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Beth G. -- Thanks for the thought, Beth, but my experience is that when you bring TV into the picture, you are dealing with very intense, nervous people who talk loud, and TV sort of takes over. TV people are still under the illusion that theirs is the dominant broadcast medium. Wherever you have TV and radio operating under one roof, TV is all spread out on the main floor and radio is in the basement. But radio is the medium of people on the move, in cars, on bikes, walking, running, and TV is the medium of people in nursing homes and prisons. Big TV fans in penal institutions: check it out. So here at our little radio show, we think, "Why take on the grief of being shoved around by a bunch of heavies just so we can be seen in Sing Sing?" Life is good. Why take on troubles you don't need? Permalink» | Comments (10) »
I know hundreds of people here who would rush out and buy copies. Please, if you do this, don't edit a word! Patience W. I don't know what the point of book publication is, Patience, if the entire body of newspaper columns is archived online at salon.com. Anybody who wishes can read any of them free. The only reason to put them in a book is to have the chance to rewrite them and I don't know if I have the stomach for that or not. They're short newspaper columns, 750 words, not essays and not letters, and I think the only reason to put them in a book is personal vanity, which goodness knows I have plenty of, but am not sure that a collection of hastily-written columns would serve my vanity all that well. But I do intend to publish a collection of sonnets, including the Christmas sonnet I did on the show tonight (Dec. 20). "The Old Scout" articles are also available here. Permalink» | Comments (4) »
Dick B. -- The English Major, by Jim Harrison. A terrific funny picaresque novel by a great American man of letters. I've read many of his poems on The Writers Almanac. Permalink» | Comments (0) »
David M. -- There have been a number, David. There's the "Lake Wobegon Hymn" ("Morning light, soft and bright, Wobegon reveals. Early frost all across farm and woods and fields") with music by Dvořák. Lake Wobegon High School has the Alma Mater. There's "One More Spring In Minnesota (To Come Upon Lake Wobegon)" with music by Peter Ostroushko. "Sons of Knute Christmas Dance and Dinner" is one we still do every year. There's "Slow Days of Summer" and "Summer in Lake Wobegon" and "Song of the Exiles" and then there's a song about the "Lake Wobegon Trail" which wends its way through Stearns County. A bike trail. Here are the links, if you're interested. My Minnesota Home Permalink» | Comments (3) »
Then it occurred to me — when a mere 17 year old girl from New Jersey gets hiccups, it's no big deal. But what about when YOU finds you are having repeated spasmodic contractions of the diaphragm while ON AIR? Regards, -- Hasn't happened to me yet, Julia, and thanks for raising the specter in my mind. I guess I'd just signal the band and they'd play something loud for awhile and I'd put my head under water. On Saturday night, I started coughing, but a stage manager dashed out with a bottle of water and I was okay. There is something about adrenaline that suppresses these problems, I find. I've started the show with a blazing headache and pretty soon it's all gone. I've been sick to my stomach and doing the show clears that up. And I have never had to pee during a show. Never. Isn't that interesting? So the cure to your hiccup problem, Julia, is to put yourself into serious trouble — like, doing a show in New York — and that'll take care of it. Permalink» | Comments (5) »
Lee N. -- The Professional Organization of English Majors shirt (short- or long-sleeves) is useful for all sorts of things but it isn't likely to change your waitress's word usage. Had she said it to me and my wife, I think we'd have been amused. This is how she'd talk to her friends — "You guys want to hang out?" — and her addressing us older people in that familiar way doesn't offend me at all. Au contraire, mon confrere. It's like the old bartender who used to call me "pal" though he didn't know my name. It was sweet of him, and sweetness trumps correctness. So says me, sweetheart. Permalink» | Comments (16) »
Richard -- You're referring to a sound-effects joke in which I described a juggler who juggled a cat, a hot toaster, and an alarm clock while jumping on a pogo stick and playing a trumpet. I think the chance of a public radio listener juggling a cat as a result of hearing that is rather slim. About the same as the likelihood of someone juggling a hot toaster. But next time, instead of a cat, I'll have him juggle a horse. Permalink» | Comments (7) »
