Post to the Host
GK responds to queries on topics from childbearing to potato salad, with a little bookstore fetish in between.

Send your own post to the host.
Here's your chance to ask GK your most pressing questions—about the writing life, the radio life, Lake Wobegon, Guy Noir, whatever you like. Also, feel free to send feedback about the show. Honest comments and criticism are always welcome!

Dear Mr. Keillor:
What do you think of the way people clap along with the Powdermilk Biscuits song and "Be-bop-a-ree-bop Rhubarb Pie?" I thought it was a European or Germanic tradition to clap ON the beat, and an American one to clap OFF the beat. But everyone you perform to each week seems to prefer the ON beat, whether they're Minnesotans or New Yorkers. That's an interesting phenomenon.

Corinne S.
Athol, MA

It's an interesting phenomenon for us on stage, my dear, especially if the clapping falls behind the beat and we're trying to stay with it, sort of like running in soft sand. I do remember audiences clapping on the off-beat — in New York, San Francisco, and I think in L.A. — and found it thrilling, but there is a powerful cultural undertow that pulls us into military march time. I would guess that if you dig into cultural anthropology, you'll learn that clapping on the off-beat is not American so much as African-American, and though African-Americans have had an enormous influence on American music, they haven't necessarily changed our rhythmic impulses, which may lie very deep indeed. So you could have a white audience thrilled by rhythm and blues who nonetheless might be culturally tied to the polka and John Philip Sousa. Decades ago in Minnesota we began to see mostly-black high school bands marching in parades and people were wowed by them, the style of them, and the shuffle-time cadence of the drums. It takes time for white folks to pick up that feel. I don't think an audience is going to jump right into it with both feet. I reckon that I could get them to do it by clapping on the off-beat over my head but I don't like to bully the audience. And my arms would get tired.

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Dear Mr. Keillor,
I grew up listening to A Prairie Home Companion because my father was a big fan. For Father's Day this year, my brother and I purchased tickets for my parents to the show on Aug. 19 at Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake City. My Dad has been fighting cancer for over a decade now and this last year has been especially tough. We took him to the show, and even though he wasn't feeling great, he laughed and enjoyed himself the entire time, as did we. You had my brother and I were in tears when you sang the song about your Dad.

Early in the morning on September 1, my father passed away. I am so glad that we were able to attend the Rhubarb Tour before he left this life. Thank you for the great show. Is there a recording of the Red Butte concert available for us to purchase somewhere? We would love to have a copy of it.

Thanks for the memory,

Natalie H.
Lehi, Utah

Oh Natalie. The mind reels at the thought of you and your dad at that show, after all you had been through. It was a light-hearted show for me — my wife and daughter were there, whom I hadn't seen for weeks — and I love that venue, outdoors, the buttes in the background, the arboretum nearby, the high desert sky, the audience sitting on the grass — and there you were looking for a little distraction from grief and suffering. I'm glad I didn't know about it that night — I couldn't have sung "I Still Can't Say Goodbye" — and I'm glad to know about it now. There were a couple of drunks in the audience yelling up at the stage that night, a rare hazard for our show, and there you were, too — different people in such different places on one patch of grass. I'll see if I can rustle up a copy of the show to send you, though it may not be a high-quality audio. As for the song, I sing it with my dad in mind but it wasn't written by me — it's by Bob Blinn and Jim Moore and you can find out about them and the song on YouTube. Merle Haggard recorded it, and I heard it from Chet Atkins who published the song twenty years ago and sang it everywhere he went, wearing a hat like his daddy wore. Chet's parents divorced when he was a kid and his dad moved down to Georgia and Chet spent some unhappy summers with him that he told me about once. He loved his dad and he also suffered around him. A common story. Chet found solace in the guitar, and when he sang that song, though he had sung it so many times, he was still moved by it, sometimes to tears.

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Mr. Keillor,
My husband and I have listened to your shows for years now and saw it live a number of times in Madison, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. We shook your hand in a hotel lobby in Madison and I am wondering about the red socks and red shoes... What does it all mean? By the way, our names are Jim and Barb and we really like ketchup.

Barb A.

