Dear Garrison:
I enjoyed reading Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 immensely. While
reading it I could easily imagine the book being made into a
movie. A sort of coming of age film. I know there have been
plenty of movies in this genre, but none like this. Any thoughts?
Kev
Dear Kev, You’re not Kevin Spacey,
are you? If so, I think you have a great idea here and I’d
like to see you run with it. The first problem is casting the
14-year-old boy. I guess you can find some youngish 17-year-olds
who can act, but it’s a tough age to portray, and it’s
the wrong age for a movie hero. Teenagers go to see movies about
heroes between 22 and 31, sexy ones, with great delts and abs,
who know about plastic explosives, not geeky little Christian
boys who are drawn toward smutty books. If, however, we could
turn the story around so that it focuses on the 17-year-old
girl, then we might have something. (Like “American Beauty”.)
And we could feature those great old cars and great old doo-wop
songs. (Like “American Graffiti”.) Let me know what
you think. Let’s have lunch.
Dear Garrison:
Wouldn't it be great if your show sponsored a CART or NASCAR
race car? Picture it now, a Ferarri with 'A Prairie Home Companion'
logo splashed on it's side. This would draw a whole new audience.
What do you think?
Vincent DeLacy
Vincent, It would be a whole new audience
who would tune in the show and loathe it from beginning to end.
Our little “Home on the Prairie” show (or “Las
Pampas de la Casa Compadre”) is a snoozy show for that
Ferarri crowd. They’re looking for something pretty primal.
For example:
PppppppPPPPPPPPPPPpppppppp
PppppppppppppppPPPPPPPPPPppp
PppppppppppppppppPPPPPPPPPPPPpppppppppppp
That’s your basic race audio.
Then there are the fiery crashes. We don’t have those on
our show: our crashes are pretty gentle and harmless ---- we
forget lyrics and burst into tears, or sometimes I lose track
of the News from Lake Wobegon and talk about Inuit culture,
or carburetors, or corn prices, for awhile ---- and nobody is
hurt in the end.
Dear Garrison,
I have a question for you from my nine-year-old granddaughter,
Chanel, an avid reader and writer. She writes every day and
has completed 25 short stories and is busy working on more.
Most of her stories are about animals but she puts them into
human conditions. She wrote a parody about Pilgrims Progress
using cats as the main characters. All this she does on her
own.
Garrison, could you be so gracious as to give us some pointers
or advice that will serve her well in years to come? I really
sense a future novelist or storywriter here and want to do all
I can to encourage that talent.
Sincerely,
Juliette
Dear Juliette, You have a talented granddaughter,
who is head and shoulders above any nine-year-old I’ve
come across, and my advice to you is to sell this Cat Pilgrims
Progress to a publisher and earn millions from it and take the
child and her parents to Antibes and live there in luxury. This
sounds like a great book. The first serious Christian cat book.
A real cross-over hit. If Chanel could work in something about
the Rapture and Armageddon and the Anti-Cat, you’d really
have something.
Garrison,
In reviewing your musings
to the Post to the Host column, I get the feeling that your
heart surgery last year may have changed your outlook on life.
Did your near death experience (living while a machine was acting
in place of your heart) make you more mindful of the simple
things in your life and the individual lives of those with whom
you come in contact?
~Dave
Dear Dave, You mistake me for
someone else, Oprah or Maya Angelou or that guy with the eyebrows
who has cashed in on the Holocaust in such a big way. I am not
an inspirational type person. I have always been mindful of
the simple things in my life because it’s those things
I have the hardest time with. I did not have a near-death experience.
You give me too much credit. Open-heart surgery is not such
a big thing. Nothing a guy would go and write a book about (My
Heart, God Bless It, and What I Learned From It) unless he had
no sense of shame. What the operation made me mindful of is
the extreme competence of other people compared to me. And that
I am a shameless elitist: I really wanted my doctor, Dr. Orszulak,
to have been an A student at a really good medical school and
not have squeaked through the Western South Dakota School of
Medicine with a 2.15 G.P.A.
Dear Mr. Keillor,
How did the opening performance
of Mr. and Mrs. Olson
go? We tried to pull it in on the radio, but KUNI didn't carry
the broadcast. Will you be doing any more operas?....writing
or performing in?
Marilyn
Whiteside, Bettendorf, Iowa
Dear Marilyn, The opera went better
than I was afraid it might. In other words, it could’ve
been worse. The singers were terrific, and the chat room scene
was funny, and the scene where the soprano chokes on the shrimp,
and of course it helps when you steal music from Puccini and
Verdi and Bizet. But that’s my last opera. The world doesn’t
need any more, and I can’t write anything better than “Der
Rosenkavalier” so what’s the point?
Dear Mr.Keillor,
I was wondering if anyone water skis on Lake Wobegon? I have
heard stories about the Agnes D, Wally's pontoon boat, but nothing
about anybody else's boats.
