He hates bagpipes, too. I say we kill him.
As Tweety says, he's joking, heebie. Not that I'm one to defend Keillor, whose obnoxious faux folksyness makes me crazy.
Here I am!
(waves)
Yoo hoo!
(jumps up and down)
LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME!
Can it be a joke if it isn't funny, though? I'm not sure I buy it.
Amusingly, I was in the middle of writing a comment about totally failing to get Keillor's "wry" "satire" at a previous moment when I instead decided to give up on that project and completely fail to get 5.
All these people with their "jokes" and "references" and "less than entirely literal prose" crap. Super confusing.
Dan Savage memorably failed to get Keillor's distinctly un-funny brand of holding-up-a-wry-and-mournfully-affectionate-mirror-fail a few years back. Keillor responded, saying that he was kidding, but not answering for his painfully unfunny mien.
I pretty much think Keillor's being genuine about what he intends to do, and think he pretty much fails at it two hours a day on radio stations around the country, but it should be said that Dan Savage remains unconvinced.
"two hours a day once a week", that is.
I could be convinced that he's kidding, because I don't think this is exactly his shtick, but what exactly is the clue that he's kidding?
They played APHC 4 times per weekend at my old NPR station. I hate that guy... Sounds like the cryptkeeper oughta.
12: you're supposed to know that Garrison Keillor is a good-hearted liberal guy who's only playin'. You're supposed to know that because you've listened to his show and read his columns and generally lapped up his obnoxious faux-folksiness (to coin a phrase) for thirty years. What, you don't listen to his terrible show?
Everything on NPR is really dull. I just keep hitting buttons until I get Lady GaGa or 80's songs.
to coin a phrase
At least you spelled it write.
I thought Garrison Keillor was a good-hearted liberal guy who was also an uprightly moral religious Christian. Like Robert Fulghum.
Although technically Robert Fulghum is a Unitarian, he did write a popular play about delightful Christmas traditions.
I don't get what the joke is supposed to be. All these people who who try to take the "Christ" out of "Christmas" are mockable? Is that it?
All these people who who try to take the "Christ" out of "Christmas" are mockable? Is that it?
Unitarians are filthy hippies who should be punched and denied healthcare reform.
I think the joke is that all these people who think these people who try to take the "Christ" out of "Christmas" are mockable are mockable. However, much like Garrison Keillor's political commentary, the fact that he has spent 25 years creating an image as both the most boring man alive and the most tradition-obsessed man alive makes it hard to see him as joking when he writes in the voice of a boring and tradition-obsessed person.
12: The clue for me was the I thought pretty well-know fact that "Christmas" is basically the Christian co-opting of pre-existing winter solstice celebrations.
19: (further to 22) The joke being that all these people bitching about the war on Christmas and Jesus is the Reason for the Season are woefully ignorant.
I can imagine a vaguely similar column whose joke is "Silly Christians, all your cherished traditions are actually stolen from someone else!" I assumed that this was his intent.
Unfortunately, a) the column doesn't really get that across very well, and b) it's not all that funny a joke anyway. Oh well.
This post is a transparent ruse intended to lure back B and Emerson.
25: See 3. Or don't. Whatever, man; it's all good.
OT: Would anybody like to talk about how annoying Frank Rich's column was yesterday or Ross Douthat's was today? This just in: many of the people on the Times op-ed page are annoying!
And yet people still read their words.
Garrison Keillor in his written voice can be pretty snotty, an angry guy. I tend to separate that voice from his Prairie Home Companion voice. There are two Keillors, and all that.
Not that I'm one to defend Keillor, whose obnoxious faux folksyness makes me crazy.
You know who makes me crazy? Sir Ian McKellen. Turns out, he's not actually a wizard.
He was just pretending.
32, 34, 35: Are you sure you don't have Ian McKellen confused with Michael Gambon? I'm pretty certain one of them was a real wizard.
It must be nice to get it "exactly right". Someday.
32:Not really a fascist either, although he has played one, well, if we count Magneto, more than 6 times.
Does Bob Hoskins sound exactly like the Geico gecko in everyday life, or was "The Long Good Friday" an atypical depiction of his daily routine?
