Several of us from South Dakota Magazine drove to Vermillion Saturday night to watch Garrison Keillor do what we’ve heard him do many times through the years. He’s obviously a huge radio talent, but the radio airwaves don’t do him justice. He’s more of an entertainer, singer, musician and cultural commentator than I’d recognized previously. You realize even before the show starts (because he began to entertain the crowd about 10 minutes before airtime) that you’re watching the best in his prime: like watching Michael Jordan in his heyday, or Willie Nelson or Johnny Carson.

He’s a master entertainer. That’s not so unusual in America; it’s the depth he adds to much of what he does that is impressive. He’s also much warmer in person.

He works largely without a script: in the Lake Woebegon skit he wandered about the stage and the audience, relating a story about a 16-foot python that gave everyone in town an excuse to do what they wanted to do — which for some was to move to California. [...]

The humor is far better in person. So was the music. And the storytelling.

A few years back, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick noted that we all have personal limitations, and they include our time and place and civilization. She said we are as bound by our common culture as we are by our physical surroundings and abilities. Culture limits us, shapes us, or expands us.

Keillor, whether you like him or not, certainly expands American thinking.