Jim and Barb!!! I'm glad you like ketchup with all of its natural mellowing agents which may be one reason you haven't called in a high-powered flesh-eating attorney and filed a lawsuit for invasion of privacy. As for the red stuff, the socks came first and are in imitation of the great Studs Terkel who I saw wearing them and thought they looked terrific. I'd worn black socks for years, thinking that was what you were supposed to do, ever since I gave up argyles in the 8th grade (my aunts gave them to me for Christmas), and red just looked snazzy and stylish and a little flash of color on an otherwise drab person — like the flash of a redwing blackbird. The red shoes came when I found a pair of red sneakers in a store, Saucony, and snapped them up. I'd worn black sneakers that looked like bowling shoes, and the red ones went with the red socks. Also it gives people a hint that you are doing comedy, which may not always be apparent from your material. Like a red round nose and a red fright wig.

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Mr. Keillor,
On Amazon.com some days ago I came across a listing for the Lake Wobegon novel, Liberty. There wasn't much more about the project than some cover artwork. I enjoyed Pontoon immensely, so much in fact that reading the rest of your books became a New Year's Resolution (with my completing of Leaving Home just this week, the goal was achieved), and I'm wondering what else is there about Liberty that I should know?

Chris C.

It's a short comic novel, like Pontoon, and it's the second in a series of short Lake Wobegon novels, the third of which, Pilgrims, will come out in 2009. Liberty is about Clint Bunsen's crisis of faith when he feels that his life in Lake Wobegon is a big mistake and all his work to make the Fourth of July amazing and spectacular is for naught, that the town despises achievement and that he should head for California. He falls in love with a young psychic who marches in the parade as the Statue of Liberty, hence the title. But his wife Irene is stalwart and is not ready to lose him so easily. And there lies the story.

I got to invent some wonderful marching units for the parade, including the Whistling Mothers and the Betsy Ross Blanket Toss and I brought in a drum-and-bugle corps which I named for the late Will Jones, a columnist for the Minneapolis Tribune who was so generous to our show in its early years and who adored drum-and-bugle corps. He also loved Sally Rand and Peggy Lee and Shelley Berman, but he adored marching bands. One of the secret pleasures of novellizing — you get to remember the dead — I put my old friend Joe O'Connell into every book I write. What else do you want to know? I go to Viking to proofread the final page proofs. I sit in a basement room with a sharp No. 2 pencil and I read the entire book line by line, looking for the elusive typoe, hte fatal error that if I see it in the finished bok will drive me absolutely ntus.

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Mr. Keillor, when you come to Abilene Christian October 18, you might like to know that hundreds and hundreds of your auditors will be members of Churches of Christ, who practice four-part a cappella singing in their worship assemblies. This tradition is still strong in Abilene. So ask us to sing with you. I think you'll be delighted at the result.

Carisse B.

I'll be planning on it, Carisse. The Abilene audience will be up against some stiff competition, though. I remember a Mennonite audience in Indiana that sang a capella a gorgeous four- or eight-part "Doxology." I just said, "I understand that you people have your own version of 'Praise God from Whom all blessings flow'" and I pointed at them and they sang. And then there was an audience of Lutherans at St. Olaf who, when I pointed at them, sang four verses of "Children of the Heavenly Father" in four-part harmony. We don't have many Church of Christ people up here and I understand that you don't allow musical instruments in church — neither did the Sanctified Brethren whom I grew up among — so I will have the band hidden behind a screen. What shall we sing? "Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing"? "When I Survey The Wondrous Cross"? Whatever we do, we'll get complaints from the humanist crowd, but hey — complaint is an art form and it's good for people to get some practice. In the Church of Christ, you probably call it witnessing.

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Post to the Host:
We have watched the APHC movie multiple times and never fail to see something new each viewing. One thing we're having trouble deciphering is the angel Asphodel's diner appearance at the end of the movie. No one speaks and then it's over. Please explain the significance. Is she coming to take another soul to the hereafter or is it just left to the viewer's imagination?

Thanks for your help. We look forward to Saturdays for the live show.

Best regards,
Wayne S.
Midland, Ontario

My assumption is that she has come for someone and I don't know who. As it turned out, she came for Bob Altman, but that's beyond the scope of the movie. I am only the author, I don't have the answers. But I loved Virginia Madsen's serene entrance, her walk past the rain-streaked windows of Mickey's Diner on 7th Street in St. Paul. Mr. Altman worked hard on that shot and it was a privilege to watch him do it. Mickey's was shut down for the day and half the booths were taken out to make room for the dolly tracks and camera, and it took hours to get the lighting how he wanted it, and then we had to wait for the sun to go down. Virginia did her entrance four times, as I recall, and did it perfectly — the hard part was getting the right reactions from Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, and the non-actor in the scene, me. That was Meryl's last scene and after it, she stood in the intersection and hugged everybody goodbye and said, "Don't have any fun without me" and then Mr. Altman started work on the opening scene of the movie, Kevin Kline as Guy Noir in the diner and Tim Russell as the cook and Sue Scott the waitress, and Kevin's lighting the cigarette and the walk across the street.