I hate to tell you, ned, but the Geicko gecko is not really a lizard.
You know, the solstice might be even more worth celebrating if it were someone's birthday as well.
Going thru the credits, I count one more certain fascist, Hitler and Chauvelin from Pimpernel, who could count.
I note in 1970 McKellan played Edward II, Richard II, Keats, and Hamlet for British TV. This is the stuff my dreams are made of.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS (McQueen, not of Nazareth)!
I was actually thinking of Hu Jintao. But now that you mention it, it is my birthday, isn't it?
45: Does everyone in your family share birthdays with Asian heads of state?
Happy b-day, Hey-zeus. Did you do anything fun?
38 - Naw. Then you come to emotionally need it and Teo dicks around with your feelings.
OH GOD DOES THAT FEEL GOOD. YES! YES! OH YES!
46: Not quite, but my dad shared a birthday with Gorbachev and my mom with Mao, so there's that.
47: I was served breakfast in bed by my daughters, which was pretty nice, and we went to kids' concert featuring highlights from Messiah. So yeah, I suppose I did.
I just had dinner with Don Johnson's mother-in-law.
Garrison Keillor is just bitter he can't celebrate Chalica like all the cool Unitarians. Its our very own cross between Festivus and Kwanza!
You know who makes me crazy? Sir Ian McKellen. Turns out, he's not actually a wizard.
God that's a great bit. Everyone, go watch Extras.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43sbtkQM6zc
44 - Unitarians don't believe that the reason for the season is Jesus!!
well, if we count Magneto
This made me laugh.
Are you sure you don't have Ian McKellen confused with Michael Gambon?
You mean Michael Followthrough?
So apparently my mom has a student this year whose family didn't have enough money, in their estimation, for a decent Christmas this year, so they became Jehovah's Witnesses in mid-December.
28: I laughed this morning when I read Douthat's column. It was like he thought, BAM! gotcha! with his last lines. Whereas I thought, sure, that sounds about right.
we went to kids' concert featuring highlights from Messiah
Oh man I love it when they ditch all the stupid choruses and just have a countertenor doing the recitatives. Stupid kids got all the luck.
||
Hey wow, my webpage from 16 years ago is still archived for some reason. Boy, that background was pretty obnoxious of me.
|>
63 is awesome, in its own special sad way. You know what else is awesome? A yard display featuring Jesus killing Santa, that's what.
My Lord. That looks like one of those nasty stereo images that were all the rage back in the day.
66: Good Lord! I would like some info about your web design services, though. Does that email address still work?
I like some aspects of A Prairie Home Companion and I'm not afraid to admit it.
Thanks, everyone. But really, you have to love that yard display.
Even better than the rhubarb pie ads are the Mournful Oatmeal ads, but they don't seem to do those much anymore.
My MIL's love for APHC is yet another item on her indictment.
You all think Kellior was kidding? I'd read that as sincere pique at secular/Unitarian Christmas celebrations and traditions. I'd figure he'd defend it as not actually anti-Semitic/Unitarian on the grounds that he wouldn't mind Jews getting snippy about Unitarians throwing a God-free seder, or Unitarians getting hostile about anything particularly Unitarian. But I'd take Kellior's hostility straight.
66: You know, you've got a stray apostrophe in an 'it's' on that page. Might want to fix it before someone notices.
Unitarians getting hostile about anything particularly Unitarian
Such as?
81: I know the many typos by heart. It's not my fault, though; I only had nine years to correct them before I lost my ability to edit those pages.
82: Yeah, it kind of breaks down there. I'm not sure what a Unitarian would get defensively hostile about.
To be clear, I think Kellior's being an ass about this -- I'm just surprised people thought he was kidding.
(Also, I feel that I should admit that Buck is a huge PHC fan, and we in fact went to see it live only last month. Everyone's allowed to have quirks. The musical guests were surprisingly interesting -- a band called Punch Brothers.)
So I finally read the entire column, and I can report that I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about at any point in the piece. Is he usually so incomprehensible? Does he write drunk? Has the dread specter of early-onset alzheimers reared its head?
Dude did have a stroke recently. He seemed coherent on stage last month, but maybe he has good days and bad?
