Wonderful posts and responses as always, but I had to re-read the commentary on the renaming of towns and the removal of statues. The horrors of parts of our past have been made more transparent in the past five years than anytime since the 19th century, as has our atonement. But a caution. At what point does the practice begin to make less sense to many but stir up great, unquenchable passions in the few?
Perhaps this is not on the level of Stalin famously erasing Trotsky from a group photo when Trotsky had run afoul of ideology, but if anyone visits Town Hall in Manhattan (where my family was blessed to see PHC and GK half a dozen times) you will be pained to realize that all photographs and references to Mr. Keillor that once adorned the famed Upper Lobby Walls of Performers Past have been eliminated. Gone. The tidy work of a movement that may be losing steam but got what it wanted. The transgressions of some indicted performers hardly ascends to the level of "evil-doers," but receiving the same treatment as a dissident Marxist in the USSR says a lot about the American version of erasing history.
You are so right, Brigattista. I’m afraid GK is being a little too cavalier about the actions and consequences involved in revisiting and correcting history with every cultural or political shift in the wind that comes along. One can’t just say “not my problem” and assume that eliminates the problem.
We, the people—people of whatever time or place or era—created or named monuments to recognize other people for what they achieved during their lifetimes. We honored people who made great art or wrote great literature, people who led revolutions or fought for major social change, people who created new nations. It only leads to chaos and confusion if we later reexamine the lives of everyone we once honored and decide that they must now be erased because their methods or practices, whether known or merely suspected by a few, don’t sit well with new progressivism or correctness.
Everything we once believed about our heroes should not have to be erased because of changing sexual mores, newly fashionable political thinking, or even new laws that came along many years after their times. Using modern sexually puritan standards or DEI policies, we have already erased much of our history. If we don’t stop the madness, I am afraid we will be forced to eliminate many additional heroes, people like Martin Luther King and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Washington and Jefferson, and the once admired John F. Kennedy.
When I get to be eighty, like GK, perhaps I'll choose the path of least consequence as well. People who work in the public glare have to navigate far more dangers than I, but all of these changes you describe so well are ultimately the products of coercion, and in the case of destroying our public heritage, the tactics of mobs. Anyone who sounds the alarm is immediately tossed into the Fox-News junkie bin, or a J6 sympathizer. I for one miss that statue of Lincoln in Park Square in Boston, and it pained me to see my old neighborhood in DC, Lincoln Park ironically, fenced off with chain link, because a civic culture that has become so unsure of itself allowed a mob to make decisions for everyone else. In a democracy. Ironic how those who currently proclaim they are defending democracy seemed horribly shy at the time they were most needed to actually defend democracy.
It's all such a shame, and yet I write this with a pseudonym because in the town I reside, Montclair, NJ, it's still socially unacceptable to tell the truth, and I have a business to run. God forbid word gets out.
When I get to be eighty (I'm sixty-five now) there's no telling what this will all look like, but GK's soothing words to let it all pass might not be remembered well if they're remembered at all. That's probably putting too much on a folk hero, and I probably wouldn't be up to the task myself if I had so much to lose. Would the alternative have been never to have published that post from the man from Athens, Georgia?
I'm sure no one here has tossed you into the "Fox-News junkie bin," although your own comments have disparaged outlets you assume others watch and read, as well as the "wherewithal" of "most" subscribers to this Substack. If you've been taken for a January 6th sympathizer, it's because you've minimized the attack on the U.S. Capitol in your comments, just as you've said you're unaware of the Big Lie. (It's a little ironic that you nevertheless write "See you at the ballot box.") You've suggested that if anyone challenges your comments here (which all seem to be on this topic), authoritarianism is threatening your free speech from behind your screen. That's wrong. Those who comment here are individuals, not the government. Similarly, if Garrison Keillor reads this comment, deletes it and forever bans me from his Substack, that wouldn't have anything to do with my constitutional right to free speech, either. I would be free to continue to urge people from Montclair, NJ to Montclair, CA to stand against the ruthless authoritarianism that has hijacked the former GOP.