-- Summering in the Antarctic, are you, Dennis? I'll bet it is idyllic. I grew up reading about the famous expeditions to the South Pole and the heroism of Amundsen, Shackleton, Byrd, and especially the Scott expedition that died on the return trip, but I'm sure that conditions have improved and you're not huddled in pup tents chewing on half-roasted sled dog haunch. I'd love to come see the station and will do a show for you ABSOLUTELY FREE if you will persuade the authorities to fly me down there. I have a week free in January. A perfect time to get away from the northern tundra. I would need to bring my older brother, the retired engineer in Madison, who craves a trip to the Antarctic, and I would, of course, bring a musician or two. And a small technical crew so that we could record the whole thing for broadcast. I guess we're talking about a 30-hour flight, right? No problem. We can do it. Are there people at the Station who can sing or tell jokes or tell stories? I wouldn't want to do a show that has meteorologists yakking about wind patterns or geologists — geology puts me right to sleep. See what you can do about this. You might need to stage a violent overthrow and take hostages — and if you demand PHC as a condition for their release, I will be on a plane pronto. Roger. Over. Permalink» | Comments (19) »
I had to laugh when I heard the age because my mother always said Aunt Micky lied about her age. I celebrated her "50th" with her in California with her, then, 5th husband, my Uncle Fred. People are amazed when I tell them the story of my two "aunts", one on the east coast and one on the west coast, who each had been married five times and their last husband was the same man. Many thanks, -- Those greetings, my dear Suzanne, are scribbled on scraps of paper by people in the audience and when I'm done reading them, I drop them on the floor and they're collected by a stagehand who throws them away. So we don't know any more than what you heard on the air, and probably that was all that was written on the slip of paper anyway. If anyone reads this who knows MILDRED GLICK OF HOLLYWOOD M*I*L*D*R*E*D**G*L*I*C*K *OF**H*O*L*L*Y*W*O*O*D paging MILDRED GLICK OF HOLLYWOOD and they'd like to put her in touch with you, we will pass that information on. A woman who married five times is worth your getting to know better. Hope spring eternal. Permalink» | Comments (2) »
Jac B. -- Back when I was an English major in college, I was able to expound at the drop of a hat, Jac, and I could've written a thousand words on this or almost any other subject, including books I had never read, but I've lost that ability to tease out allusions and draw parallels and make them dance, and all I can tell you now is that I chose the name Noir because the sketch is based on film noir and the name Guy because it's a French name that in English simply means "man" though nowadays some people use it to refer to women too. That's it. Back to you. Permalink» | Comments (4) »
Spare me this tripe. I'm not dead yet. Permalink» | Comments (82) »
I meet so few of them that it always comes as a surprise. Drivers on the freeway can be dreadful, of course — tailgating, honking at you because you eased in front of them and cut them off, zooming around you in rage — but you steadily ignore them, of course, nothing else to be done. Once in a blue moon I encounter unpleasant drunks and there, again, you simply listen to them blather and make pleasant murmurs in reply and slip away as gracefully as possible. Then there is the occasional person who feels the need to tell you that he does not care for the radio show, or for my singing, and never could understand why others do, and this person (I think) has the right to make his statement and be respected for it. The unpleasantness that is a problem is that of one's friends — it must be dealt with, and sometimes the friendship is lost over it. And then there is one's own unpleasantness, which is truly painful. One simply suffers over it. I don't know how to avoid it. It simply crops up. The art of management — of directing people, of instructing them, of rejecting some of their ideas — is not easily learned. I think I am ever pleasant to strangers, but as to people I know well, staff, guests, friends, family — I don't know. Yikes. Permalink» | Comments (2) » | | | |
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