It struck me as sort of kidding-on-the-square -- poking fun at the views he's expressing as Christian ones but ultimately affirming them.
Except the bit about "lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls" seems too over-the-top for that interpretation, because it's either a genuine sentiment (in which case, ugh) or else really discredits the underlying viewpoint.
So I dunno.
Yeah, recent mild stroke, but he's written like this since forever. I think the tone he's trying to go for is drier than dry, but it really doesn't work, I think in part because he's mixing in things that he's actually sincere about with the fake pretendy ones.
I think the "all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year" is supposed to be the tell that he's joking, since obviously he knows that some of the best chistmas music was written by Jews. But unless your him or predisposed to read his intentions in, that's not really obvious.
but it really doesn't work, I think in part because
...he has always been painfully unfunny.
Another part of the problem is that when he is talking, his inflection is painfully gentle. When he is writing, he doesn't seem to realize that it won't be delivered in his own personal tone of voice, and so the content is probably more biting than he realizes.
I did not see 92 when I said painfully. Painfully painfully painful.
I did find his takedown of BHL pretty funny.
British Hockey League? Baby Hawaiian Lunch?
BLACKROCK DFND OP CR?
Biodiversity Heritage Library?
88: Again, I think Sifu might be right. The excerpt quoted in the OP read like straightforward satire. But in the context of the column as a whole? I have no ideea what he's on about.
joking, since obviously he knows that some of the best chistmas music was written by Jews
I don't think that was meant as proof he was kidding. If you complaining about secular Christmas music, "written by Jews" is a coherent way of referring to it. Kind of awful, but coherent.
Keillor is the Axl Rose of potluck dinners: focused, yet diffuse.
98: Wow, that's great, and a much better and pithier version of the Klosterman essay from TAL, where he muses on German misperceptions of America and how easy it is to come up with a false insta-ethnography based on any given traveller's Oberservations and Insights.
Keillor is the Axl Rose of potluck dinners
See, this is just wrong. You've totally misunderstood both his intent and his execution. He's obviously the Angus Young of potluck dinners. Sheesh.
100: Right, but I think he thinks we're supposed to infer from his show, where he sings the secular Christmas stuff every year, that he thinks it's pretty great.
28: I dunno, Douthat's column just struck me as kind of hilarious. It's so much more harmless and less hateful than the other stuff I've seen from him.
I mean, seriously, this:
The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response.
I'm cracking up.
I also read Keillor as being an ass, LB. Between that, the column Dan Savage objected to, and the yucky way he wrote about women in the one book of his I read (and the fact that I never listen to the radio at all), I'm done with Keillor.
It wouldn't surprise me if we were also supposed to infer that he finds "Silent Night" kind of dire, and Cambridge a perfectly pleasant city to visit.
He's obviously the Angus Young of potluck dinners. Sheesh.
Says the Dahlia Lithwick of gene-sequencing. As if.
the Dahlia Lithwick of gene-sequencing
How could I not have seen this before?
It's obvious once someone points it out.
I also don't get what's particularly annoying about Douthat's column.
Standpipe-Bernard Plévy?
I prefer to think of myself as the Bernard-Henri Lévy of appliance repair.
Small appliance repair. That poseur Claude Levi-Strauss has captured the refrigerator market.
The BHL review really is brilliant; I would note that it's not - even a little - in his APHC voice. It's a clever, but straightforward, piece of writing by a smart person.
I'm too, too fascinated by Douthat's photo, in which his skin has been buffed to babylike smoothness.
I don't enjoy listening to Keillor at all, but I have to admit that I was moved by his print obituary for JFK Jr. I remember it as being overtly emotional, but also sufficiently earnest that I simply liked it. At the time it was a surprise because I didn't think I had any feelings at all about JFK Jr. other than a general sadness and pity.
No buffing involved; the man just moisturizes religiously.
No buffing involved; the man just moisturizes religiously.
What an odd extended metaphor for masturbation.
PHC is one of my semi-guilty pleasures. I love the guys' voice, and at its best "News from Lake Wobegon" is a rather spectacular high-wire act, with perfect emotional pitch and narrative tension within a familiar form. It's not often at its best these days; it seems that doing the same shtick for decades has lulled Keillor into a pit of self-referentiality whence little light can escape.
pit of self-referentiality whence little light can escape
Totes mouseover.
