Enough about them, this is about me

Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Prairie Home Productions

Society & Culture, Fiction, Comedy Fiction, Improv, Comedy

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2023

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When I moved out of Minneapolis, I sorted through personal papers and it struck me that, in hundreds of pictures of me, I am not smiling in a single one. I look like a mortician with a migraine. Partly this is due to the cold. Winter is brutal and you keep your mouth shut so you won’t frost your lungs. Teachers told me that. Plus which, in Minnesota there never were many people around so what was the point of exercising personal charm? Plus which, there are strong Lutheran tendencies there, people consider humor frivolous, maybe sacrilegious. Jesus wept; He didn’t laugh.I feel much freer in New York. I sometimes talk to myself when walking in the park, assuming I have something interesting to say. If you did this in Minnesota, there would be an intervention, you’d go into rehab for self-consciousness training. In New York, people enjoy this. It’s a looser culture. Crosswalks are ignored and “Do Not Walk” signs are considered only a suggestion.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I've heard enough about Barbie and Oppenheimer and Ron DeSantis, so let's talk about me for
0:15.6	a minute.
0:16.6	I'm barefoot wearing tan pants and a black t-shirt sitting under a potted maple on a
0:22.9	tariff in Manhattan on a perfect summer twilight, an old man with a teenage heart, and I've
0:31.6	been duly humble long enough.
0:34.9	But now I'd like a little attention, and I'm sorry that the Florida orange gave narcissism
0:43.4	a bad name.
0:44.7	In Minnesota, when I was a kid, we considered selfishness unseemly, but what did I got
0:51.8	for all of my selflessness?
0:54.7	Well, today is a new day, and as of today, I am a New Yorker, and today I bought a
1:03.9	Kinesh dog and a cream soda at a sidewalk stand, which in Minnesota we would call a pig
1:11.6	and a blanket, but I'm a New Yorker now, and I use the word Kinesh, okay?
1:16.8	You got a problem with that?
1:19.6	When I moved out of Minneapolis, I sorted through my personal papers, and it struck me
1:27.0	that in hundreds of pictures of me, I am not smiling in a single one.
1:35.3	I look like a mortician with a migraine.
1:39.3	Partly this is due to the cold.
1:41.7	Winter in Minnesota is brutal, and you keep your mouth shut so you won't frost your lungs.
1:48.1	Teachers told me that.
1:50.3	Plus which, in Minnesota, there never were many people around, so what was the point of
1:56.5	exercising personal charm?
1:59.9	Plus which there are strong Lutheran tendencies there.
	...

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