We're getting lots of reaction to the live "Prairie Home Companion" Cinecast to movie theaters last night. All the letter-writers compliment the TV camera work, the muted colors, the audio quality — bravos to all of that — and many of them comment on the warmth of the audience in their particular theater and how people clapped and laughed and sometimes talked back to the screen. Some people say they liked the performance. Thank you for that. Someone said it looked as if I was wearing makeup and was I and if so they were disappointed. (I was. Sorry.)

A few people were alarmed by the conversation ten minutes into the show between Erica Rhodes and me, in which she was presented as my replacement as host and we talked about what she'd do when she takes over the show. It's a tribute to Erica's acting ability that this bit seemed plausible, but — it was a joke, folks.

There were complaints — a viewer in Seattle was troubled discovering after she got to the theater that the show was not live but tape-delayed — it had been advertised as "live" and was not. This was the case all across the West — a 7 p.m. CST start in St. Paul meant a 5 p.m. start in Pacific time, which theaters felt was no good for people with 9-5 jobs, thus the delay. A complaint about a $22 ticket price, some complaints about theaters being sold-out and turning away patrons.

But Charlene Bell wrote from Pennsylvania: "I have listened to your show for the past 20+ years off and on; more on lately than off. I am a mother of 11 children and have forced my younguns to endure Guy Noir, Dusty; etc. Never saw even a picture of you or your show. Tonight was the happiest (and funniest) day of my year! (I would say life, but that was my wedding renewal). I took my sister who had absolutely no clue who or what Prairie Home was and we were laughing and crying, and talking to people we never met. No matter that we were the only African Americans in the entire theater, it never mattered. Thank you so much for the reminder of what is good plain fun and humor. God Bless."

The duets Heather Masse and I sang were "My Life" by Iris DeMent and "If You Were Mine" by Ann Reed. (Someone asked.)

As for me, I had a terrific time, though my solemn Sanctified Brethren face might not have told you that, and I'd be happy to do more of this, now that I know that people like to go to movie theaters and see this. But next time we'll sing some songs with the audience. I like the idea of people standing in multiplexes around the country and singing "America the Beautiful" and "My Girl" and "Ba-ba-ba-ba-barbara Ann."

At the post-show party at my house, Robin and Linda and Jearlyn and Heather and Carole the assistant director of the Cinecast and I stood around and sang "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" and "My Girl" and "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" and "Chapel of Love" and "Proud Mary" and some other songs, and that was the perfect end to a fine day of theater. Thanks for your comments.

GK was quoted in the January 29th edition of USA TODAY about J.D. Salinger's legacy. Only one quote — the first one here — made it to the final version, but we saved them all. Feel free to post your own thoughts, about Mr. Salinger, his books, phonies, or any of his characters, in the comments below.

"[Salinger was] the great author of my teenage years. He was one of those authors you felt intimately friends with and wished you could call him up on the phone and talk, which is why, I suppose, he spent all those years in New Hampshire not taking phone calls. There must have been millions of young people who wanted to talk to him."

"If you wanted to be cool you talked to the cool kids who told you to read Catcher in the Rye. Teachers didn't. The cool kids did. It was a grassroots literary movement."

"You wanted to be friends with Holden Caulfield You wanted to rescue him and take him home."

Dear Mr. Keillor,
As longtime fan of A Prairie Home Companion and a daily listener to The Writer's Almanac, I find both comfort and encouragement in your fatherly sign-off for the latter program: Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

But I've often wondered what you mean when you say, "Be well." How do you define well-being? What do you do to achieve it?