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Dear GK,
What happened to Bertha's Kitty Boutique ads on the show?

Alex G.

Bertha's was a big sponsor years ago when I had two cats, Tuna and Ralph, and now that I'm no longer a cat owner, Bertha is not so interested anymore. I wouldn't mind having cats, and my daughter would love to have one or two or four or five, but I have relatives who are allergic to cat dander. And we have some upholstered furniture we would rather not be scratched to shreds. And my family and I love to travel. All of which legislates against cat ownership. Which disqualifies me for Bertha's sponsorship.

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Hello. I am wondering if you plan to do any book signing when you are in Alaska on Sept 10, or if that kind of thing makes you feel generally icky. Does it annoy you when people bring in books of yours they have already purchased? Do you prefer they buy something you might be selling at an event? I ask this because I was once snubbed by a writer for this reason. It was a rather sad experience.

In any case, I am looking forward to seeing you live! Thanks for all the great poetry over the years.

Annie E.
Anchorage

I was brought up to be polite, Annie, as no doubt you were, and the thing about manners is that, first, you learn to be kind, and then you learn to enjoy the people you're being kind to. Feeling follows form. I like to meet new people, look in their faces, see what hair preparations they use, check out their outfits, their cologne, their hairdos, and the best way to do that is to stand up close to them and sign a book. We make small talk and sometimes they want their picture taken with me which gives me an excuse to put an arm around them. I don't come from a big hugging tradition so this sort of physical contact is rather, uh, thrilling. I'm not selling anything at events, though sometimes other people are, and it doesn't matter to me if the book I'm asked to sign is some old waterstained paperback of "Lake Wobegon Days" with a price pencilled on the first page (35 cents) or the latest and greatest. What matters to me is that I get to meet the person who wants me to sign it. So I'll see you in Anchorage and if you want me to sign your socks, just take off your shoes.

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Dear Garrison Keillor,
I am a native of Minnesota, born in Red Wing in 1929. For years I have been proud of my native state as a place of tolerance and fair mindedness, not to mention good sense. That is, until last week and the RNC complete with police state tactics worthy of Pinochet. Amy Goodman, one of the best of the independent journalists arrested and waiting to hear what she was charged with. The repression of the Poor People's March, especially when daylight failed. The unwillingness of public officials to respond to questions, the use of paid informants, the use of major force — all of these lead me to wonder, "What has happened to Minnesota?" I hope you are wondering, too and will bring this issue to light on your programs. PHC is more than a source of quiet amusement, it is also a place to ask questions about the state of the State of Minnesota. Of course, Sinclair Lewis was not far from the mark in the '20's. wonder what he'd say today.

In grief for the blot on the name of my good state.

Sincerely,
Pete G.

Why are the St Paul Police repeating the performance of the NYPD at the last GOP performance — full riot gear, arrests of lawyers and at least one journalist, etc.? I expected better of Minnesota.

Dale P.
New York

I wish you would comment on the outrageous behavior of the St. Paul police during the RNC. I know St. Paul is your home and I'm sure everyone there (including the police) are just as nice as pie any other time and I'm guessing that having all those Republicans running around that week just made everyone in St. Paul nuts. The good citizens of St. Paul started acting nasty and sarcastic and snarling and lost all contact with reality. I don't think there's a vaccine for this.

Rick Z.

