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Calvin Trillin-Blindsided by the Truth
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20421 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1992 |
3,319 Words |
| Author
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John C. Tibbetts
John C. Tibbetts, an associate professor of theater and film
at the University of Kansas, contributes regularly to national
music publications and is editor of the recently published
Dvorak in America.
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Humorist Calvin Trillin's dour features, familiar from his appearances on the Tonight show, thinly veil an irrepressible wit and a teasing sarcasm.
His very American worldview is not always easy to grasp. For example, Trillin explains, "My Uncle Harry had his own theory that Columbus landed at Eleventh and Walnut in downtown Kansas City. I objected to that as child. I told Uncle Harry that Kansas City was nine hundred miles inland from either coast. He just said, ' I guess you've never heard of rivers."
Trillin writes for the New Yorker about American issues that are both serious and trivial with a jaunty, deceptively casual air. His articles tell of magicians, hometowns, cooking, and even murders. The reporter-story teller's complex forms, accurate eye, and flashes of sardonic humor have brought him millions of readers. The accolades he has gained include "grump for the ages," "national treasure", and "writer who has raised reportage to a fine art."
Trillin was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1935, the son of grocer and restaurateur. That is important because he writes about his hometown constantly recreating it with the same blend of imagination and memory as Twain did Hannibal, Missouri, or Ray Bradbury, Waukegan, Illinois. No matter how hizarre Trillin makes his Baghdad on the Prairie seem, it remains his emotional and philosophical center, the touchstone against which he tests the whims and outrages of a mad world. Although he left for New York more than thirty years ago, he tells me, "My body clock remains on central Standard Time. For us Midwesterners, a hometown has no statute of limitations. I think that to a great extent, Kansas City seems always the same to me. It's back home where we still are who we were in high school." His dour expression relaxes into a wry smile. "That's scary, isn't it?"
Coming from Kansas City
With boyhood pals like Larry "Fats" Goldberg, Trillian sampled the local cuisine he made so famous in his columns the country-fried glories of Stroud's chicken (We choke our own chickens," says a sign in the store), the mellow savor of Winstead's hamburgers, and the pungent barbecue of the "legendary" Arthur Bryant's place. "While I was eating, he was writing." Fats tell me. "He's just a regular guy, but he never missed a thing." Trillion claims he could have been a great politician but realized it would be more fun to write about politics. "It was at the age of fourteen," he recalls, "that I decided
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