Steve C.
Wabash College

--

You're a college guy and I'm an old writer, Steve, so we're looking at this from different angles. I'm more aware of decline and decrepitude than you possibly could be. I'm at the age when people tell me, "You're looking good" in that tone of voice that says "for a guy your age." For me, well-being has a lot to do with forward motion. I need to have deadlines, a list of projects, people who rely on me, some ambition on my back like an outboard motor. Good health is good, of course, and you don't want big black splotches showing up on the CAT scan, but my sense of well-being comes from waking up each day with work to do. It was different when I was in college: the work was imposed by teachers and so much of it seemed irrelevant, make-work, a lot of pointless exercises. What you hope for in life is a sense of a calling, a vocation, which simply means that one goes to one's work gratefully, not out of fear or habit but with a whole heart. It's the whole-heartedness that makes for well-being. Everyone has to live with a degree of doubt and restlessness, but there's nothing like enthusiasm, especially when you're 67. I have a plumber in my house right now, working to repair a pipe that broke when it froze and rebuild part of a jerry-rigged heating system, and it is so clear to me that this man loves his work. So does my internist. So do the women who care for my ancient mother. So do the musicians on the radio show and the writers of the Almanac. Thanks for your note.

To the Host:
Making the drive from MI to MN for a couple years at the language immersion camps of Concordia near Bemidji, I was glad to see the many Indian communities in the area. Since my impression is that Lake Wobegon is Up North, possibly in the Paul Bunyan area, I reflected that few if any Indian relationships or experiences or stories appear in your monologues. I have no idea if that is by mutual agreement or simply thematically difficult. But I would be curious to know if there is creative room for Native Americans among the characters of Lake Wobegon.

G.P. Witteveen
St. Johns, MI

--

This is what we call a Large Delicate Question, sir. Lake Wobegon is not close to any Indian reservation, and so the appearance of Native Americans in the stories has been infrequent — a stranger appearing in town, distant rumors of a romantic liaison, a story of a heroic rescue long ago. I suppose this is due to cowardice on my part: anything I might say about Indians that is less than adulatory would horrify a lot of listeners who would write me long single-spaced letters calling me to account and I hate to put people to the trouble of writing long letters. I've met Native Americans who enjoy the stories, however, and none of them has suggested I should insert an Ojibwe or Dakota into the mix. If I were to do that, I guess I'd want to put my friend Jerry into a story. He lives on a reservation in northern Wisconsin and every time I see him he brings me a bag of wild rice. He has a spiritual gift of friendship that's mysterious to me, but the moment he walks into the room, though I haven't seen him for a long time, I feel bound to him, feel understood by him. He's a man acquainted with grief, having lost his son, and he is full of love that comes out in everything he says. We became friends about ten years ago and it happened within minutes after we met and I can't explain that. And if I can't, then how can I tell a story about it?

To the Host:
What is your reaction to the ELCA's recent decision to allow congregations to bless same-gender unions and/or call openly gay pastors? How are the decisions playing at Lake Wobegon Lutheran?

Jeffrey S.
Winlock, WA

--

My reaction, Jeffrey, is that I wouldn't want to be the historic First Gay Lutheran Pastor and walk around with a plaque on my back. People would expect you to be a saint and to give off radiant beams of light. They would await miracles. Pastors are servants and in the Lutheran church, congregations call their own pastors, so this decision is simply a matter of honest labeling. If a congregation wants a hetero pastor, they should have one and if they want the other brand, they can have that, too, but let the clergy be honest about who they are. You shouldn't order a Ford and get a Chevy. In Lake Wobegon, the Lutherans are all in turmoil about it and I don't know if they'll stay in the ELCA or not, or whether some of them might pull out and form their own un-gay church — they're all busy shovelling snow now. But the urge to separate from others is strong and there will always be restless people. In every marriage there is a strong case for divorce. One thing that keeps Lutherans together is the love of singing. There is nothing like a Lutheran congregation for singing acapella the old hymns and when they are riven by divisive talk, the antidote is to sit them down in a room and have them sing "Beautiful Savior". You'd hate to have the tenors and half the sopranos walk away over some doctrinal difference.

