Post to the Host
Comments from 02.20.22
Dear GK,
Limericks are like recipes. neither are copyrighted. and this one, while not original to me, is worthy of being thrown into your oyster exchanges, to wit:
a well-behave creature, the oyster.
cares not to carouse or to roister.
he never gets high,
but his life isn’t dry.
in fact, it could scarcely be moister.
Carry on,
Jpc
A generous friend, JPC
Sent an oyster limerick to me
And said, “Carry on”
And then he was gone
Or maybe I should’ve said “she.”
GK
My father had a college friend — I think his name was Dave Kaplan — who would amuse himself during boring lectures by writing bits of verse. The only one that has come down to me is
Said Henry James to D.H. Lawrence,
”I look on sex with great abhorrence.”
Said D.H. Lawrence to Henry James,
”I’ll introduce you to some dames."
I call it the Imaginary Conversation. Maybe you can use it. I think it is a worthy alternate to the limerick. I’m trying to write one about Justin Trudeau and Elon Musk, but what rhymes with musk?
Elizabeth Block
Toronto, Canada
Elon Musk said to Justin Trudeau:
”Why let your nostril hair grow?”
Said Justin Trudeau: “Mr. Musk,
That isn’t hair, it’s a tusk."
GK
Why don’t you add that communist regimes have been responsible for the deaths of 60 million or more people?
James S. Gammie, MD
Surprised and disappointed that on The Writer’s Almanac you referred to the Communist Manifesto of 1848 as “the most influential and best-selling political pamphlet of all time.” I would have thought that honor would go to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which Thomas Jefferson penned in 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …”
Bill Dole
I wish it were so and hope it will turn out to be, but considering China and Russia and the extent of autocracy and totalitarian regimes, I think Karl Marx is ahead in the game.
GK
Mr. Keillor,
Recently you posted a letter from a person who explained that voting in Georgia had never been easier, in criticism of some negative reference to Georgia politics you had made. You accepted the criticism in good faith.
Here is an excerpt from an article on restrictive voting legislation in various states, published by “Daily KOS,” an electronic news source.
“Georgia passed S.B. 202, a restrictive omnibus law that criminalizes passing out water to voters waiting in line. The law also politicizes the state’s board of elections and grants the board new powers to remove professional election officials and seize control of election administration in specific jurisdictions, which could lead to partisan influence in the election certification process.”
What kind of people would pass laws forbidding passing out water to people waiting to vote, in long lines in the Georgia heat? And legislate permission for partisan state officials to meddle with votes that have already been cast?
John
I’ll let the Georgians work this out, John, meanwhile the overriding problem is the low turnout especially in local elections and also for the presidential, especially among young people. Stacey Abrams did heroic work in turning out Democratic voters in Georgia, but nobody has figured out how to get twenty-year-olds to take an interest. Our heirs show little interest in the inheritance.
GK
I remember greenboards supplanting blackboards while I was in school. I must report that white, dry-erase boards have replaced most, if not all “chalkboards” regardless of their color. I suspect chalk dust was regarded as unhealthy and imagine a huge class-action suit was filed on behalf of all the unruly children whose punishment was to stay after school cleaning the erasers by banging them together and inhaling the ensuing clouds.
If correct, I will be somewhat put out because I endured that punishment on more than a few occasions but was never contacted by any law firm.
Still coughing in Florida
I hope you’re okay, hope that you’re not coughing chalk dust. I like white boards and black felt-tip pens, so much better for stylish writing, but surely the felt-tips give off fumes and Lord knows what the risk may be. But as a former chains-smoker and serious drinker, I do feel I’m out of the swamp and onto higher ground.
GK
Hi,
Did I hear you were looking for recipe poems?
Recipe for Apple Pie
hold the paring knife
to your lips take a peel
with your tongue squeeze
the redness into your mouth
slice the sunshine add
the glisten of sugar bake
until the smell knocks
on the oven door cinnamon
nutmeg dough the flavor of fall
open the oven open your home
to the wind of an orchard
to that cozy fire
inside you then eat
the circle hot and sweet
David Garrison
I wasn’t looking for one, but thanks for yours.
GK
IDEA: looking at the red sox paired next to each other, I saw A Pr-airie Ho-me CAMP-ONION! Let me know when Garrison gets it up and running — I’d love to send my grandkids there.
Jane Johnson
Jane, Camp Onion will not be a summer camp, it’ll be a work farm where rambunctious children will be sent to hoe corn and pick radishes and inions and strawberries, as I did back when I was rambunctious. My mother was nervous about me riding my bike along the state highway so she sent me to Fred Petterson’s farm to hoe endless rows of corn, which naturally led to prose writing. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
GK
Hi, Garrison.
