Corn Dogged: Garrison Keillor Visits the State Fair of Texas For National Geographic (?)

Actually, once you read the piece -- which appears in the issue hitting newsstands this week but which you can read right now -- it seems rather unlikely that the Prairie Home Companionist actually came to Dallas for the State Fair, as his is more of an essay about the...

By Robert Wilonsky

June 30, 2009

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Actually, once you read the piece -- which appears in the issue hitting newsstands this week but which you can read right now -- it seems rather unlikely that the Prairie Home Companionist actually came to Dallas for the State Fair, as his is more of an essay about the pleasures of state fairs in general. (Among them: "To witness the stupidity of others, their gluttony and low-grade obsessions, their poor manners and slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, pop-eyed yahootude, and feel rather sophisticated by comparison." Which, I dunno, feels awfully goddamned condescending, you ask me.) But photographer Joel Sartore most certainly came to town, as evidenced by the picture taken outside the Midway that kicks off Keillor's essay. Still, the State Fair feels awfully underrepresented -- which you can fix by adding your own photos, like Christopher Richey's shot of Big Tex.

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