Dear Garrison,
I met a lovely woman named Ingrid from a town near Lake Wobegon (Thief River Falls, Minnesota) about a year ago and we've been dating ever since. We moved in together just a few months ago to my house near San Jose, CA. I myself hail from Milwaukee and wonder about any relationship advice you might have for someone living with a person from such a cold climate where the temperatures dip significantly into the negatives.

We'll be at your show this Saturday in San Francisco and I'd love to hear your advice.

Best,
Mike

--

Thief River Falls is famous for producing strong women, Mike, and I'd guess that Ingrid, being in love and in California, is looking around for challenges. You may be one of them. Life with you in San Jose is too easy for her and she can enjoy that only so long and then the urge to reorder the world kicks in. I imagine that, if your house was under lax management before, it is now cleaner and brighter and your collection of historic beer cans has been packed up and your Packer pennants and Brewers bobbleheads. Don't be surprised if she suddenly turns vegan or takes up yoga seriously or joins a book club that's reading Proust — and you get the impression, though she won't come right out and say it, that she'd feel better if you did these too. The silent expectation that others share one's interest in self-improvement — this is characteristic of Thief River Falls women. Be on your toes, prepared to follow. If she should ask you one morning, "Are you interested in running a triathlon with me — I saw that there's going to be one in June—" you should say, "Wow! Yes! I was just thinking the same thing." But say it sincerely, not sarcastically. Same, if she says, "I was thinking I'd like to read Finnegan's Wake" or "I saw an ad for a night school course in Arabic" or "I read an article about E. coli and I don't think we should eat another hamburger in our lives". It's a steady upward trail when you live with a Thief River Falls woman. And eventually comes the Big Question and then the Bigger Question. Those you will have to deal with on your own.

GK,
Do you not feel a film about Lake Wobegon characters would detract from the pictures we as listeners hold for them in our imaginations? Mr. Altman's film worked well as a visualization of your radio personas, but I cannot imagine any actor giving the Lake Wobegon characters so true a portrayal.

Burton G.
Marietta, GA

--

I'd love to see Lake Wobegon portrayed in a movie. I am curious to know what they look like and what they talk about. Fiction is a bold venture into the dark and this seems to me to be a natural step. But I intend to write the screenplay. 

Mr. Keillor,

I am a receptionist at a Lutheran retirement community here in Mount Pleasant. We have an issue, whether baby Jesus should be put in the manger of the creche before Christmas morning. We of other faiths think that by the time the wise men arrived, baby Jesus would most certainly have been available. Several members of our community, though, insist that baby Jesus cannot be seen until Christmas morning, and they plot to steal him away (totally without humor, I might add) before the day of the blessed event.

I am hoping that you will be willing to venture into this dangerous territory.

Sincerely,

Paige Van Pelt
Mount Pleasant, S.C.

--

This is a danger of retirement for Lutherans, Paige: they will turn their intellectual powers to small things and make large things out of them. They were brought up to be kind and defer to others and not make a big issue of things, but this wore off and now they are abducting Jesus from a crib, and before long they may turn to bank robbery. Lutherans are industrious people. They are bred for work. If you drive them into retirement, they will go bad. Your crafts program may be to blame — instead of putting the oldsters to work painting landscapes or weaving or carving, you should put them to work cleaning and vacuuming and baking and canning. And digging would be good. You need a work program at your retirement community. You could put them into orange jumpsuits (so they don't get run over) and have them pick up trash by the roadsides. I have other ideas, if these don't work out.

Your Lake Wobegon ending is "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."
Do you think it is more important for a woman to be strong or good-looking?

