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English Majors script
Saturday, February 5, 2005
Listen
Garrison Keillor: ...after a word from the Partnership Of English Majors.
GK: When you decide to major in English, your family says, "Well, fine, but what are you going to do with it?" And the answer is: you wait for your chance and then you put it to use. — May I help you?
Sue Scott: Yes. We'd like a large popcorn, plain, two mineral waters, an organic scone, and a cappucino with 2 percent. You want anything else, Todd?
Tim Russell: Maybe a one-pound box of Swizzlers.
GK: Would you care for a persimmon scone or fig?
SS: I don't know. What do you recommend?
GK: The fig is certainly more than adequate, but the persimmon has an insouciance and a vitality that is rare in a dried fruit. I would say it's not to be missed.
SS: Fine. Give me the persimmon then. — Which movie do you recommend?
TR: I thought we were going to see "The Aviator"—
SS: Shhhhh. I want to hear what he thinks.
GK: "The Aviator," I'm afraid, is in the end rather frenetic and shallow — there's an interesting subtext that suddenly vanishes and in the end, the picture winds up inert. And "Sideways," though there's some lovely acting juxtaposed with idiomatic writing, seems vaguely vacuous, attenuated. "Million Dollar Baby" has a classic premise and a heroic texture and cheekbones that could etch glass, but the conclusion left me feeling cheated and rueful, deflated, even despondent.
SS: Rueful—
TR: Come on, "The Aviator"'s about to start— come on.....
GK: As for "Finding Neverland," it struck me as tonally dissonant, somehow denatured, even desiccated. Which leaves one movie, "Blade Runners," the documentary on a snowplow operator in northern Minnesota— it's a magical-realist spin on the theme of the struggle of the stoical hero against an unrelenting natural force he can't hope to change but nonetheless he has to engage it and oppose it and it's vibrant in ways I can't describe, it has a viscerality to it, an almost tangible delight.
SS: That sounds fantastic.
TR: I thought we were going to see "The Aviator"—
SS: You go, Todd. I'm going to see the other film with him, the English major.
TR: Hey!
SS: English majors see more and feel more and love more because they have more words for what they see and feel and love. Isn't that right, handsome?
GK: A message from the Professional Organization of English Majors.
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