Letters to the Editor
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Garrison never disappoints
Nice, very nice. I just returned from Michigan, the U.P. to be precise, where my sister lives. Blogged a bit about the trip (click my signature).
A truly lovely area, if economically marginal. But, it's a region that Kennecott Mining is about to grind up in pursuit of copper and nickel, etc.
See www.savethewildUP.org
JOBS, dudes, all 2-300 of 'em (plus the argued 2x to 3x spin-off employment multiplier) for maybe 8 years or so, garnished with a relative pittance of residuals to the state.
BTW- guys hit the bars here in Vegas around 7 a.m., and roughly 5% of our residential housing stock is in foreclosure (highest rate in the nation) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography now predicts that Lake Mead may run dry within 13 years or so (MSNBC.com yesterday). So, problems abound everywhere on our national slide to the 3rd world.
Without gaming, this place would just be another Barstow, anyway, so, party on.
I've forwarded this article around. Great, funny stuff as usual from The Keillormeister.
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Garrison Keillor the lecturer
Had the fortune to hear Mr. Keillor in Port Huron. All the hours of listening to Prairie Home Companion and then to be able to see him in person was wonderful. I wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed his writing and the program on NPR but I was just too shy to do it. If he does read this hope he will realize we enjoyed his trip to Port Huron, Michigan very much. Michigan is in dire straits right now but just hearing a story about the pontoon boat and ministers made me laugh and hope for the future.
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But I hung on like death, such waltzing was not easy
Perhaps that is my favorite line, like your "lovely in the bones". And in a way we are all hanging on, though the waltz is not always easy. But it is the music that gets us through, and there is such music in Roethke and in your words too. (And lovely music on your show but that is not the music I mean.)
I guess we really all are Africans!
Yes we can!
Thanks GK for your music and remembering Roethke and Saginaw,
MLK
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Your English teachers served you poorly: set that canard next to "no prepositions at the ends of sentences" and "no split infinitives"
"[M]y English teachers always told me never to start a sentence, much less a paragraph with a conjunction[.]"
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prytania
oh, shut up already.
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My goodness--you DO have low self esteem!
When the man said, "Thanks for coming. It's so hard to get first-rate speakers to come to Saginaw," he was almost certainly paying you a compliment.
Only a man with impaired self esteem would consider that an insult.
At least you didn't suffer the indignity that I once endured when someone said to me, "I love your singing. You know who I REALLY like? Barbra Streisand!"
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Ann Arbor, MI checking in...
I did not even know Theodore Roethke was from Michigan, but I'm thrilled to hear it. I wasn't an English major or I suppose I might have known. I majored in biology, but have loved Roethke since I was introduced to him in a lit class. I knew about the greenhouse - it was mentioned in my lit book, which I pull out and read for pleasure from time to time, believe it or not - but I had no idea it was in Saginaw. My brother lives near Saginaw, in Midland. I'll have to ask him if he knows. Don't write off Michigan. We natives like it here. The state is really quite lovely. I know you've been to Ann Arbor - come back and visit us again soon!
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Maria is right, I think
He meant that, hard as it is to get first rate speakers, they still managed to get a first rate speaker like you, for which he was grateful.
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Anonymous
1. What did I ever do to deserve the ill treatment? For heaven's sake.
2. Lick me.
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Not to mention Lefty Frizzell
but somebody should. I sometimes think Keillor's channelling his voice.
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Where is the outrage?
Poetry is nice. I haven't read any Roethke, but now I might just do that.
However, if all the troubles in Saginaw can move you to do is write a sad, anemic little piece about how suffering brings great beauty, then shame on you.
Where is the outrage? The abandonment of the worker by American industry (a theme all across the rustbelt) and events like the great home mortgage swindle of 2007 should make us angry. They should make us pick up arms and revolt. Hillary vs. McCain? Give me a break. How about Marx?
Instead we spend our time watching TV and daydreaming in airports. We are all getting the future we deserve.
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Roethke does not write "nice poems," Mike
Used to be, poetry was essential, even to laid-off workers.
W.C. Williams:
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
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Ah...Roethke
My favourite line: "I measure time by how her body sways."
So simple, so sensual -- so perfect.
Men, want to make your Valentine's Day memorable? Recite your woman that poem while oh-so-slowly peeling the clothes off of her. She'll be grinning for weeks.
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Roethke's home
Thank you for the (for me) nostalgic aspect of your piece. Prof. Roethke's sister, June Roethke, was my ninth-grade English and jounalism teacher, and your piece triggered up like a madeleine all the delights and trials of her classes.
Miss Roethke (it's very difficult, as a former student, to refer to her as June) lived in the house at 1805 Gratiot while she was teaching and until her death. My impression at the time I knew her was that the Gratiot house was not the two children's childhood home. Rather, the home and the greenhouse were located, I believe, on Michigan Avenue, in the southeast part of Saginaw.
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self-esteem
Thanks for another nice essay Mr. K.
I was raised Catholic, so, perhaps you can imagine my self-esteem issues. I empathize with you. I keep this Bertrand Russell quote nearby to cheer me up when blowhards breeze by too frequently.
Thanks for writing on Salon. I always look forward to reading your posts here.
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
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GarrisonK. Can you post or somehow give to us at Salon.com
your speech on aging. I'm a week away from turning 65 and there is nothing right now more interesting to me. I know you are also already 65 and I BEG YOU TO LET US SEE THE SPEECH... If possible. Polished or no. To your satisfaction or no. Please!
Beautiful essay by the by.