Required Reading: The Bleat
December 19, 2011, By Jack Heffron 0 comments
Garrison Keillor isn't the only funny guy in Minnesota. Actually there are a surprising number of them in a state known mostly for being frozen half the year. One of my favorites is James Lileks, whose sense of the absurd blends with his love of pop culture and retro kitsch in a way that makes me laugh. A lot. And hard.
I became a fan back in the '90s when some colleagues were huddled in a cubicle and busting their collective gut over a new book titled "The Gallery of Regrettable Food." In it, Lileks reprints pages from old cookbooks and adds his own zinger-loaded commentary to the often goofy and sometimes downright bizarre text and photos. Shooting fish in a barrel? Maybe. But Lileks blows the fish right out of the water and shatters the barrel to splinters.
A long-time newspaper columnist who also dabbles in radio and podcasts, Lileks has been writing a blog titled The Bleat for a few years now. You also can find links to his various other sites as well as archived pages from his books and seemingly no end of other miscellaneous stuff at lileks.com. It's like walking into the cluttered man cave of a guy with a whole lot of interests, a gimlet eye and a wry taste for the ridiculousness of everyday life. You can almost see him picking through a landfill of old postcards and books and magazine ads, newspapers, video tapes and CDs—along the lines of the garage in "A Beautiful Mind" without the imaginary characters.
The Bleat blog is sort of like that too. Lileks writes a post every day—funny, sharply observed stuff, for the most part, though sometimes he takes a more straightforward 'Hey, here's something I found the other day that's pretty cool' approach, one day hauling out for critique an ad from the 20s, the next taking a look at title placards from Disney cartoons, the next day taking a potshot or two at those insufferable Christmas cards some families send that detail their glorious achievements of the past year.
Check him out. You'll quickly make him a habit. Stopping by The Bleat is like visiting a smart, slightly eccentric neighborhood pal, who always has made some unusual discovery that inevitably makes you laugh.