Woulda been megatotes if I'd quoted the leading "a".
I agree with 21 as well. Playing the character of a boring and tradition-obsessed person is fine - after all, that's Stephen Colbert - but doing it for 25 years primarily on NPR approaches criminal stupidity. At best, the performance itself becomes boring. At best.
I did like the takedown of BHL, though.
I'm too, too fascinated by Douthat's photo, in which his skin has been buffed to babylike smoothness.
I have a friend who has recently become a nearly obsessive amateur photographer and he does lots of portraits of friends, colleagues, random people on the street. And then he tweaks everything on the computer to soften fine lines, etc. And then he shows me the before and afters -- though, when he shares them with the subjects, he doesn't tell them they got retouched. It's really amazing how much difference a few quick tweaks can make.
Playing the character of a boring and tradition-obsessed person is fine - after all, that's Stephen Colbert
Not hardly.
It's really amazing how much difference a few quick tweaks can make.
Yep. I've mentioned our pro-photographer family friend before. I have no idea what he does, but generally pictures of myself make me want to hide my head and weep. Pictures from this guy, OTOH, don't seem fraudulently flattering, but they look like what I think I look like, rather than like what other mean cruel cameras think I look like.
If you skip over the movie tie-in and start reading at "As usual, Alexis de Tocqueville saw it coming", Douthat's column reads like a thoughtful meditation on modern religion.
Come to think of it, I've heard various Unitarians sing Silent Night probably about 100 times, and I don't once recall anyone changing the words.
66 is making me laugh and laugh. Tweety, my teenage self thanks you, and feels startlingly fashionable in comparison.
I've never once heard of Unitarians anal-probing anyone, not without their consent. He just made that up.
I'm too, too fascinated by Douthat's photo, in which his skin has been buffed to babylike chubby Reese Witherspoon-esque smoothness.
133: Are you kidding? Forced anal-probing is a key element of any Unitarian service; it comes between the Chalice Lighting, and the Sharing of Joys and Concerns.
Regarding his photo, I long for a cinematic release in which Douthat is played by Ricky Gervais. Or vice versa. Or both.
I like how "joy" is an option post-probe, as well as "concern".
British Hockey League? Baby Hawaiian Lunch?
Barack Hussein L'Obama
Keillor is the Axl Rose of potluck dinners
Was it here that someone posted an anecdote about attending a big family Thanksgiving dinner, and one of their cousins brought her boyfriend, who was Axl Rose?
Says the Dahlia Lithwick of gene-sequencing.
Really he's more the Gene Simmons of dahlia licking.
LOVE IS THE SPIRIT OF THIS CHURCH
THE QUEST FOR TRUTH IS ITS SACRAMENT
AND SERVICE IS ITS PRAYER.
TO DWELL TOGETHER IN PEACE
TO SEEK KNOWLEDGE IN FREEDOM
TO SERVE HUMANITY IN FELLOWSHIP
THAT ALL MAY GROW IN HARMONY WITH THE GOOD.
THUS DO WE COVENANT WITH ONE ANOTHER.
I think we're at the emotional peak of the movie. All the secrets are out, everyone is realizing who they actually love, and everyone is roundly miserable.
OR, YOU KNOW, WHATEVER WORKS FOR YOU.
and everyone is roundly miserable
What love is all about...
['Emerson ran with this schtick better.']
"Rise up, O flame," iykwim.
This reminds me of my favorite Unitarian joke:
Did you hear about the Unitarian wing of the KKK? They burn question marks in people's front yards.
The version I heard was how do you run a Unitarian family out of the neighborhood? Burn a question mark on their lawn.
OKAY, ALL THAT IS NEGOTIABLE, BUT IF YOU START QUESTIONING THE INHERENT WORTH AND DIGNITY OF EVERY HUMAN BEING, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE WORDS.
How do Unitarians start their prayers? "To whom it may concern..."
Did you hear the one about the wishy-washy Unitarian?
What did the Unitarian say to the hot dog vendor?
