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Post to the Host Send your own post to the host. Garrison: You've expounded on the value of public universities, how democratic they are and how they facilitate the bootstrap spirit of our nation. I live in the busy Northeast Corridor, and I'm now considering applying to one of the great American public universities. But how do I justify this to all the Ivy League punks in this world? There seems to be a grain of truth that Ivy graduates run the country, and fill the most powerful roles in our society. I can hear their sneers, years in advance. Sincerely, -- I'm a romantic idealist when it comes to education and I think college is supposed to be an enormous life-altering experience, not simply vocational training. It was enormous for me. At the private schools I've visited in the past few months, St. Olaf and Macalester and Drake, it was striking (to me) how cheerful and eager and enthusiastic the students were, and maybe that's an advantage of Ivy and other private schools, that they weed out the indifferent. On the other hand, when I've been at Harvard and Yale and Princeton, I only felt very lucky to have gone to the University of Minnesota. It was a huge land-grant university when I landed there in the fall of 1960, but I was terribly lucky to enroll in three terrific classes at the get-go, Latin Reading with Maggie Forbes, Composition: The Essay with Richard Cody, and American Politics with Asher Christiansen, three teachers still vivid to me all these years later. And I, who had vague literary ambitions, fell in right away with others who had big literary ambitions. And I went to work at the student radio station. So, within a few months, my life got set on its course, which is a sort of miracle. I came from a small town and the U of M was a bustling metropolis with large contingents of African, Indian, and Asian students and ambitious cultural programs. In my freshmen year, I became good friends with Barry Halper and Larry Leventhal and got to see Andres Segovia and the Royal Danish Ballet and the Cleveland Orchestra with George Szell and see a couple Shakespeare plays and see Robert Frost read, one amazement after another. I was at the U because I had no money and my high-school record was unimpressive and what I got from the U was a chance at a large life. And that's why I believe in public higher education. But of course things have changed in fifty years. Tuition has risen ---- obscenely, I think ----- and commercial pop culture is more pervasive, which tends to dumb down the environment, and political correctness has eroded the classic curriculum, and the economy has made students more fearful and cautious than I remember being. But there's still an education out there for you, young man, and you don't need to justify your choice to anyone. Take your shot and make the most of your opportunities, whether you go to Harvard or Hermantown J.C. And have a big time. Permalink» | Comments (5) » Dear GK, Mark Brynolfsson -- Lutefisk is a delicacy that is cherished by a dwindling population of old Swedes and Norwegians around Christmastime, dried cod soaked in lye that must be carefully washed (many times) and then properly cooked, eaten (by Swedes) with a white sauce and (by Norwegians) with melted butter. It is peasant food, a staple among the immigrants, that is eaten by fewer and fewer people in Norway but still is cherished by old Scandinavians for whom it has sentimental associations with the blessed holiday. People joke about it because it does, in its raw state, reek of lye, and it will stain silver, and the odor will linger in your kitchen, but if it is prepared properly, it does not need to be pungent, as I described it long ago in Lake Wobegon Days: "Every Advent we entered the purgatory of lutefisk, a repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish that tasted of soap and gave off an odor that would gag a goat. We did this in honor of Norwegian ancestors, much as if survivors of a famine might celebrate their deliverance by feasting on elm bark. I always felt the cold creeps as Advent approached, knowing that this dread delicacy would be put before me and I'd be told, "Just have a little." Eating a little was like vomiting a little, just as bad as a lot." The answer to your question, Mark, is Yes. But lutefisk does not need to be an issue. The big lutefisk dinners in Minnesota always serve Swedish meatballs as an alternative entree and nobody is going to put a gun to your head and force you to eat the "repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish". It is an acquired taste, like sweetbreads, or Baroque music on period instruments, or Morris dancing, or Melville's Moby Dick, and here in America you find small pockets of enthusiasts surrounded by large populations of the indifferent and dismissive. It's a great country. Permalink» | Comments (7) » Dear Mr. Keillor, Our book club just met to discuss your book "A Christmas Blizzard." Much to my surprise, I had read a completely different version of the book then my fellow members. We were very curious as to why there were such extreme differences in the hardcover and paperback versions. Michelle Tvaryanas -- Penguin, my publisher, was curious too, Michelle. Ordinarily authors don't rewrite a book for the paperback edition. But I thought the story could be improved by shifting James Sparrow, the protagonist, from the high promontory of the super-wealthy to the ranks of the renter class. So I went ahead and did it. I leave it to you to judge the results, but it was great fun to get another whack at the manuscript. No book is ever really finished --- it's simply yanked out of the author's hands and set in type ---- and that's why authors don't sit around savoring their own work. They know they'd come upon big lumpy passages that fill them with chagrin. But I don't think I'll lobby Penguin for the chance to re-do Lake Wobegon Days or Lake Wobegon 1956. But I'm really really tempted to go at Love Me. I'd cut out about half of it and expand the core. A writer comes to a point in life where he suspects that he has said what he has to say and now his job is to say it better. On the radio show I've been borrowing more and more from early work, which is easy, thanks to the computer. There in my hard drive is a vast trove of scripts and lyrics and monologues going back thirty years, and if I pull up, say, a Noir episode from 1993, the thing cuts like butter. Out goes 9/10ths of it and from what remains I sprout a new story. A frugal man takes pleasure in this sort of recycling. On the show last night, I did a revised version of a 10-year-old "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" with some new lines ----
Better be careful, be discreet
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