I don't think it's a coincidence that Animal has appeared in EVERY rendition of the Muppets since their origin on Sesame Street. I mean, with the mayhem, the destruction and the fun, how could he not be? He's a complete nostalgia kick who instantly makes me remember my love for the troupe of felt friends. Check it out from your library or buy it used.Animal is probably every young boy's favorite Muppet. Geist’s book is agreeable in some ways but it’s not worth $26. The Lake of the Ozarks is still there, of course, though arguably the crown for kitsch-and certainly, the surreal-has moved on to Branson. Kitsch ain’t what it used to be, and it’s all made in China and sold in warehouses along I-44. It never mattered that much Geist is just repeating a mindless refrain that sounds kind of reasonable. Finally, you wouldn’t hear Baptists badmouthing Methodists. And there was verbal abuse-if you were heterosexual-of homosexuals that’s one of the reasons why gay “folk” tended to leave for the big city. But if you were white, growing up in most any Missouri small town with a sundown law, you certainly heard racial slurs. That somehow, in their rustic simplicity, they are more decent and forgiving than city slickers. The passage maintains the stereotype that “these Ozark folk” are somehow different from the rest of humanity. Now you would hear Baptists badmouthing Methodists. Not the way you would in far more cosmopolitan St. You never heard racial slurs or nasty remarks about sexual preferences. Funny about these Ozark folk, these presumed rednecks. I don’t recall any whispers or snide remarks about Mike’s proclivities. It’s when he tries to make a larger point that he comes across as phony: It’s all quite superficial and Geist is on safe, middlebrow, CBS Sunday Morning ground. Geist allows that he’s “an aficionado of the tacky and outrageous.” His book is often fun when it brings kitsch to life, just like cruising a flea market can be fun. She must leave, her house will be leveled, because of Bagnell’s rising waters. The one exception is a lovely chapter describing an old woman’s (Grandma’s) last day in the place where she’s always lived, Linn Creek. Lake of the Ozarks isn’t about the Ozarks, really. These are summer camp stories and nothing more, but they’ll jog memories for some readers. He fondly recalls a skinny-dipping party with lodge employees, recapturing the feelings of a teenaged boy who had yet to experience sex. Geist alludes to a lot of sexual hijinks, and these passages are the book’s most energetic. On limited budgets, tourists could swim, fish, take a boat ride they could play carnival games they could feast until they fell sick they could smoke cigars and drink themselves under the table at Arrowhead’s “Pow Wow Lounge.” Working as a waiter, Geist knew these cheapskates well. He’s brutally accurate when he points out that these cheap amusements appealed to the cheap seats: working class people for whom Lake of the Ozarks was almost exotic. More interestingly, Geist writes about the Ozarks Opry and the appearances of such luminaries as Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubbs, both of whom sometimes frequented the lodge. Nothing intrinsically Ozarkian here you could have found similar establishments in Florida or the Wisconsin Dells. Geist has a good time commenting on Lake of the Ozarks kitsch: hillbilly golf, hillbilly souvenirs such as corncob pipes, and roadside attractions such as Tom’s Monkey Jungle and Max Allen’s Reptile Gardens. At base, Ed seems to have been a shrewd businessman who ran a profitable enterprise. But his flamboyance seems to have been for the benefit of the tourists, who could go away describing him as an unforgettable character. His Uncle Ed, the proprietor of Arrowhead, always drove a new Cadillac and drank too much he was loud and rather a bully. Geist portrays a number of “outlandish” characters, none of whom seem terribly outlandish. The lodge was built in 1935 just a few years after Bagnell Dam was completed. Arrowhead was owned by Geist’s aunt and uncle and might be thought of as a little bit upscale. Geist, a humorist and travel writer widely known for his CBS Sunday Morning features, worked at Arrowhead Lodge back in the 1950s and early 1960s, as a waiter, janitor, dish washer, septic tank supervisor, and bellhop.
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