Lena H.
Anniston, AL

Women are not decorative objects, my sweet, they are living, talking, thinking action figures who are on missions, some of them secret, driven by powerful inner forces, just as we men are. Because they are so crucial to the human endeavor, it's more important for them to be strong. The breakdown of a woman is a terrible thing. Families may be broken, lives skid into the ditch, when the mother falls apart. Men are not so crucial and that is why they earn more and are more prominent and successful and gaudy and write songs and novels and travel around giving speeches — their children don't need them so much. They need to be strong sometimes but they also need to be attractive, funny, kind, charming, sweet-tempered, and most of us fall short. I don't find grumpiness in men attractive or admirable. The quote, though, is descriptive of the Wobegonians, not a prescription for you or me, and that's all. The name Lena is a great name, strong and lyrical at the same time. And rare. Up here in Minnesota, we tell Ole & Lena jokes and that's why we wouldn't name a girl Lena, but it's a wonderful name nonetheless.

GK,

Some college students nowadays go out and party on their free nights. A fellow English major and I, however, find ourselves in the throes of a different kind of adventure. One time, we rode our bikes through the dark night and the rain to get to a cafe and play Scrabble, musing all the while at the poetry of the rain and the steam that drifted up from the lights.

What kind of adventures did you have as an English major in college?

Kelly H.
Tallahassee, FL

--

The adventures I longed to have, Kelly, were those with attractive women, the sort of adventures that provide material for love sonnets or for the opening chapter of a memoiristic novel in which the protagonist, a sensitive young man (not an English major but a cowboy with excellent grammar and a gift for the poetic phrase), mourns the loss of his true love even as he turns his face toward the rising sun and the endless possibilities of tomorrow. I did not have those adventures because I had no idea how to set things in motion. I was clueless. So I sat in coffeehouses and listened to singer-songwriters and brooded. I hung around the periphery of parties. I thought long thoughts about life and death. I left the church. I played basketball and dislocated my arm. I wrote a lot and worked on the college literary magazine and imagined becoming a writer. I also imagined going to prison. And once I rode a bus to New York City and lived in a boarding house on West 19th Street and walked around, looking for things to write about. My biggest adventure was writing a long English-major letter to my draft board, refusing to be inducted into the U.S. Army, and getting away with it. I'm still stunned by that one. If I'm ever in Tallahassee in the rain, I hope you and your friend will invite me to ride bikes with you. I will recite you "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now" by A.E. Housman and "A Blessing" by James Wright.

I've been listening to your show ever since I was a teenager, and I love it so much. I am a fourth grade teacher now, and I would like to help my students become storytellers. What advice do you have for them or for me?

Angela M.
Portland, ME

--

Have a unit on jokes: put 40 or 50 narrative jokes in a hat and pass it around and everyone has to tell that joke, impromptu. Introduce them to the classic stories — you, Angela, telling them the stories — The Little Mermaid (the original H.C. Andersen version), Ulysses, Noah and the Ark, the Prodigal Son, Romeo and Juliet, B'rer Rabbit, Snow White, and so forth — and introduce them to the idea of oral impromptu narrative....

Post to the host:
My name is Joyce Sparrow. I'd like to know how you chose that name for the character in A Christmas Blizzard.

Thank you--

Joyce Sparrow
Kenneth City, Florida

--

Her husband's name is James, hers is Joyce, so you can see where that came from, and Sparrow is a perfect name for a wealthy couple. They roost in an enormous apartment high above the Loop in Chicago, and it's the week before Christmas. He wants to migrate to their nest on Hawaii and she is feeling ill and so they linger as Christmas mounts up around them. He dreads Christmas. She loves it. And she is the heroine of the story, so you should be pleased. Send along your address and I'll sign a copy of the book for you.

When I was in grade school, I was taught that a poem has to rhyme.

What I hear you read on Writer's Almanac, to me is NOT poetry. I say its an essay.

Why do you call them "poems" when they don't rhyme?

Thank you,
Judy

--

Poems may rhyme but it's not required all the time.
If they don't, it's called free verse, or vers libre.
It's like a zebra:
Whether he is in the zoo or running free,
He's a zebra. Same with poetry.
You can call them essays,
But essays don't put their heads down and graze. 

