By Maggie Cassidy
Garrison Keillor is a staple on some airwaves throughout the midwest.
The Host of National Public Radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion” and “The Writer’s Almanac,” Keillor took his style to the stage when he spoke about the values of cheerfulness and communal spirit at Blackman Auditorium Monday night.
Keillor, who donned red socks, sneakers, suspenders and a tie, spent his 38-year career communicating to the American public through various media in addition to radio and lectures, like television, movies and many essays. He is known for incorporating humor and satire into his work.
“He just has such interesting thoughts. I love how he’s just so comfortable speaking on every subject,” said sophomore Madeleine Burkhart, a theatre and sociology major. “It’s definitely an art that a lot of Americans are losing – speech.”
Keillor recently appeared on the Colbert Report to promote his latest book, “Pontoon.” He was brought to Northeastern by the Ford Hall Forum, a Boston-based nonprofit group that sponsors lectures and discussion around Boston and on campus. This year’s series features Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage, MoveOn.org co-founder Joan Blades and others.
“I believe that cheerfulness is the true sign of intelligence,” Keillor said in his lecture, telling the packed audience to “lighten up,” “get a grip” and “be cheerful.”
He derided people who complained about getting older, commending cheerfulness as one of life’s most important qualities.
“When I say cheerfulness, I don’t mean to be happy. We can’t always be happy,” Keillor said. “I don’t mean euphoria, I don’t mean silliness, I don’t mean satisfaction – we’re not satisfied, but we nonetheless can be cheerful and we can put the best face possible on.”
He later said he felt “community life is the source of great happiness.”
While the audience was predominantly adults, Keillor directed some pieces of his lecture toward college students. He related his theme to the younger generation, advising them to be cheerful as well.
“You were gloomy enough as a teenager,” he said.
He related the idea of cheerfulness to schooling, proposing that “the true purpose of education is to cheer us up by drawing us out of ourselves, and out of our fears and our own fantasies into a common body of knowledge and into a community of scholars, dead and living scholars, with whom we can converse.”
Keillor also touched upon politics, claiming “this is an administration really devoted to secrecy.” He blamed health care and overzealous national security for many of the country’s financial problems.
“Health care is driving our country into debt – the high cost of keeping geezers going, providing an MRI every time Gramps has a headache,” he said.
He blamed health care in particular for cuts in public high schools, citing that it is a bigger item in state spending budgets than education.
“We spend $43,000 in the last year of a man’s life just to prolong some old three-pack-a-day smoker’s life, and to pay for it we cut music out of the schools, and French and Latin and German,”he said.
He said modern Americans are “fascinated” by terror. He said that since 2002, there have been $16 billion “doled out”by the Department of Homeland Security, of which the states have been able to spend only $11 billion.
Keillor said $90 million was granted to Vermont, and $92 million to North Dakota. He asked, “What are they going to blow up in North Dakota? How many concrete barriers can you possibly put up in public places? How many surveillance cameras, how many crisis command centers do you need in Fargo?”
Many audience members, several of whom were lifelong Keillor fans, said they were impressed with his lecture and appreciated his optimistic views.
“It’s just really refreshing,” said Lindsay Baer, a sophomore history and political science major. “He’s 65 [years old] but he can relate well to us.”