The statue of Lincoln was removed from Park Square in Boston and placed in storage for now because it includes a statue of a Black man kneeling at Lincoln's feet. It was deemed an inappropriate image for a public park. Also, many monuments to the Confederacy were erected during the Jim Crow era. We can agree or disagree with decisions on these monuments, but we don't have to discard our democracy over them.
When I said "Not my problem," I'm simply saying that the world belongs to the young. I'm in Minneapolis today where young Democrats have driven Republicans and moderate Democrats out of power and they will remake the city as they wish. I'm a back issue and I am enjoying that fact. I love writing more than ever, knowing that it doesn't matter. GK
Pardon me if I’m skeptical that anyone is happy with “knowing [one’s opinion] doesn’t matter.” And I don’t think you can age out of caring what happens politically. I am an 88 year old woman, and I have yet to throw up my hands and mentally sigh, “what’s the use.” Until my last breath, I will be ranting about this or that issue even as I’m pretty sure nobody gives a rat’s ass about my opinion. As for the issue of “cancel culture”—that’s not what I call it—I am not joining the GOP or Fox News or the MAGA gang on that one. I’m still and always will be as liberal as ever. It’s just that I define liberal by its historical meaning, not the newest politically correct version.
My problem with the new progressivism is its conviction that it is absolutely right and everything else, everyone else, is dead wrong. Which is my problem with the brave new world of the young. They are quite ready, thank you very much, to toss everything that was created before they were born on the scrap heap of history and run the universe with their own version of authoritarianism. They seem to want a world where using the wrong pronouns or not adhering to the latest fashion in exclusionary vocabulary or inadvertently disrespecting any nearby person of a different race or of the female persuasion are the worst crimes imaginable and are legitimate justification for firing or “cancelling.” I ask only that we proceed with caution and common sense in case there’s a baby in the bathwater.
I say this with all the love in the world for Garrison Keillor and for A Prairie Home Companion, which brought us a very common sense world every week for so many years.
Indeed, the situation at Town Hall is not "on the level of Stalin famously erasing Trotsky from a group photo when Trotsky had run afoul of ideology." Town Hall isn't our democratic government, much less an autocratic head of state. Also, Mr. Keillor performed at Town Hall just six months ago. I and many others enjoyed his show immensely. Certain unscrupulous and even criminal politicians rant and carry on about "cancel culture" to drum up votes. They are often the same ones who announce in advance that any election they lose will have been rigged—and who don't back down after losing. They are also rapidly banning books and threatening people's rights. Tidy work of a movement that may be losing steam indeed!
My interest in having my picture posted in the lobby of Town Hall is less than my interest in what color socks I'll wear tomorrow. I wear red socks, have for years. Not a problem.
I came to New York for the first time when I was 8 and remember riding down Fifth Avenue in a taxi with the roof open and seeing the Empire State Building...what a thrill!
Like you, I was Brought Up Right, (although in my case, I’ll admit that it may sometimes be less obvious) but since you directly asked for an explanation to the second joke, well, let’s just say that just as the first joke implies that all violinists are “[Note 1]s”, similarly the second joke implies that all conductors are “[Note 2]s”.
[Note 1] “A rear-facing anatomical structure of the lower abdomen shared by both men and women.”
[Note 2] “A front-facing anatomical structure of the lower abdomen shared only by men.”
Or, as I’m sure you know, as it says in Acts 26:14 (KJV) “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks”.
This from Matt in today's Post to the Host: "Dad will not be here much longer, a few days at the most. He made it well past the four score and ten that you say we are allotted, so his death is not tragic, but it is sad and momentous. "
Four score plus ten would be 90. I'm thinking the allotted is three score and ten.
GK, I first heard PHC on MPR in 1978. I had moved to Coon Rapids, MN that year and your uncle Lawrence Keillor gave me a free checking account. I spent the first 23 years of my life in ND(18 to 23 at NDSU in Fargo. My wife(from Iowa) married me in the Philippines in 1985 when we were each 34 years old. She says from time to time that she had married a Norwegian bachelor farmer; though I am German/Czech and my dad owned the Dairy Queen. One of the many exports from my part of the Red River valley was the Rohs family. The youngest was a starting forward on the 1981 Anoka boys basketball state champions and mom Zona was an outstanding science teacher at Anoka high. Steve Nelson was a little all-american linebacker at NDSU from Anoka while I was there. He was a linebacker on the Patriots when they got destroyed by the Bears in the 1985 Super bowl. Our son Will graduated from the Kings College in the Empire State building in 2011. He now teaches at a Christian school in Rwanda. Thanks for your insights into life in the northern Great Plains.
