7.
You're
not to think you are good at anything.
8.
You're
not to laugh at us.
9.
You're
not to think anyone cares about you.
10.
You're
not to think you can teach us anything.
Note
the 8th law: you’re not to
laugh at us. That’s the one that Keillor has broken from the very beginning,
and has asserted that he actively set out to alienate Lutherans by making fun
of them.
Keillor
knows that successful satirists must remain outsiders, and his ridicule of
Lutherans certainly helped that along. Incidentally, he does go to church—the
Episcopalian—having long ago given up on the Plymouth Brethren. He loves Episcopalian rituals and songs, he
says, though I doubt that he’s a genuine believer.
Now
here are samples of his writings, illustrating his satire and that Scandinavian
ethos:
FROM
LAKE WOEBEGONE DAYS: (p. 22) “I crossed Main Street toward Ralph’s and
stopped, hearing a sound from childhood in the distance. The faint mutter of ancient combines. Norwegian bachelor farmers combining in their
antique McCormacks, the old six-footers.
New combines cut a twenty-foot swath, but those guys aren’t interested
in getting done sooner, it would only mean a longer wait until bedtime.”
From
“Aprille”—a Lake Wobegone monologue:
“Spring
has come, grass is green, the trees are leafing out, birds arriving every day
by the busload, and now the Norwegian bachelor farmers are washing their
sheets.”
From
GOODBYE TO THE LAKE, monolog: Rain fell all morning and everyone was in a
festive mood, the Chatterbox was packed for dinner. A bunch of Norwegian bachelor farmers piled
into the back booth and had mushroom soup and liverwurst sandwiches. “Looks like this may keep up all day,” one
said. “Yeah, that’s what they’re sayin.”
If a drought were to kill off his crops, a bachelor farmer might be
forced to contemplate marriage, the last refuge for men unable to fend for
themselves, just as poor Mr. Hauge did in the drought of ’59. He married a Saint Cloud woman and died six
months later and not from excitement. To
them, rain means that life continues, and they cleared their throats like happy
lions, Braaagbbbbb.”
And
from LAKE WOEBEGONE DAYS this fuller description, beginning with Mr. Berge and
how he blew his nose:
Other
residents (of Lake Wobegone) come to mind as people who if you were showing a
friend from college around town and you saw them you would grab his arm and
make a hard U-turn, such as Mr. Berge, not because he might be drunk but
because whether drunk or sober he might blow his nose with his index finger the
old farmer way. Farmers still do this in
the field, though most of them know that town is a different situation, but not
Mr. Berge and his friends, the Norwegian bachelor farmers. Their only concession to town is a slight
duck of the head for modesty’s sake. To
them, the one-hand blow is in the same league with spitting, which they also do,
and scratching in the private regions.
They never learned the trick of reaching down deep in your pocket and
feeling around for a dime until you solve the problem. When ill at ease, such as when meeting a
friend, they are apt to do all three in quick succession, spit, blow, and
scratch—pthoo, snarf, ahhhh—no more self-conscious than a dog.
‘Tis better to apologize than to ask
permission,” says Clarence, arguing for greater boldness in life. The bachelor farmers, however, do
neither. On a warm day, six of them may
roost on the plank bench in front of Ralph’s, in peaceful defiance of
Lutheranism, chewing, spitting, snarfling, and p-thooing, until he chases them
away to the Sidetrack Tap (they’re bad advertising for a grocery store, the
heftiness of them seems to recommend a light diet) and then they may not
go. Mr. Munch may just spit on the
sidewalk, study it, and say, “I don’t see no sign says No Sitting.” “You get up, I’ll paint one for you,” says
Ralph. They may wait a long time before
they go.
“Tellwiddem,” says Mr. Fjerde,
“Tellwid all ovum,” says Mr. Munch.
The Norwegian Bachelor’s
password: Tellwitcha.
We are all crazy in their eyes. All the trouble we go to for nothing: ridiculous.
Louis emerging from his job at the bank, white shirt and blue bow tie,
shiny brown shoes, delicately stepping across the street for lunch: Dumb bastard.
. . .
.. . in their hearts, the bachelor
farmers are all sixteen years old.
Painfully shy, perpetually disgruntled, elderly teenagers leaning
against a
wall, watching the parade through the
eyes of the last honest men in America:
ridiculous. Clarence mentioned
this when I was eighteen and complaining about my father’s lawn
compulsions—grass is meant to get long, it’s part of nature, nature is
growth. “You should talk to the
Norwegian bachelors, you have a lot in common,” he said.
I said to myself: ridiculous.
That’s
Garrison Keillor: not only does he make
fun of the Scandinavian Jante ethos through Norwegian Bachelor Farmers, he’s
one of them.
At
bottom, all of Keillor’s monologues and much of his other prose seems to have
been written by the quintessential Norwegian Bachelor Farmer—a painfully shy (now elderly) teenager who out
of his own insecurities finds most everyone and everything just plain
ridiculous, and therefore worthy of ridicule.
