When Stranger art critic Jen Graves took out after Garrison Keillor, I took out after her in this links post:
No humor allowed: Jen Graves posted this dazzling piece of (at least brief) nonsense yesterday:
Remember: American men don’t do art unless it involves naked ladies, unless the men have thin shoulders. I hate you, Garrison Keillor.
Jen.
He’s kidding. Kidding. The whole thing is a spoof on sex stereotypes,
not an indulgence of them. Hate Garrison Keillor? Save it for Dick
Cheney.
Surely the man who invented the place where all the women are strong, the men are good looking and the children are above average would have to be kidding when he sounds like a sexist troll.
Maybe not. Seattle painter Susanna Bluhm referred me to another version of what’s on Keillor’s mind these days. Turns out, he’s mad at musical Jews.
And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that
trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest
of that dreck. Did one of our guys write ‘Grab your loafers, come along
if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah’? No, we didn’t. Christmas is a Christian holiday–if you’re not in the club, then buzz off. (more)
What’s up with Keillor? The doctor is not in, but I’m tempted to think the aging humorist has a medical problem. Something pressing on his cerebral cortex, perhaps? Shout out to Keillor: Time for a check up from the neck up.
Second apology goes out to Stranger book critic Paul Constant. When the Los Angeles Times covered the Elliott Bay Book Company’s closure in Pioneer Square, I praised the article, saying the locals missed the story under their noses. I singled out Constant for special blame, saying he was “more interested in griping that he didn’t get full credit from the Seattle Times for being first as the news breaker.” (more)
The problem is, the LA Times piece read a bit like an obit. Yes, Elliott Bay is leaving Pioneer Square, which is a huge blow to the neighborhood, but, as Constant later reported, it is reopening on Capitol Hill. Constant was waiting to get his facts straight, always laudable.
In the immortal words of Gilda Radner:
Awe c’mon everybody–its a joke!!
Keillor is gently poking fun joke at the funny irony that Jewish people did write most of Christmas songs that comprise the annoying audio assault of the season. These songs are probably responsible for the intake of more psychotropic drugs than anything else this time of year. It makes perfect sense to laugh at the fact that the Jews do not indulge in this kind of thing for their own culture that is primarily filled with ancient music and has not been so twisted by Madison Avenue.
Carol. They may be jokes. I hope for his sake they are. But they aren’t funny, and their bitter aftertaste is the thing that rings true.
He’s out of gas and running on ire. Hope I die before I get old
I have less interest in whether Keillor’s “really” sexist and/or anti-Semitic than in the more general fake nostalgia and sloppy production of PHC. It’s so much worse than what it’s supposed to be a parody of, that it’s just embarrassing to listen to.
fittingly, the captcha words are “must Banality”; Keillor’s motto.
(Wow, HELLO! Herb Levy!)
The thing I’ve never liked about Keillor is that he has no edge. There’s something as hermetically sealed as the car Jean Seberg was found in about his work. Maybe it’s because he quit smoking. I remember when he started PHC he would sit on a stool on stage smoking like a maniac all private and quiet and then tell stories that he seemed to be channeling. He was such a fabulous radio storyteller! But where was the sex, drugs and rock and roll? He tells fables that need meth labs. Plus: Mannerism is an occupational hazard — happens to the best of ’em!