I remember getting lost in Harlem as a wandering tike while visiting the firefighters in Engine 59 Ladder 30 aka "The Harlem Zoo" during the eighties. My dad was NYFD. Manhattan is a frenetic place to visit. Swenson's was an ice creamery and Jackson Hole was the home of 12 oz burgers. I even attended Central Park Summerstage while the Finn Brothers performed "Don't Dream It's Over".
I've been extremely lucky in fact over the decades winning sweepstakes like the one in Bryant Park to witness Squeeze, the '80s new wave British ensemble. Yes New York is only a stone's throw from my residence on the PIP. It's up to you NY. Go Yankees.
I will leave the illumination of the violinist joke to others, and merely mention it's an example of the hilarity we find in body parts and how we invoke them to make points. How we evolved this useage I don't quite get, other than to imagine it's an approach which returns us to our early youth and the rush of snippets of 'naughty' and 'rude.' What fun?
As to feeling completely anonymous, I am glad you feel it at times, and enjoy it. I do want to crow a bit, for those of us who recognize you and choose to leave you alone, rather than force you to somehow enjoy our great fortune at having encountered you. Celebrity must be tough, and if I can 'gift' you with one less self-centered interruption, that works for me.
Wonderful posts and responses as always, but I had to re-read the commentary on the renaming of towns and the removal of statues. The horrors of parts of our past have been made more transparent in the past five years than anytime since the 19th century, as has our atonement. But a caution. At what point does the practice begin to make less sense to many but stir up great, unquenchable passions in the few?
Perhaps this is not on the level of Stalin famously erasing Trotsky from a group photo when Trotsky had run afoul of ideology, but if anyone visits Town Hall in Manhattan (where my family was blessed to see PHC and GK half a dozen times) you will be pained to realize that all photographs and references to Mr. Keillor that once adorned the famed Upper Lobby Walls of Performers Past have been eliminated. Gone. The tidy work of a movement that may be losing steam but got what it wanted. The transgressions of some indicted performers hardly ascends to the level of "evil-doers," but receiving the same treatment as a dissident Marxist in the USSR says a lot about the American version of erasing history.
I agree!
You are so right, Brigattista. I’m afraid GK is being a little too cavalier about the actions and consequences involved in revisiting and correcting history with every cultural or political shift in the wind that comes along. One can’t just say “not my problem” and assume that eliminates the problem.
We, the people—people of whatever time or place or era—created or named monuments to recognize other people for what they achieved during their lifetimes. We honored people who made great art or wrote great literature, people who led revolutions or fought for major social change, people who created new nations. It only leads to chaos and confusion if we later reexamine the lives of everyone we once honored and decide that they must now be erased because their methods or practices, whether known or merely suspected by a few, don’t sit well with new progressivism or correctness.
Everything we once believed about our heroes should not have to be erased because of changing sexual mores, newly fashionable political thinking, or even new laws that came along many years after their times. Using modern sexually puritan standards or DEI policies, we have already erased much of our history. If we don’t stop the madness, I am afraid we will be forced to eliminate many additional heroes, people like Martin Luther King and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Washington and Jefferson, and the once admired John F. Kennedy.
When I get to be eighty, like GK, perhaps I'll choose the path of least consequence as well. People who work in the public glare have to navigate far more dangers than I, but all of these changes you describe so well are ultimately the products of coercion, and in the case of destroying our public heritage, the tactics of mobs. Anyone who sounds the alarm is immediately tossed into the Fox-News junkie bin, or a J6 sympathizer. I for one miss that statue of Lincoln in Park Square in Boston, and it pained me to see my old neighborhood in DC, Lincoln Park ironically, fenced off with chain link, because a civic culture that has become so unsure of itself allowed a mob to make decisions for everyone else. In a democracy. Ironic how those who currently proclaim they are defending democracy seemed horribly shy at the time they were most needed to actually defend democracy.
