Reviews for Lake Wobegon days

The average rating for Lake Wobegon days based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-12-25 00:00:00 James Keller Lake Wobegon. I have tried to read you over the years and every time I picked you up I was bored out of my mind. This time I tried audio. That helped. I can see why people love to listen to you; I can see why people don't like to listen to you. So, Lake Wobegon was founded by Unitarians, and it seemed to do okay by them. My town has lakes too, but they are not in town. We have rivers too, and a creek running through town. Tahlequah is its name, given to it by the Native Americans, so I would say that it was founded by them, and it was they who named it, Tahlequah. As legend goes, the Indians came on the Trail of Tears, that part is true, so it is not a legend. Five tribes decided to stop here, and the plan was to give the town a name, or to decide if they would stay. I don't recall which. Five chiefs, of the various nations, were to show up the next day to take a vote. Only two came, and so they said, "Two is enough" and voted. In Cherokee or some other tribal language, "two is enough" means "Tahlequah." Or you can choose to believe that it was named loosely after a town back east, like maybe in South Carolina. So, our town was founded, not by Unitarians, but by pagan Indians. They were pagan because the Christians said they were. And they convinced some Indians into becoming Christians; many kept their own beliefs and kept them a secret, but some now preach hell and damnation, go figure. After what the Christians put them through, well, they had to comply or else. So then the Christian churches came, well, actually they kind of came with the Indians, and with that sin and damnation came, and whatever else. Heaven belonged to them only. They had earned it, and it didn't matter if they killed innocent people or did other cruel and unusual things, nor did it matter if they broke all of the ten commandments, because they were true believers and only had to say, Oops. Then many, many years later the Unitarians showed up. The Christians said that they were evil and that they ate babies. they actually said these things. Later on they said witches went there. Yes, I heard this too. Well, they did have some pagans, but then isn't anyone who isn't a Christian a pagan? They had atheists too, and then some very spiritual people of what beliefs I do not know, But these people too are pagans. Sparrow Hawk Mountain, the mountain where the little boy in Where the Red Fern Grows lived, is where another church took root. They were a New Age group. Believed in Sophia. The Unitarians lost their fame for eating babies, and it was placed on the Sophias.Then the Sophias all fell into arguments, as all churches do, and disbanded. So far I have not heard if the Unitarians now eat children again. The christians may have given up on that one, but I don't count on it. But at the same time as the Sophias were arguing, so were the Methodists and the Unitarians, each with members in their own churches. It was in the air. People left these churches in droves. Satan had run amok. Then the Methodists and the Unitarians all made up, but the Sophias, well, they may still be at it still, if they are there at all. They had a sweet village complete with a fire department, but then people sold their homes and on and on. Lake Wobegon goes like this, like what I just wrote, but he writes much better than I do, but I was not really interested in his town. I was interested in Tahlequah. In his book you get some childhood stories that are kind of neat. Like how one of the kids buried his cat in a pet cemetery complete with a sermon and all that entailed. As a kid I had my own pet cemetery. I lost a lot of dogs to the highway that went through town because we had no fence. Poor people don't know how to take care of animals, or at least we didn't. I scrapped one of my dogs off Spring Street in Paso Robles, CA while crying over him. Took him two blocks to our house and buried him. I buried a dead gold fish and dug it up a year later to see what he looked like. The jar lid was rusty, so I hit the jar on a stone fence between our house and the field and cut my hand. I could see the scar for years. I am surprised that I didn't get some horrible disease from doing this. What did it look like inside the jar? The napkin was an orange color. Like the Shroud of Turin, the body had disappeared, but not before leaving its mark. That's all.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-09-28 00:00:00 Mark Benkovich Ah, I miss the old days, those innocent Goodreads days of pretzels and beer, Wittgenstein and Gertrude Stein, and of course, Celebrity Death Matches. So I'm reviving one of my personal favourites. I call it... CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH No 83. BOY GEORGE : Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome Meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs, Ladies and Gentlemen! Guten abend, bon soir, good evening! Wie geht's? Comment ca va? Do you feel good? Ich bin euer confrencier, je suis votre compere, I am your host! Leave your troubles outside! So -life is disappointing? Forget it! In here life is beautiful - the girls are beautiful - even the orchestra is beautiful! Outside it is winter, but here it is so hot every night we have the battle to keep the girls from taking off all their clothing. So don't go away. Who knows? Tonight we may lose the battle! Ja! THE CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA : Taa-daaah! BOY GEORGE : So, you have come to see the fighting, ja? Okay, we get on with it. Yes, you do not have to throw fruit or panties at me, I know what you want. Tonight we have one of our much loved Celebrity Death matches - 0 yes, haha, you think maybe somebody famous will die tonight? Huh? You like that? Okay, ja, so do we! Ha ha! So, tonight's bout is … Drum roll… Between in the blue corner much loved genial American humourist Garrison Keillor (the 6 foot 9 Keillor stands up and sways like an oak. He wears a suit and large red