Lileks: Minnesotans need to learn how to lie better

"Where ye from?" the Scotsman shouted in an Edinburgh pub, and the answer did not bring an immediate reaction. It had been the same in London: "Minnesota" did not make faces illuminate with recognition.

And that's fine. We are not the center of the world. But I think there are some things we could do to boost our international status.

First among them: We need to lie. A few days earlier, I'd been at Loch Ness because, well, you know. One faked photo, and people show up 90 years later to pay $50 to cruise around the lake.

We had a fake monster, Minne, a few years ago. Does anyone come today? No. Why? Because Minnesota has not mastered the art of lying to outsiders.

Consider the tours of old historic places. When you're touring an old preserved house, they tell you about the old ways, and you have to take them at their word. The docent will hold up some strange wooden thing, and say, "This was a spordle. It was used to mash the grey-groats to make thistle pie for the Feast of St. Bismol, the patron saint of indigestion. The pink color comes from minced lamb-lung.

"And over here you see where the cook would skin the pig head and put it in a pot for the proper porker Laird's Lard Boar Boil, or 'Noggin-a-Bucket.' The head would cook for up to 37 days, then be garnished with fresh nettles and pickled cloves, and served with a straight face."

We have no idea if that's the actual case. While en route to Loch Ness, the driver steered the enormous bus down narrow lanes with one hand while gesturing at empty land with the other, recounting great battles that had once taken place on those empty fields.

After a while the historical carnage starts to blur together: "Here's where Robby the Bruce met Brucey the Robb to avenge the honor of Bonny Prince Roger of Nelson." I mean no disrespect to the great history of Scotland, even though I have, of course, done exactly that, but unless you're up on the strife between the Campbells and McDonalds — and I don't mean soup and burgers — you have to take his word for it.

Scotland is beautiful, and it feels vast, but I think that's because the speed limit is lower and the roads are twisty. It's 30,000 square miles. Minnesota is 80,000. Of course we have a smaller quantity of history because the state hasn't been in operation nearly as long as Scotland. You have to have titanic struggles between different power bases, and it has to be shrouded in the twilight gloam of days long past.

So let's tell our stories like this: "And there came to be a man who sought the throne, Jesse of Venture, Laird of Parke of Brooklyn, and he didst smite Hubert II in a mighty contest to be King of the Minnesotans. There was a great feast, including the cod that had been steeped in Lye, called Lutefisk. But the two powerful houses of St. Paul saw not to join, but to oppose."

Gosh! The kids will say. Was there a bloody battle, with cannons and rifles and smoke and fire and terror?

"No, child, it was worse. There were stern editorials. And there came a time when Jesse the First was deposed, and the two great houses resumed their war with each other."

Come to think of it, we don't have to lie at all.