A: "I'd like a hot dog, please."
The one about the Unitarian funeral is too old even for me.
Orthodoxy is normal to the Unitarian.
I believe the unitarian church recognizes both ortho and hetero doxies.
I don't think you all appreciate the full genius of my pun.
Try subbing "tangent" for "normal" and see what you get.
I'll me over here, admiring myself.
I'll me? ME? I think someone mistyped.
Actually, I don't think I do.
Oh, I guess I do. I was hesitant only because I wasn't sure if there was more to it.
166: Yeah, 'me' s/b 'Standpipeself'.
"I'll myself over here, admiring myself"?
I don't think you appreciate the full genius of my substitution.
I was hesitant only because I wasn't sure if there was more to it.
The "Is it in?" of the hyper-educated.
I'm taking this thing all the way to 174.
Myself'll me over here, adstanding pipeself.
Stand'll pipe'll over me, ing my meself.
I liked 155, though I'm not sure "Orthodoxy" and "Unitarian" works better than a wide class of other possible "X is normal to Y" jokes.
The "Is it in?" of the hyper-educated.
I don't think you appreciate the full genius of my erection.
179: It does have the advantage that "Unitarian" can be decomposed into the vectorlike "unit"+"arian".
And then there's the synergy of "ortho" and "normal"!
It is my honor here.
Currently, praise him.
I stand completely thanks to the talent.
I'm not sure "Orthodoxy" and "Unitarian" works better than a wide class of other possible "X is normal to Y" jokes.
It does, for two reasons. First, the relation between "ortho" and "normal" does not obtain for a wide class of other possible X. Second, there are not many heresies to which you can prefix "unit" and get another Christian denomination, while at the same time suggesting a geometric figure to which things are often found normal (or tangent).
That's what I get for pausing to appreciate Neb's erection.
This is one of two reasons. In many cases, at the same time, the second "link" and "normal" heresies, 1 major one or two X - In other cases, the line, Purefikkusuoruto first class, "Christian Single 1,111,111,111,122 (or ) after the bill is人我people "are allowed to gain the trust of the general geometric tangent.
Ha, there was something more to it! I had forgotten about Arianism.
I told you I didn't appreciate the full genius of your pun!
People must not be allowed to gain the trust of the general geometrical tangent!
I feel like this entire thread had only touched the original post at a single point.
I told you I didn't appreciate the full genius of your pun!
That's very gratifying. I'll be over here, gratifying myself.
Differently-believing is a rubric under which to find dimensionless wrong confessions.
184 helps a great deal, but doesn't it belong on your other blog?
Your tannins are so supple, essear. Like cheese.
As long as it's here it strikes me as somewhat insensitive to discuss where it belongs.
193 s/b "Dimensionless wrong confessions believe differently."
133: What is your story? Unitarian service between Raidakarisu problem is to provide a lighting element is to share the joy of the importance of the anal probe.
(Also, it is a big fan of the back of the Primary Health Care, I was actually last month, all habits, they are watching live. This is a great interesting music - Bandopanchiburazazu In addition, recognition Today, I feel the need.)
I've been neglecting my role here lately.
My Mom has an old friend who is a very active Unitarian. She is married to a now retired UU minister. You can not talk to him without hearing a comment about how every single important historical event in Western history featured Unitarians prominently. It's annoying unless you laugh at it.
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Nothing worse than a holier-than-thou Unitarian....
53:
"but my dad shared a birthday with Gorbachev and my mom with Mao"
Though consistent with his ideology, it's still surprisingly progressive of Mao to go in for polyandry.
I think Keillor is trying to be sort of wry but not actually kidding. His relationship with religion is strange and ambiguous. While his act is full of references to Lutheranism, he was actually raised Plymouth Brethren, a fundamentalist sect, and later became a Lutheran and then an Episcopalian. He often talks about his doubts concerning God, but for all his church-switching, he also seems to regard religion as a crucial tribal marker and aesthetically dislikes the idea of stuff from different religions mixing. On multiple occasions he's stated that he thinks it's a bad idea for atheists to marry Christians, and he seems to genuinely dislike self-identified atheists, even though some atheists would probably say that Keillor is one at least part of the time.