It's all such a shame, and yet I write this with a pseudonym because in the town I reside, Montclair, NJ, it's still socially unacceptable to tell the truth, and I have a business to run. God forbid word gets out.
When I get to be eighty (I'm sixty-five now) there's no telling what this will all look like, but GK's soothing words to let it all pass might not be remembered well if they're remembered at all. That's probably putting too much on a folk hero, and I probably wouldn't be up to the task myself if I had so much to lose. Would the alternative have been never to have published that post from the man from Athens, Georgia?
God bless you, Pseudonym, and remember: the best revenge is to love your life and have a good time.
I'm sure no one here has tossed you into the "Fox-News junkie bin," although your own comments have disparaged outlets you assume others watch and read, as well as the "wherewithal" of "most" subscribers to this Substack. If you've been taken for a January 6th sympathizer, it's because you've minimized the attack on the U.S. Capitol in your comments, just as you've said you're unaware of the Big Lie. (It's a little ironic that you nevertheless write "See you at the ballot box.") You've suggested that if anyone challenges your comments here (which all seem to be on this topic), authoritarianism is threatening your free speech from behind your screen. That's wrong. Those who comment here are individuals, not the government. Similarly, if Garrison Keillor reads this comment, deletes it and forever bans me from his Substack, that wouldn't have anything to do with my constitutional right to free speech, either. I would be free to continue to urge people from Montclair, NJ to Montclair, CA to stand against the ruthless authoritarianism that has hijacked the former GOP.
The statue of Lincoln was removed from Park Square in Boston and placed in storage for now because it includes a statue of a Black man kneeling at Lincoln's feet. It was deemed an inappropriate image for a public park. Also, many monuments to the Confederacy were erected during the Jim Crow era. We can agree or disagree with decisions on these monuments, but we don't have to discard our democracy over them.
When I said "Not my problem," I'm simply saying that the world belongs to the young. I'm in Minneapolis today where young Democrats have driven Republicans and moderate Democrats out of power and they will remake the city as they wish. I'm a back issue and I am enjoying that fact. I love writing more than ever, knowing that it doesn't matter. GK
"Back issue" is a wonderful phrase. And no, we don't think you're quite there yet.
Pardon me if I’m skeptical that anyone is happy with “knowing [one’s opinion] doesn’t matter.” And I don’t think you can age out of caring what happens politically. I am an 88 year old woman, and I have yet to throw up my hands and mentally sigh, “what’s the use.” Until my last breath, I will be ranting about this or that issue even as I’m pretty sure nobody gives a rat’s ass about my opinion. As for the issue of “cancel culture”—that’s not what I call it—I am not joining the GOP or Fox News or the MAGA gang on that one. I’m still and always will be as liberal as ever. It’s just that I define liberal by its historical meaning, not the newest politically correct version.
My problem with the new progressivism is its conviction that it is absolutely right and everything else, everyone else, is dead wrong. Which is my problem with the brave new world of the young. They are quite ready, thank you very much, to toss everything that was created before they were born on the scrap heap of history and run the universe with their own version of authoritarianism. They seem to want a world where using the wrong pronouns or not adhering to the latest fashion in exclusionary vocabulary or inadvertently disrespecting any nearby person of a different race or of the female persuasion are the worst crimes imaginable and are legitimate justification for firing or “cancelling.” I ask only that we proceed with caution and common sense in case there’s a baby in the bathwater.
I say this with all the love in the world for Garrison Keillor and for A Prairie Home Companion, which brought us a very common sense world every week for so many years.
Indeed, the situation at Town Hall is not "on the level of Stalin famously erasing Trotsky from a group photo when Trotsky had run afoul of ideology." Town Hall isn't our democratic government, much less an autocratic head of state. Also, Mr. Keillor performed at Town Hall just six months ago. I and many others enjoyed his show immensely. Certain unscrupulous and even criminal politicians rant and carry on about "cancel culture" to drum up votes. They are often the same ones who announce in advance that any election they lose will have been rigged—and who don't back down after losing. They are also rapidly banning books and threatening people's rights. Tidy work of a movement that may be losing steam indeed!