You’re one of my favorite writers but your thoughts about the blatantly anti-Semitic AOC were a kick in the stomach.
I’m also a liberal, but it’s a sad day.
Best,
Ann
Ann, I shall check with my friend Rabbi Shosh Dworsky about the congresswoman and her views about Israel. I am always open to amendment. My admiration for her has to do with her life story, the waitress who beats the old incumbent who’s out of touch, and I didn’t mean it as a wholesale endorsement of everything she’s ever done or said.
GK
Dear GK,
My day begins with reflection, a new perspective unearthed, your voice, familiar, reading a selected poem. Those five minutes of noting a moment in history or an author’s birth, adding poignant notes — I have only enough time to ponder as you broadcast them — bring joy to the morning routine.
It is with delight to know that there’s a lot more to you than the Almanac, and I’ll be spreading the word among my flock in south Texas.
Until next time and soon,
Alicia (a baptized, but very lapsed Lutheran)
Alicia, the Almanac is coming to an end at the end of May and I suppose it’ll still exist somewhere in the digital ether but production is ending. I’m too old and out of touch and it loses money and whenever you delve into history, you get into trouble. I’m going back to comedy.
GK
Editors note: We are looking at a way to still send daily newsletters using information and poems from the archive. More information to come.
Garrison, you are a funny guy but a political idiot. You think we’re better off under the senile Joe Biden then we were under the crook Donald Trump? Stop embarrassing yourself. Look around, and weep.
Barry Powell
Are we talking about the DJT who called Putin a genius? I’ve watched President Biden speak and I’m weeping for the Ukrainian people, not for us.
GK
I have just turned 80 and a friend about to turn 80 gave me your new book as a birthday event. I have to say, it is a pure delight. One gets two or three mild little laughs each page, and often a major one. It contains everything that makes up a life well lived, elegantly told. When my wife and I married in 1978 we never missed a show, in the kitchen, cooking, laughing, dancing. Thank you for all this.
Ford Burkhart
Tucson, Arizona
Thank you, Ford. For a book by an idiot, I think it’s not bad.
GK
From a fellow sensible Minnesotan, I pen this to comment that your recent column was your best in ages. While I pray that M/M does not take power in January, I fear you to be a soothsayer. You’ve given me hope for the local level, even though I currently reside in deep red land … Thank you!
Gwen Watson
There’s always hope, Gwen, and everywhere I look, I see good people doing the hard work. Living in New York, a person gets a clear sense of how many good individuals we depend on in our daily life, the ordinary kindness and decency of cabdrivers, waiters, teachers, cops, sanitation workers, and when the cashier at the grocery wishes me a good day and says it like she means it, I am touched. It’s like Sondheim wrote, “No one is alone.”
GK
Dear GK, (in re: A Swing at a Low Curveball column),
Now, I get it — you LIKE angry rebuttals. And you’ll get them: Religion, politics, shooting children in school, like ducks on a pond, and blaming the guns. Hot stuff!
Well, this might disappoint you, but I think you’ve got it about right.
I’d add this: If you are standing in the voting booth, and you are still undecided, then vote for the candidate who did not fill you with fear, because that candidate is a demagogue. Like Huey P. Long, who built a bridge, and Donald J. Trump, who built a wall.
I think there’s food for thought there, but I will deny it if you tell anyone I said it! I don’t need the aggravation; and good luck with yours!
All the Best,
Cliff Adams
Fort Mitchell, Kentucky
Hmmmm.
GK
I have enjoyed your musings in the periodic newsletter, including the missive today about Lent, but really about bagel. As a regular baker, I decided to try baking some and there is nothing like homemade. It’s a joy to make and it doesn’t take very long with only one rise for the dough. The recipe is Roberta’s Incredible Bagels. Look it up. The results will put a smile on your face and that of your lovely wife. Keep up the good work, my friend.
Leon J. Barish
Austin, Texas
Living here on the Jewish West Side of Manhattan, home of Zabar’s, for me to bake my own bagels would be like a Jew in Minnesota playing football. I know of only one, Dan Dworsky, uncle of my pianist Rich Dworsky, a big star at Michigan State who became a famous architect. The Jewish Football Hall of Fame is rather small, same as the Lutheran Shortstop Hall of Fame. But I’ll pass the recipe on to my wife. She makes excellent granola and maybe she’s up for the challenge of bagels.
GK
Garrison,
I do not pretend to be an authority on the compositions of Claude Debussy. I do know, however, that his Clair de Lune was originally titled Promenade sentimentale (Sentimental stroll). It is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful songs ever written. If it constitutes “misty music,” let us recall that unto everything there is a season.
