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GK: A modest proposal sure to be rejectedThe column: 08.03.21
The sheer ferocity of Ida, high winds, buckets of rain, flash flooding in New York City Wednesday night, rivers and waterfalls in the subway, made millions of New Yorkers think about the advantages of settling in rural Minnesota, especially as more hurricanes, even more brutal than Ida, are forming over the climate-warmed water of the Atlantic. There is a limit to how much punishment people are willing to accept before they look around and consider greener pastures and meanwhile, in St. Paul, people thronged to the State Fair, devouring cheese curds and bratwursts, admiring the livestock and enjoying powerful centrifugal experiences. Facts are facts. If what it means to live in New York is to ride the subway into a waterfall, maybe it’s best to be less stressed in the Upper Midwest and instead of flooded tunnels and tornado funnels, take sanctuary on the prairie. We have some snow here but it is not catastrophic. I speak from experience. Snow falls gently and does not harm anyone. When the Weather Service says, “Minnesota was hit by a blizzard,” the verb “hit” is fanciful, like being “struck” by a bluebird feather or being “attacked” by ants. When snow falls, we don’t hide under the bed, we don’t need powerful pumps, there are no dikes to prevent snowdrifts. We enjoy a blizzard, standing in the kitchen, drinking coffee, and we feel grateful for having teenagers in the family who will shovel the sidewalks. Bob Dylan shoveled snow, Amy Klobuchar, Jessica Lange, Prince, Jesse Ventura. It is a life-shaping experience. When a city is flooded by tourists over a long period of time, as New York has been, they turn the place into a cartoon, and the last time I walked down to Little Italy, it was no more Italian than Domino’s Pizza or Venetian blinds or your aunt Florence. Nobody in Brooklyn speaks Brooklynese, it’s all gentrified. The press came down hard on Mets fans booing their team, one more sign that New York is turning into Seattle. Americans enjoy having some foreignness around for variety and color and that’s what makes Texas appealing to so many people. You can freely enjoy peculiarities there that would make you an outcast elsewhere. For some reason, our Southern states tend to encourage the outlandish, which is why Mr. T moved to Palm Beach: he fits right in. New Orleans puts on Mardi Gras for guys who like to wear wigs and feathers and high heels. A country needs to maintain places where standards of normality are fairly loose. Sturgis, S.D., for example. Cambridge, Mass. Minnesota never had a French Quarter and the French persons I know who’ve come to visit didn’t seem interested in starting one, but we’re in need of diversity and when the State Fair ends in a few days, I propose turning the Fair’s grounds into a Persian Quarter and resettling some of our Afghan allies there who are floating around, looking for a home. The grounds are unused except for ten days a year, a neighborhood with streets, barns, arenas, shops, parking lots, all it needs are houses. In the Persian Quarter, the refugees could re-create what they love of their culture, and Americans weary of the Walmarts and work cubicles could travel abroad in St. Paul and find exotic style and fabulous cooking. Resettlement could be redemptive, showing that the bearded bullies with ammo belts don’t represent the best of a people. Art and learning do, and folk tradition, and the bonds of language, the food, the music and poetry. Leave religion to personal preference and enjoy the rest. New Yorkers saw horrendous scenes of subway tunnels turned into raging rivers, trains pulling into the 28th Street station under a Niagara of water, passengers dashing to safety. We don’t have that in Minnesota. Summers are quite pleasant here except for an occasional tornado. The culture is predominantly northern European, white, judgmental, and we’re eager to escape that and New Yorkers would be welcomed here. We tend to be soft-spoken, self-deprecating, compulsively passive, and I know of numerous New Yorkers who’ve found happiness here. Their honk and brassiness are admired here. Back home they were nogoodniks and here they’re heroes. It’s a big country. Check it out. You’re on the free list for Garrison Keillor and Friends. For the full experience, become a paying subscriber. Questions: [email protected] |
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