Lileks examines the train wreck that is Garrison Keillor’s latest:
I’m sorry, but I’m just fascinated by his column. Each is nearly identical in formlessness, subject and general pointlessness. To be fair: we all write at haste and repent at leisure, unless we can somehow get it out of the Google cache. We all make inelegant remarks that seemed wonderfully writerly at the moment but curdle when exposed to another pair of eyes. It’s the perils of blogging. But he has an entire week to write these things. Never does he attempt to make an argument or explore a line of thought – it’s just flat assertions ladled out with nuance or shading. The sun rises, Bush is bad, life is long but also short and so you should sit outside and drink lemonade and think of the people who came before you and sat outside and drank lemonade and there is a comfort in that continuity and we need all the comfort we can get in these days when nihilists in golf pants are everywhere and the Republic lies in ruins. Also, he is given to run-on sentences. This week has perhaps the finest example yet.
If that’s not enough, there is some cereal blogging, too.
I looked at Kiellor’s first sentence (“New York in July, hot and breezy, …). Looks very much like he’s practicing for the Bad Writing Contest .
It’s a toss-up as to whether his is any better than theirs. The diffference is, they try to write badly; to him it comes naturally.