Warmest regards,
Coleman Hood
This is the benefit of my disparagement of Debussy, it brings out his defenders. But try sitting through Daphnis & Chloe. It is daft and cloying and tedious in the extreme.
GK
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Good morning, GK! The Writers Almanac is coming to an end in May?! Say it ain't so!
I was noticing the line: "Whenever you delve into history, you get into trouble." Yes, I agree that if one has an audience of millions, surely a few of them can think of some instance that contradicts a particular statement. And they have the means of bringing it to your attention.
To counterbalance this, I'd recommend "The Fourth Turning" to you and Ann. The basic premise is that once our grandparents' generation is no longer giving us feedback, we begin making the same mistakes that led to calamities a century or so ago. And, sooner or later, we may begin trying to "fix things" by digging up information from a century ago.
As an example, my Master's Thesis for library school involved the spacing of public library buildings. In the Twentieth Century (on the verge of turning to the Twenty-First Century at the time), the "omnipotence" of the motor car led to repositioning local libraries such that there would be adequate space for ample parking. Especially in the suburbs, where public bus service might be limited or nonexistent, "local libraries" in the poorer sections of town were replaced by more commodious libraries in the suburbs flanked by mini-acreages of asphalt.
I had direct experience with this situation. I had a farm in a rural area and frequently employed "Mis Amigos" - my friends who lived in trailers and converted barns nearby. They especially liked "cintas" - sound tapes - in Spanish. They also enjoyed "fotonovelas" - photo novels , similar to comic books. Since few of them had more than a second grade education, "literature" like "Don Quijote av La Mancha" - "Don Quixote of La Mancha" was simply beyond their grasp.
When I was headed back to the Los Angeles area, they would ask me "Susanna, can you go to a library and bring us something to read or some tapes?" That seemed like a simple request until I tried to carry through with it. In the barrios (neighborhoods), there might be a "Muy Pequeno" (Very small, generally one divider wide, and maybe four shelves high if the library had "an extensive section") Spanish collection. it would consist of half a dozen copies of books like "Don Quijote av La Mancha." These books might be checked out by primary English language students who were studying Spanish at an intermediate level, or above. Such "Literature" would generally be "Classics" like "Don Quixote" from prior generations. These books certainly wouldn't be in the Spanish spoken by the locals. In Los Angeles for example, that might be mostly Mexican, Guatemalan or El Salvadorian. Most of the librarians whom I interviewed in these neighborhood branches would say that no more than one book a week was checked out from their Spanish language section. Such "statistics" hardly represent a good fit between a library and the public it serves.
Back to my Master's Thesis. Such "documents" require extensive bibliographies in support of the main concept. - My theme was that libraries in poor areas should should be spaced within walking distance of the residents served, and should carry appropriate material for those patrons. For my bibliography, I could find EXACTLY ONE reference to the need to have public libraries closely spaced within walking distance in low income neighborhoods. It was a 1906 survey by the Chicago Public Library on the distance traveled by patrons in each of the branches of their citywide system. My thesis, as printed in an American Library Association journal, might have been the first paper about need for local libraries in immigrant neighborhoods to carry the materials that residents will happily check out.
Back to "The Fourth Turning!" The theme of the book reminded me of my "GLORIOUS FIND!" that Chicago Public Library Survey from 1906. At the time I was writing, it was close to the century of forgetfulness mark that Strauss and Howe focused on!
In many of those "homey monologues" from APHC, Our Host was actually illustrating the importance of allowing current generations to partake of the wisdom of the "Family (or village) Ancients!" One of the treasured characteristics of going to "Lake Woebegone" for me was that generational turning took me back to my grandmother in Connecticut . She a librarian - the curator of the P.T. Barnham Museum in the Bridgeport Public Library.
The Barnham and Bailey Circus began travelling across America in 1871. It merged with Ringling Brothers in 1919 (Wikipedia). My grandmother was steeped in that past - "The Fourth Turning" and beyond, in a way that she shared with me through much of my childhood.
It seems to me that Our Great, World-Famous Host (Similar to the entertainer Phineas T. Barnham) also had Keillor progenitors who steeped him in family lore! We need that! We need it in part to feel connectivity through the ages, and in part to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Sure, Honorable Host and Representative of P.T. Barnham in the digital age, the breadth of the audience might incur the possibility that someone, somewhere out there, at some time, might "correct" a statement or two of yours. I wouldn't be surprised if P.T. Barnham might have needed correction, a time or two, as well. But, I'd advise you to look at the sum total of your work!
Take a look, and I bet you might find that you've had a positive influence on the course of society many times that of the leading Ringmaster of a century ago!