Oh, Dana, you're back.
I never left.
My interest in having my picture posted in the lobby of Town Hall is less than my interest in what color socks I'll wear tomorrow. I wear red socks, have for years. Not a problem.
I came to New York for the first time when I was 8 and remember riding down Fifth Avenue in a taxi with the roof open and seeing the Empire State Building...what a thrill!
Good morning, Garrison
Concerning the musician jokes:
Like you, I was Brought Up Right, (although in my case, I’ll admit that it may sometimes be less obvious) but since you directly asked for an explanation to the second joke, well, let’s just say that just as the first joke implies that all violinists are “[Note 1]s”, similarly the second joke implies that all conductors are “[Note 2]s”.
[Note 1] “A rear-facing anatomical structure of the lower abdomen shared by both men and women.”
[Note 2] “A front-facing anatomical structure of the lower abdomen shared only by men.”
Or, as I’m sure you know, as it says in Acts 26:14 (KJV) “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks”.
Your sonnet today brought tears to my eyes. Thank you
This from Matt in today's Post to the Host: "Dad will not be here much longer, a few days at the most. He made it well past the four score and ten that you say we are allotted, so his death is not tragic, but it is sad and momentous. "
Four score plus ten would be 90. I'm thinking the allotted is three score and ten.
Re Jeffrey Solow (turtleneck hiding conductor's foreskin)....head about the neck is a couple of hairy testicles? Just thinkin
GK,
Your "having a nice day". I am too!
Why does the female violin player laugh at an old man farting? She was expecting "Sonata No. 2 D minor".
Richard
Violist #1: “What is your favorite piece by Beethoven?”
Violist #2: “I like that one that begins with a trill.”
Violist #3: “Oh yeah, I like Für Elise, too.”
GK, I first heard PHC on MPR in 1978. I had moved to Coon Rapids, MN that year and your uncle Lawrence Keillor gave me a free checking account. I spent the first 23 years of my life in ND(18 to 23 at NDSU in Fargo. My wife(from Iowa) married me in the Philippines in 1985 when we were each 34 years old. She says from time to time that she had married a Norwegian bachelor farmer; though I am German/Czech and my dad owned the Dairy Queen. One of the many exports from my part of the Red River valley was the Rohs family. The youngest was a starting forward on the 1981 Anoka boys basketball state champions and mom Zona was an outstanding science teacher at Anoka high. Steve Nelson was a little all-american linebacker at NDSU from Anoka while I was there. He was a linebacker on the Patriots when they got destroyed by the Bears in the 1985 Super bowl. Our son Will graduated from the Kings College in the Empire State building in 2011. He now teaches at a Christian school in Rwanda. Thanks for your insights into life in the northern Great Plains.
Steve Nelson was the son of Stan, my old gym coach who made me do the rope climb and chinups.
Dear Mr. Blue... sounds like a good book title!
I remember getting lost in Harlem as a wandering tike while visiting the firefighters in Engine 59 Ladder 30 aka "The Harlem Zoo" during the eighties. My dad was NYFD. Manhattan is a frenetic place to visit. Swenson's was an ice creamery and Jackson Hole was the home of 12 oz burgers. I even attended Central Park Summerstage while the Finn Brothers performed "Don't Dream It's Over".
I've been extremely lucky in fact over the decades winning sweepstakes like the one in Bryant Park to witness Squeeze, the '80s new wave British ensemble. Yes New York is only a stone's throw from my residence on the PIP. It's up to you NY. Go Yankees.
I will leave the illumination of the violinist joke to others, and merely mention it's an example of the hilarity we find in body parts and how we invoke them to make points. How we evolved this useage I don't quite get, other than to imagine it's an approach which returns us to our early youth and the rush of snippets of 'naughty' and 'rude.' What fun?
As to feeling completely anonymous, I am glad you feel it at times, and enjoy it. I do want to crow a bit, for those of us who recognize you and choose to leave you alone, rather than force you to somehow enjoy our great fortune at having encountered you. Celebrity must be tough, and if I can 'gift' you with one less self-centered interruption, that works for me.
Always happy to meet strangers who know me and we shake hands and talk and I try not to take up too much of their time.