To the host:

I listen to your show almost every single week, but I cannot recall having EVER heard a barbershop quartet on your show. Since barbershop quartet singing is a uniquely American art form, and since you seem to enjoy harmonizing, I cannot imagine why you don't schedule them regularly.

What gives?

Robbie Brunger (a tenor)
Tallahassee, FL

--

Good question, Robbie. We've had a couple of quartets on, but haven't had one for a long time. Maybe I got tired of hearing "Hard-hearted Hannah the Vamp of Savanna, G-A" and "Where is the fair in farewell, where is the good in goodbye." Or maybe it's that the music has sort of calcified and is more about technique and showiness and scoring points than it is about true feeling — it's more of an athletic event than esthetic...

To the Host:
Just a small comment about yesterday's show, regarding the tribute to Harry Smith and his place among midwestern men — you said Jimmy Stewart is from Indiana. He isn't. Not the Indiana you allude to. Stewart hailed from the city of Indiana, Pennsylvania, a lovely little city that confuses matters even further by being home to Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Stewart's father had a hardware store in the heart of town, and for years, the Oscar for "The Philadelphia Story" sat in the window.

But putting Stewart and Harry Smith together is rather good company.

Blair T.
Topeka, KS

--

You are right, and thanks for correcting us. Indiana, PA is about fifty miles northeast of Pittsburgh and that puts Jimmy Stewart well out of the midwest, though he played midwesterners well enough to be considered one. It was the self-effacement, don't you know. We consider that someone who gets all flustered and tongue-tied if anybody compliments him is for sure one of us...

Mr. Keillor:
I am an aspiring writer and am currently working on a book, but I need some advice on how to proceed. I feel like my characters are moving too fast, things are happening too quickly. I have my plot and everything, but I feel as though I might end it a little too fast. What do you suggest?

Lucy G.
Chico CA

--

Hard to advise a writer in Chico at this distance, Lucy, though I remember Chico fondly from a visit a couple of years ago. A different California from the mythical parts — Hollywood and hippiedom — and I loved the little one-story white wood house where I stayed ...

A message from Garrison, reporting what he did upon arriving back to his St. Paul home last night, Friday September 11, after being released from the hospital.

--

I came home Friday evening, had dinner, wrote a limerick about my neurologist, and started writing about the experience of having a minor stroke. Nothing bad happens to writers — everything is just material.

Last Monday I suffered a stroke
Which affected the way that I spoke,
But it revved up my brain,
Which they cannot explain,
And now, when I think, I smell smoke.

Hi Mr. Keillor,
I work as a content editor for websites. That is similar to editing manuscripts but your eyesight goes south a bit faster. I love to write but I am so busy, that I cannot find the time.
What time of day do you find is the best to get your writing done?

Bracha B.
Omaha

--

I sure wish we could get rid of that word "content" to refer to writing, photography, drawing, and design online, Bracha. The very word breathes indifference — why would one bother about the quality of work when it's referred to as "content"? I'm sorry to respond to your good question with a cranky diatribe, but this word has crept from New Media over to Radio Broadcasting where I live in my little cave and now my Show has become Content and is sent around to stations in a nice digital package that squashes the sound. Public radio, which holds itself up as a believer in quality, is cutting corners on all sides and I see this perfidious word "content" as part of the downward slide. I loathe the word. It's like referring to Omaha as a development.

Okay, enough of that.

You're working hard at editing and if you want to do some writing, you probably have to do that before you go to your other job. Simple as that. You don't need to be fresh and lively to edit websites — your intuition and acquired skills will carry you through — but you have to come to writing with a big head of steam, and I suggest you do that for at least an hour, preferably two, before you go to your job. If you work 9 to 5, that means setting the alarm for 5 a.m. so you can shower and dress and have some coffee and take a nice brisk walk for 20 minutes and then settle yourself down in a quiet place and have two luxurious hours of stillness in which to put something on the computer. Then make a hard copy and stick it in your back pocket to mark up during any odd free moments during the day. If you're out of the habit of writing, you may need to do some exercises — give yourself some assignments — write about your parents, describe your best friends, write the story of your worst low point in life, etc. Just to get your brain working. In the evening, I'm afraid, your brain will be tired of words, so the morning is your best bet, and you'll have to give up some of your evening pleasures so you can get enough sleep. But it's worth trying this for a year or so to see what comes from it. And I wish you well.