Take
Clarence Bunson, who went to church without any cash. So he had to write a check to put in the
collection plate—you can’t leave church without leaving a donation—what would
the ushers think? But he wrote it for
$300 instead of what he intended--$30, so his dilemma became whether he could
go downstairs and ask the ushers for his check back.
Oh,
the humiliation, and oh, the necessity, since $300 was more than he had in his
account.
Finally,
a few of his poems, where he truly shines as a Minnesota’s bachelor farmer poet
laureate.
First, “Lutheranism Explained” LOCATION 1598
I
was raised in Iowa, went to St. Olaf, /Norwegian, I’m proud to say./ Thirty
years a member of Zion Lutheran,/ I’m there every Sunday. /Always sit in the
back of the church, /Always in the same pew. /I like the folks who sit back
there, /They’re Norwegian too. /We are a modest people /And we never make a
fuss /And it sure would be a better world/ If they were all as modest as us./
We sing the hymns, listen to the sermon, /Go up front and commune, /Drop in the
money, shake hands with the pastor /And we’re out by a quarter to noon.
/Episcopalians are proud of their faith, /You ought to hear them talk./ Who
they got? /They got Henry the 8th /And we got J. S. Bach. Henry the 8th’d marry
a woman/ And then her head would drop. /J. S. Bach had 23 kids /Cause his organ
had no stop. /We got a female associate pastor /And she’s nice, don’t get me
wrong,/ But the boots she wears are what I’d call sexy / And the skirt’s not
what I’d call long./ She’s single and she smiles a lot/ And she sure does like
her beer/ And I’ve been talking to some of the others /And we trust she’s gone
next year. /Here at Zion Lutheran Attendance seems to be down /And that’s
because most of the membership /Is six feet underground. /We don’t go for
long-term planning, /No need to look that far. /Luther said we’re saved by
grace/ So we’re good enough just as we are. /If you come to church, don’t
expect to be hugged, /Don’t expect your hand to be shook. /If we need to know
who the heck you are, /We can look in the visitors book. /I was raised to keep
a lid on it, /Guard what you say or do. /A Mighty Fortress is our God/ So He
must be Lutheran too.
Read
“Minnesota Rouser” LOCATION 993
Let
winter come and walk roughshod /With sleet and freezing rains. /We fear it not,
we trust in God /And jumper cables and tire chains. /We’re prepared for the
good fight, /We shall be cheerful though the blizzard blows. /Though it is ten
below, a long cold night, /We trust in coffee and warm clothes. /From
Worthington to Grand Marais, /From Lake Vermilion to Red Wing, /We thank God
for the coldest day/ And offer up our suffering. /From Bemidji to Anoka, /From
Rochester to Roseau, /Winter makes us finer folk, a- /Las we’re modest and
can’t say so.
And “Times Square” LOCATION 840
I
was born with an affliction, /A disposition or mood /Of silent introspection,
/A tendency to brood. /I brood about good people I knew/ In the bygone time
gone by/ & what I should’ve done & didn’t do /& won’t before I die.
/But I come to New York (boom boom)/ & the razzmatazz, hullabaloo &
jazz. /The guy with a snake wound around his chest /The anti-fur protest /A
street-corner preacher and the quack quack man/ Boys beating on a garbage can
/The river of taxis and the quiet roar /Of ambition. And I don’t feel sorry
anymore. /Henry Thoreau went to Walden Pond, /Sat at a table in a straightback
chair. /I’d rather be in Times Square /& look at that six-story blonde /On
the billboard wearing black underwear. /And a lady out of a fashion magazine /A
lady in black, her lips bright red /How did she ever get into those jeans /A
beautiful woman, so I’ll just drop dead /New York—(boom boom) when all is said
/ Is where I go to get out of my head.
Finally,
the summing up poem:
WHY
I LIVE IN MINNESOTA
Where
the temp gets down to thirty below
And
it’s perfectly flat, miles of snow,
And
you ask why I live in this desolate spot.
Why?
Because you do not.
You
in loud clothes
With
lacquered hair
And
monster pickups
And
not much upstairs,
Who
whoop in church
And
worship the Word,
For
whom evolution
Has
not yet occurred.
The
men shoot gators Out in the marsh, While the women stay home And hang up the
warsh.
It’s
all about rifles
And
the Second Comin’
And
wave the flag And down with Gummint
And
up with football
And
the G.O.P.
Now
what if those people Lived next door to me?
And
the only thing That keeps them away
Is
the fact it will hit Minus thirty today?
Winter’s
a challenge But it can be faced
When
you’re among people
With
brains and good taste.
Garrison
Keillor, the Norwegian bachelor farmer, feeling secretly superior, yet suffering
guilt about it, happy to be living in a state that so many want to leave—and
which he can happily leave whenever
he wants for his posh NYC Apartment--to find refuge from himself. An enigma indeed.
Yet
he always returns to making fun of Scandinavian Midwesterners who still delight
in his warm and gentle ridicule.
At
least someone’s paying attention to
them—and to him.