Yours,
Katie Hansen
Dear Katie, Last week I had a boys’
camp director take off on a para-sail, towed by a boat, and
the audience seemed to enjoy that, particularly the part where
he fell and didn’t let go of the tow rope and the water
tore his trunks off. So maybe I’ll have a water skier skimming
across Lake Wobegon behind a 150hp engine (these will be Summer
People, not the regular folks) and the tips of his skis will
dip beneath the surface and he will be towed at a high rate
of speed underwater, catching sunfish in his open mouth. Don’t
try this on
your own, though.
Dear Garrison,
I was born and raised in a small town in Iowa much like Lake
Wobegon. My father introduced me to your show in my early teen
years and I fell in love instantly. After graduating from high
school last year I joined the Navy and am now stationed at Pearl
Harbor, HI. While many of my relatives in Iowa and Minnesota
begrudge me my new home of sand and surf, I have begun to miss
the Midwest. As you travel to do your show I was wondering if
you ever get homesick as such and if you have any tips on feeling
better.
Aaron Skellenger
Lake Mills, IA/Pearl Harbor, HI
Dear Aaron, Homesickness should be taken
as a good sign, a sign of love, but not as your cue to head
home. Take it as your cue to think about Lake Mills and the
people there and what happened to you and maybe you’d even
be moved to put some of this down on paper. Not that you’re
going to write a novel, but maybe you’d write something
of value to yourself and your (someday) children. Willa Cather
wrote about her love for Nebraska, sitting in Greenwich Village.
Writing is almost always a way to make yourself feel better,
whether you’re a writer or not.
Dear Mr Keillor,
I've been listening to
the show a long time, and I just wondered about the rivalry
between Lake Wobegon Lutheran and Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility.
Do they have dartball leagues to take up their Wednesday nights
during those long winter months? Our little Lutheran church
in Rothschild, WI had a great league and they always seemed
to best our Catholic friends. What do the church members do
in the winter to amuse themselves?
Ann Nienow
Redondo Beach, CA
Ann, I know nothing about dartball.
Is this a game in which you throw a ball back and forth, past
teammates who attempt to throw darts at it? Does it involve
an immense rubber ball and a couple of Dodge Darts? In winter,
our church people do a lot of things to amuse themselves, some
of which are none of your business or mine. But not dartball.
Dear Garrison,
Does Guy Noir have a
mom?
Neal Cleary
Des Moines, IA
Dear Neal, Mom Noir is 87 and lives
in an apartment on West 102nd Street in New York City and shops
at Zabar’s and buys her clothing from street vendors. She’s
a Knicks and Yankees and Frank Sinatra fan and has been west
of the Poconos only once and didn’t think it was anything
to write home about. She likes to sit in Riverside Park and
take the breeze and read the Daily News and sneer at the yuppies
with their cellphones. She’s a classy dame who is very
creative with used clothing.
Dear Garrison,
I’m at a point in
my life where I just don’t know what to do. I’m young
(just out of college), and I’ve got my first (pretty good)
job, which I like. I live on my own, have my debts more or less
under control, and am involved with a lot of community activities.
I’m lucky and fortunate and I’m grateful for everything
I’ve got. Still, something seems to be missing in my life,
and I
don’t know what it is. Any thoughts?
Lucy
Dear Lucy, Sounds like you’re doing
well and I like that you feel gratitude. Yes, certainly you’re
missing something in your life. So am I, so are we all. Maybe
you’re missing adventure. Maybe you’re missing fun
---- you can have a lot of fun looking for it, believe me.
You just need to find people who make you laugh and inspire
you to make them laugh. Out loud. Long. Until people turn and
stare at you. Maybe you’re missing passion and romance.
No need to go looking for it, but it seems to come along for
most people. (Just don’t fall in love for anyone who doesn’t
make you laugh.) Maybe you’re missing a dog. Try to do
without one for a few years until after you find p. and r. Meanwhile,
do your job, keep your debts heading south, and have your adventures.
Dear Mr. Keillor,
I’m writing a book.
It’s a great book about women and their relationships with
people around them. What’s so marvelous about it, though,
is that it doesn’t have a “happy” ending! In
the end, the main character doesn’t get together with the
guy. She just continues on with her life, happy, independent,
and able to have great relationships with people. My question
is this: how do I get this extraordinary book down on paper
(or computer)? It’s all in my head right now, changing
a little every day. I just can’t get it out – I don’t
even know how to
start.
Lizzie
Dear Lizzie, You can’t carry
a book around in your head, you need to put it down on paper
(or screen). What you have in your head is the vague idea of
a book. You’re missing out on the excitement of meeting
your own characters and hearing them talk. You put them down
on paper and they’ll show you their own ending that may
not resemble the fairy-tale ending you describe. But that’s
between you and them.