Post to the Host:
Whatever happened to THE DALES shopping centers? I haven't heard about them on the show in years! Did they terminate their corporate relationship with the show, or did you decide that, in Today's World, they were no longer representative of the strong, Down-Home Values and morals necessary to keep our children Above Average? I'd certainly appreciate an update.

Mary S.
Richmond, VA

--

Bertha's Kitty Boutique was located in the Dales, and some other sponsors, and we dropped it because ---- well, because it was a local joke and the show went national a long time ago. Minneapolis, you see, has the honor of being the home of the First Large Indoor Mall ---- Southdale was considered the prototype, followed by Rosedale, Brookdale, Ridgedale, and so forth. To which we added Clydesdale, Chippendale, Airedale, and Mondale. Turning Fritz Mondale into a shopping mall was a lovely thing, but we killed off the joke before it got too old.

Post to the Host:
Dear Mr. Keillor, I'm 19 years old, a student at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and grew up listening to your stories, starting with the one about Gladys hitting the raccoon.

I'd like to say that I've been living a good life so far. I've kept my grades up, I'm doing well in Air Force ROTC, I've become fluent in Japanese and spent 8 weeks in Japan, and I am now learning about Irish culture (especially music), and am planning a trip to Ireland.

It seems to me like I'm the odd one out in my generation. Other kids are getting in trouble and being stupid. Just last night, a kid got charged with a felony, because he was stupid enough to set off the fire extinguisher in the stairwell of my dorm, which subsequently set off the fire alarms, which we found out to be broken, because they wouldn't turn off! I was awake from 1:30 in the morning until 6:19AM when the alarm was finally cut off. I then had to wake up at 7 to make the 2 hour drive home. (Hey! This could turn out to be an interesting story!)

My question to you is this. What is your opinion of my generation? Do you feel optimism? Pessimism? Impending doom?

Taylor G.

--

You are off to a fast start, Taylor, and evidently you've discovered the pleasure of learning which might prove to be a hindrance and keep you from settling down in a career since you'll always be anxious to learn a new one, but never mind that. Learning is not something imposed by others, it's the mind fascinated and engaged on its own, and I wish you well. (Read some of those mournful and delightful Irish memoirs of the drunken father, the long-suffering mother, the terrible priests.) As for the kid who shot off the fire extinguisher, he isn't going to be actually charged with a felony----- they're just saying that to scare him ---- and he was simply drunk and that doesn't reflect on your generation whatsoever.

It's too early to tell about your generation, of course, but it may come to regret having followed my generation and having to fix what we messed up. Mine is idealistic, or thinks it is, or wanted to be, but we got handed the Vietnam war by the Greatest Generation which completely misjudged the situation and we haven't quite recovered from it yet. My generation was deeply engaged in politics, as a result of the civil rights struggle and Vietnam, and when I look at American politics today and the demagoguery and sheer trashiness, it's discouraging. Members of my generation fought long and hard to keep ROTC off college campuses, a wrong-headed campaign born out of anger against the war, and thereby deprived a lot of young men and women of valuable training, and also wasted time in needless controversy. So much righteousness and so little to show for it. The current debate over health care reform stands as the strangest and silliest in my memory. On the other hand, when I think that a 19-year-old in Knoxville is fluent in Japanese and turning toward Ireland, I feel hope for the future. I'm an optimist, of course. Being a parent of an 11-year-old, I'm more or less obliged to be. So stay out of trouble, keep your grades up, and enjoy your college years. And then report back.