Numerous listeners have written in similarly asking about what happened here. I live up the hill from the hockey arena where the RNC took place and ventured down there a couple of times and it wasn't a good idea. The police were brusque, to say the least, didn't like people hanging around and were in no mood for small talk. It was pretty intense, even after the President had cancelled his trip here, and what I heard from cops is that security was run by the RNC, the FBI, and Homeland Security, and that it was out of the hands of the locals. A lot of cops were brought in from Ohio, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, plus private security, plus Men In Black who it was hard to tell who they represented. And riot police, who tend to look the same whether in St. Paul or Rangoon. The heavy security was in response to threats of violence from "anarchists," who turned out to be a lot of boys around 18 or so and who, like the security guys, have a thing about dressing up in black. The security certainly changed the event, isolated it from St. Paul and insulated us from the Republicans. It was rough on businesses downtown, like Cossetta's Italian restaurant which put up a big tent in the parking lot (a couple blocks from the convention) and which did much less business than they had hoped. Delegates stayed behind the fences. I suppose there are lessons to be learned here, and maybe some old lessons that we've forgotten. Martin Luther King, Jr., had to figure out how to control rash elements within his own movement so he could conduct non-violent marches. And we are a twitchy, paranoid people. Look at airport security — this will probably go on for the rest of our lives — removing our shoes in homage to Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber, and showing liquids and gels, etc. It's a bow to the god of security. Any anonymous person can pick up a phone and empty a school. A few 18-year-old boys in black can bring out enormous security forces. And when an air of apprehension and hostility is created, the door is opened to many many small invidual acts of cruelty. I am sorry that people exercising their legitimate right to march, to shout, to wave signs, to make speeches, were manhandled and pushed around. It shouldn't have happened. But many people in St. Paul had visions of gangs of toughs running through downtown busting windows and burning cars and they decided that that shouldn't happen either.

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Dear Garrison,
I attended Aida at the Seattle Opera this past week and once again during the grand procession I could hear your voice in my head singing, "No we cannot stop, stop at the Burger King. We will have some lunch at a nice restaurant that we know..." Everyone around me wonders why I am laughing during this very solemn part of the opera.

Do you sing along when you hear Aida? "Please stop kicking her or I will stop this car. I will stop this car and we'll turn right around and go home..."

Laura S.
Seattle

I finally got to see "Aida" at the Met last season and no, Laura, I did not think of the Car Trip version that I did long ago on PHC, there was just so much going on on stage—a platoon of Egyptian soldiers marching in, a bunch of manacled slaves cringing and limping, and three horses—all of which we the audience were terribly grateful for, since it is not actually a great opera. Grand, but not great. My wife has commented on this phenomenon at opera performances, that the moment an animal or a small child walks onstage, the audience immediately perks up, you can feel the thrum of excitement in the crowd. Opera is show business and show business is a primitive art. I wrote the Car Trip song because that melody is so easy to sing and easy to put words to. You could do this yourself. You could do it while driving, simply invent new lyrics. I hope the Seattle production had a horse or two in it.

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Dear Mr. Keillor,
in considering which location to travel to to catch the show, I wonder if the show is any different, not better necessarily, right home in the Fitzgerald Theater. Is there a comfort associated with being in the Fitzgerald that has the cast enjoying the performance more than being on the road?

Lee H.
Katy, TX.

Always wanted to do a show in Katy, Lee, and if we did, we'd sure do our best to impress and leap the Katy/Lake Wobegon gap and we would be aware of the advantage of surprise: there would be Katyans (Katydids?) who wouldn't know us from a bale of hay. That's not a bad thing. At the Fitz, we do our best but it's mostly a local audience and that is a different challenge. It's like me standing up at a family reunion and giving a speech about child-rearing: they know me too well, know what sort of father I was and they aren't about to accept anything I say. I had a wonderful time once in Cologne, Germany, talking to an audience of German university students about Lake Wobegon, and once they got their ears tuned to English, they were quite amused. As for enjoying the performance, the cast loves being on the road. So if you're thinking of attending the broadcast in Tulsa or the one in Abilene this fall, come on ahead. In Abilene, we're in a basketball arena, so there's plenty of room. You'll be surrounded by Baptists but surely you can deal with that.

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Post to the Host:
Could you please tell me what booji grass is? I'm playing Dionysus in a segment from your "The Midlife Crisis of Dionysus" for an acting class my wife and I are taking. Dionysus dreams of being chased through the booji grass. I Googled "booji grass" and the one and only result was another piece you wrote for APHC. The APHC use of booji grass also placed it in a dream.

Rick

I believe that booji grass is a tall sharp-bladed grass you find in dreams. You are running through it and it slows you down and wears you out. It doesn't part easily as grass should. It is clingy and perhaps damp and has spider webs in it and after awhile you simply give up and lie down and die, or you would, except nobody wants to lie down in booji grass. So you slog on and on until you come to the cougars, or the desert, or the jagged rocks, or something else.

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