Word: minstrels
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Alas, Powdermilk Bagels, the brand that gives shy New Yorkers the strength to jump over subway turnstiles, was not among the sponsors. Garrison Keillor, the wandering Minnesota minstrel whose Prairie Home Companion variety show on public radio told tales of gentle eccentricity in a hard-to-find Midwestern hamlet called Lake Wobegon, says he has put shyness behind him. Just as well. Keillor, whose new American Radio Company of the Air fills the old P.H.C. Saturday-evening slot (6 to 8 p.m. EST), is now a New Yorker himself, an unstrained and wildly germinating seed in the Big Applesauce. Like...
...thrillers -- of which the latest, Clear and Present Danger, is out this week -- have made him the military's minstrel. Now the ex-insurance man longs to live the life he writes about...
Garrison Keillor is still best known as the host, head minstrel and founding fabulist of public radio's weekly Prairie Home Companion, which went off the air almost two years ago. But the shock, for a radio fan leafing through this collection, is to discover, perhaps not for the first or fifth time, that his hero is even more gifted as writer than as entertainer. In a superb story called What Did We Do Wrong?, the first woman major-league baseball player hits .300 but slobbers tobacco juice, gives fans the finger and can't deal with the hot-breathed...
...have a certain rhythm in your life." While scoring 18 touchdowns, rookie Elbert ("Ickey") Woods has smoothed the black edge off several unenlightened symbols that have crept into currency in Cincinnati. Fans have taken to calling the stadium "the Jungle," and throughout the games they chant like a minstrel chorus, "Who dey think gonna beat dem Bengals?" Ickey's popular touchdown "shuffle" would be the last straw were it not so preposterously white that it somehow saves...
...fond recollection of Amos 'n' Andy -- the old radio show denounced by civil rights organizations for its stereotypical portrayals of blacks -- with an eye-rolling imitation of the character Kingfish. Then he allowed that "it's too bad" that schoolchildren can no longer don blackface and appear in minstrel shows. Finally he lamented the practice of changing racially offensive lyrics in songs like Ol' Man River, likening it to Soviet rewriting of history books. Said Michel: "That doesn't wash well with me." After a howl of protest from black leaders, Michel apologized. "My regret is even more profound," said...