boxing gloves.) And in the red corner, not one, not two, not three - okay, I'll tell you - five separate opponents all of whom believe for one reason or another that he should die a painful death! We have Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, Brett Easton Ellis, Don (the Don) De Lillo and, making a surprise comeback, Carson McCullers!! (Mild applause) Chicago Symphony plays a quick burst of the theme tune from Circus Boy starring Mickey Dolenz The five authors strut about the ring, all dressed in evil looking leather outfits. DeLillo leans over the ropes and glares at someone he recognises. Easton rushes over and says "Leave it, Don, it's only one of those crappy goodreads idiots, We'll get them later." BOY GEORGE : Okay, Meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs, seconds away, Round One! Bell : Ting! GK : Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my home town, the little town that time kind of forgot to remember to forget. Turned cold around Wednesday, I'd say, kind of… colder 'n' it was in the two or three days it was before that. Monday, I should say, Monday wasn't terribly cold... The red corner are working as a tag team one at a time against the towering midwesterner. First up, here comes Carson McCullers. She steps up to GK looking, may I say, very fetching in a kind of cut down Batgirl getup, I could bet that her friends of both genders are liking this a lot. (Prematch dialogue : Graham Greene : Miss Carson, I really don't know - you can see practically all the way to China! Carson : Why Mr Greene. For one night only no mannish tweeds. I'm gonna strut my stuff!) But alas, the mountainous Keillor, orating blindly, obliviously, flails his arm in a gesture to emphasise how felchingly cold it is in Lake Wobegon and he catches McCullers a glancing blow on the side of the head. It's Ali versus Liston 1965 all over again. The Southern gothic pinup girl hits the deck and is counted out. A disappointement for the feminists in the audience. But she was never in the best of health and I don't really think it was a wise idea to include her in the tag team. GK : ... not that record breaking cold that er gets you in uh National geographic and all of that and the tv comes out to interview you and see how you're taking it, just a kind of regular Minnesota cold, kind of a fact of life in the month of January, nothing to complain about, like the fact that it's flat out here, really kind of uh flat. Yeah. Don't complain about that. But gee I dunno maybe some people do they come into the house and they say Well it's kind of too flat out there, I never seen it so flat out there. As it is today. Too flat. Somebody else 'll say Yeah but I hear it's suppose to incline a bit on Wednesday. Next up, Jonathan Franzen - he squares up to GK who never stops talking and stares gloomily towards the audience, pretending not to notice any of his opponents, or actually not noticing them. Franzen winds up and socks Keillor as hard as he can in the solar plexus. Anything to shut this guy up. GK : Ooof! So by Wednesday there was a little more snow on the ground which kind of absorbs sound and since Wobegonians are kind of quiet and don't really roar so much it makes for well a sort of dull uh dreary kind of existence even though below zero temperatures are if I remember physics that I was once taught makes sound travel better uh faster and yet it's still kind of real quiet here because Franzen walks back disconsolately to the red corner. "This is not cool, you know," he says. "In fact this is even less cool than being on Oprah. I'm out of here." And he leaves in his Franzmobile. GK : there aren't so many people out and those who are aren't in the mood to make much of it. Sound that is. And also should they have been in the mood still they would have had trouble because they're kind of all bundled up, swaddled if you will, and pretty much unable to emit any kind of cry. Light synthetic fabric such as Goretex has not yet found its way to Minnesota. People up there still believe in layers, a great many layers. Don "The Don" DeLillo steps into the ring. He hurls a copy of Underworld at GK's enormous droning head but like that scene in Awakenings Keillor expertly catches the heavy volume with one huge mitt. Without breaking from his tedious Lake Wobegon yarn, he reaches down and cuffs DeLillo like a great grizzly bear and DeLillo's head flies off somewhere into the far corner of the room. The doctor climbs into the ring and checks his pulse. Yes, he's dead. Michael Chabon is taken ill at the sight of DeLillo's head hurtling past him, so this means that Brett Easton Ellis is the last author of any literary merit still standing now. As he enters the ring he throws off his leather cape to reveal a flame thrower strapped on his back. He unhooks the hose and fires it up. Great gouts of flame shoot out. GK : Of course something which can keep even a cold person alive and even warm em up a little bit, fend off death if you will, is a whole basketful of ancient creaking sentimental parlour ballads such as Love's Old sweet song. (sings in beautiful clear baritone) Once in the dear dead days beyond recall, When on the world the mists began to fall, Out of the dreams that rose in happy throng Low to our hearts Love sang an old sweet song; And in the dusk where fell the firelight gleam, Softly it wove itself into our dream. By now GK's right leg is completely on fire, Ellis is cackling madly and fighting off the ringside officials who are clambering into the ring. Referee : Ellis, you're disqual---urgh… I can't tell you what Ellis does to the referee. BOY GEORGE : Well well well meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs, it is my humble duty to declare that Garrison Keillor's unique ability to keep on talking in the face of considerable naughtiness means that tonight, he is our champion! GK : Just a song a twilight, when the lights are low, And the flick'ring shadows softly come and go, Tho' the heart be weary, sad the day and long, Still to us at twilight comes Love's old song, comes Love's old sweet song.