Garrison Keillor's Blog, page 79

Late-night driving, right-hand thinking

All last week I got to drive around Minnesota late at night, drifting through the little towns, just me and the truckers out on the road and Merle and George and Emmylou on the radio. I was doing a little dog-and-pony show around my home state, and I like driving at night. Less traffic, more romance. You look ahead down the open road and you’re no longer an old retired guy in a suit and tie, you’re a Woody Guthrie song, you’re a man on the run, you’re the perpetrator of the biggest art heist in years, with Hopper’s “Nighthawks” under a blanket in the backseat along with “American Gothic” and six Jackson Pollocks. It’s a big backseat.

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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Donald Trump’s fantastically tremendous first 100 days

My first 100 days as Numero Uno have been fantastically tremendous as we begin to make progress to clean up the mess that I inherited. Terrorism, crumbling infrastructure, public television (so boring), China, the war on coal, political correctness, people we have no idea who they are coming into this country, the whole deal. You’d never know this if you watch MSNBC or CNN, which — and we have proof of this — are owned by the man who owns The New York Times, Famous Ray’s Pizza, some check-cashing establishments, and that bunch of losers, the New York Knicks. Sad!

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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Alaska is a state that one remembers long afterward

Up to Alaska last week to visit old friends and relive fragrant memories of previous trips. Landing on a short uphill grass strip near a native village and later taking off on that strip and off the edge of a cliff. Fishing in a fjord near Juneau as a dark enormity rolled up from the deep, a humpback 30 feet off starboard. Encountering a moose while biking around Anchorage. Sitting in a friendly cafe in Sitka that felt like family. Hiking the Iditarod trail and seeing the body of a moose who broke through the ice of a lake and drowned. Going to the state fair in Palmer and mingling with Alaskans in a state of euphoria produced by sunlight.

Read the full column at the Salt Lake Tribune’s site →

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The president of visuals

So it now appears that the president has deep feelings about the sufferings of infants, or, as he would say, “very, very deep feelings, believe me.” This was apparent when he talked about the gas attack on Syrian civilians last week. Scores of people were killed but it was the sight of dying babies on TV (“it doesn’t get any worse than that”) that particularly moved the man to reconsider his hands-off policy toward Syria and send the USS Ross and USS Porter to the eastern Mediterranean to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian air base. Presumably, no infants were housed at the base.

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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Sisyphus would have been a Democrat

“Whan that Aprille up in Minnesota the drought of March hath pierced to the roote and bathed every vein in sweet liqueur which makes the corn grow, and it helps to use manure,” wrote Chaucer, or words to that effect.

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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It’s poetry month, so write one, Terence

April is Poetry Month, a painful reminder for some, who suffered under English teachers who made them write about the cherry tree wearing white for Eastertide or “The Love Song of J. Alfred Pruneface” by T.S. Eliot, that small dark cloud of a poet.

Read the full column at the Tulsa World’s site →

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Trump has no idea how to tend his garden

What a world. I spend an evening looking at a friend’s video he shot in Uganda, impoverished people dancing with hands over their heads, overjoyed that a well has been dug and they can drink good water without having to hike for miles. The next day I read about a foundation grant to create storytelling programs in small towns to create radical reimaginings of narratives that lead to healing. And then the Boy President is on TV with Angela Merkel looking at him and thinking, “Who is that old game-show host standing at the lectern? What movie am I in?”

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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The Donner Party understood health care — so does Trump

Last fall when he was winning hearts and minds in the Midwest, Mr. Red Cap promised to remove the curse of Obamacare from the nation and replace it with something beautiful that would cover everybody. Now that Trumpcare is out for previews, he is still upbeat and says he is in a “beautiful negotiation” and will wind up with a “beautiful picture,” but it’s no longer about everybody. And the picture seems more like a watercolor than a photo.

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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The Epic of Donald Trump

The $54 billion bonus heading for the Pentagon is a beautiful thing, and so far I haven’t heard a dog bark against it, even though we don’t appear to have $54 billion worth of new enemies and we’ve now come to admire former enemy Vladimir Putin, and the idea of throwing billions at the Islamic State is like going after bedbugs with bazookas, so there it sits, a big lake of cash waiting for water skiers.

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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Confessions of the most important man in the universe

Joe Biden is following me. I go to lunch at Mickey’s Diner and he’s sitting two stools away, wearing a stocking cap and a fake mustache with a fake nose and glasses but he says, “Hey, how’s it going, fella?” It’s Joe Biden. So pathetic. Sad.

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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