Let's get together, people, what do you say?

The Column: 08.23.24

It was rousing, even riveting, to watch the glorious art of public speaking come bursting out alive at the Democratic convention in Chicago, never mind your political persuasion — to hear the English language crackle like fireworks in the cadence of great gospel preaching — and here in the age of social media, influencers, memes, to see one speaker after another light a fire under that enormous crowd and bring them to their feet, roaring, arms upraised. Churchill would’ve been cheering, Teddy Roosevelt raising a ruckus, William Jennings Bryan shouting Bravo.

The Democrats could’ve called off the convention; they’d already phoned in the roll call and given Kamala the nomination. But this one was worth the trouble.

Nobody could ever claim that AI pieced this big sweaty raucous circus together from old Bears and White Sox clips, it was by God real, the two nominees, the two ex-presidents, and the one who stole the show, Michelle Obama. You had to get tears in your eyes to see the close-ups of Black women, the pride gleaming in their faces when she lit into Trump: “Most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth. … If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top. No.” And then came the punchline, snatching up Trump’s line that illegal immigrants are taking “Black jobs”: “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?” The roar that followed was like a hurricane.

Millions of Americans adore Donald Trump for his outrageousness, the man is without precedent in history, and his people love seeing him wing it for an hour or more, riffing on the Deep State, the stolen election, the flood of crazy criminals flowing across our borders and the elitists destroying the country, an hourlong rant that drives fact-checkers crazy, but the man can’t tell a joke to save his life and he never came up with whiplash punchlines like the escalator on the mountain and the affirmative action of generational wealth. Those are classics, they’ll live on YouTube forever.

Michelle, where have you been all these years? Thanks for coming to the party. Don’t stay away too long. We need you.

I’m an old man and I worry about our kids sitting in isolation in front of a screen wandering in the underground caverns of the internet. I believe in big public events. I go to downtown Minneapolis and am stunned by the loneliness everywhere. Thank goodness for the Minnesota State Fair, ten days during which you can wander through Horticulture, the Hippodrome, Home Activities and the hog barn and get up-close encounters with Minnesotans.

I keep a clear memory of the Beach Boys playing the Fair ages ago and ten thousand Minnesotans entranced by surfer songs about good vibrations and excitations, the high male harmonies and images of ocean waves as we stood under the prairie sky and caught a whiff of the cattle barn nearby. You had to be there.

I remember standing in a crowd of five thousand who came to hear Robert Frost after he’d recited a poem at the Kennedy inauguration in 1961, and there he was onstage at the U of M, bushy white hair, looking out at us and speaking from memory, “Whose woods these are I think I know, his house is in the village though; he will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow.” At the end, he exited down the aisle where I stood and passed within three feet of me. I could’ve touched him. I still sort of think I can.

It’s beautiful to reach the age of 82 and remember those crowds I’ve been in. An enormous tabernacle at the Methodist camp in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, and thousands of people singing “It Is Well with My Soul.” The Grateful Dead playing a ballpark in St. Paul, Midwestern hippies singing along on “Brokedown Palace.” I don’t claim to be an opera aficionado but I remember “A View from the Bridge” and “Der Rosenkavalier” at the Met when the audience was utterly enthralled and me too.

I’m writing this in a New York apartment but it makes me think maybe I should fly out to St. Paul and walk into the Dairy Building and look at the sheep while I’m at it and stand in line for the Skyride. I’m sitting here looking at a screen; I need to get out and mingle with humanity.

Join us in celebrating the 50th anniversary of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. The anniversary show is headed soon to Moorehead, MN; Minot, ND; and Atlanta, GA!

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