(00:00:06) And good afternoon. Welcome back to midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary eichten writer and humorist Calvin trillin is widely regarded as one of America's Finest writers. He certainly one of the most prolific since the early 60s. He's been one of the nation's top magazine reporters featured in The New Yorker the nation and time. He's written three Memoirs two of which became bestsellers. He's written comic novels short stories poems. You name it? He's right about everything from Cuisine and culture to school desegregation in all 22 books including his latest called feeding a Yin savoring local Specialties from Kansas City to Cuzco, which just arrived in bookstores. Last month Calvin trillin is also pretty good speaker and two weeks ago. He was in the Twin Cities to talk at a Darth you sure and congregation in minute. Akka part of the pen pals lecture series series is sponsored by the library Foundation of Hennepin County. I'm very pleased to be talking in a library series. I'm a trustee. I'm usually described as the poorest Trustee of the New York Public Library and we the public means in the New York Public Library. Not that it's paid for by public funds which part of it is, but most of it is private public just means that it's open to the public and so we raised a lot of money. And in fact, we once had for a while every couple of years something called the tables of content dinner where they would invite people on their list send them this brochure saying you're invited to come to one of say I think it was 75 dinner parties and you get and you write your choices of which one you want and All had descriptions Like An Evening in the court of Louis the 14th and with wines flown in from France and some Professor from Columbia explaining what my special chef and a big tissue vision and they asked me to do what I said we could do one, but we called ours pretty decent Chinese takeout and and our only description was no eating directly from carton (00:02:34) permitted. (00:02:38) I thought because it was the library event that that I just talked about writing and I do a lot of different types of writing my My publisher says in a released and I'm remarkably diverse in the other way of looking at that as I've never really quite got my act (00:02:54) together. (00:02:56) But I do one of the things and I think the kind of main thing I do is reporting which and I've always reported mainly on America and for 15 years. I did a piece every three weeks somewhere in America, including two or three Minneapolis. And there was another reporter at the same time doing a similar series for the AP Jewels Lowe's is name and we formed an organization called the American Association of American correspondence covering America. Our acronym was gling pack. We just sort of like the sound of gling pack and our headquarters of course was O'Hare Airport, which is where we spent most of our time. We were talking about O'Hare Airport. Earlier today and I think the secret of O'Hara are poor people in Chicago tell you that more planes land and takeoff and O'Hare Airport than any other airport in the world what they don't tell you is a lot more land than take off. So the members of the American Association of American correspondent covering America, that is Jules and I because we were the only members spent a lot of time in you know hair and we only had one rule in the organization. You can't quote de tocqueville. That's how that's how we kept the membership (00:04:29) doubt and I had I had some Advantage for (00:04:34) of for reporting on America since I come from Kansas City and my father thought that we should see the country. So we made a lot of trips. When when when I was a child Kansas City is what the real estate people would call equally convenient to either coast and we we sometimes when East but we usually went West and my father would be in the front seat pointing out the Buttes and mesas and my sister and I would be in the backseat arguing over territory. We had a an invisible line going down the back seat lie down the center of the back seat least. She said it was a Senator (00:05:29) and most of you probably Above This (00:05:35) sort of thing when you were children, but it reminded me a lot of sort of geopolitical Border tension, like the tension between say Finland and the old Soviet Union. I played Finland (00:05:56) that my father said something (00:05:58) that Really was ruinous to my side and it sounds sort of retrograde politically now, but he meant it. Well, I was his his upbringing. He said we do not hit girls and you will never hit your sister again, and my sister was not visited with a similar injunction. So I became a unilaterally disarm Finland. She was a Soviet Union bristling with Weaponry. I I think if I hadn't had to concentrate on protecting myself from a sister with expansionist backseat policies. I would probably now know the difference between a Butte and a (00:06:53) Mesa. (00:06:57) And of course, I had the disadvantage of reporting anywhere else of having trouble with languages. I do speak a little French, but I don't do verbs in (00:07:11) French. (00:07:14) I really decided the verbs were caused all the trouble and in French and you can just ruin your whole trip thinking about whether you should have use the subjunctive in the bakery or something like that. I used to know some verbs I even know some what we would call sunday-go-to-meeting verbs like do such Groove La Plage. She's so where does it find itself the beach? But I even dropped those I the beach knows where it is. (00:07:57) The (00:08:01) Chinese is a language. I would like to know I'd like to be able to read the wall science and Chinese restaurants in New York where a lot of Chinese waiters. Don't speak English and I keep thinking that people are getting stuff. I really want and and don't even know about for a while. I had a little card that said in Chinese, please bring me some of what the people the next table (00:08:26) are having about. (00:08:34) I'm new wine and food writer named Finnegan in San Francisco who went to Japan took the trouble to learn enough Japanese to get around and restaurants and was in a restaurant in Tokyo and saw something that looked magnificent at the next table and he called the waiter over and he said in Japanese. Could you please bring me some of what the man at the next table is eating and the waiter looked puzzled for a moment and then shrug went over had a word with the man (00:09:05) and (00:09:16) Brought his plate over to Finnegan. I guess Spanish is as close as I've gotten to to being able to speak any other language. I've been assaulting and I was talking to Tim in the dressing room about I've been a sort of battering the walls of Spanish for about 30-40 years now without success. I think of it as one of those in my mind. It looks like one of those drug enforcement agency raids where they have a battering ram and they're smashing it against the door. They have those those windbreakers on that's it's a DEA and FBI. I in my my head I have a windbreaker on that says, yo, hablo (00:10:03) espanol and (00:10:08) It hasn't worked out when I think of my obituary and one of the few side benefits of my trade is that you get a decent obituary in the paper. I think of the subhead is saying monolingual reporter succumbs. I have also trouble with economics which I think is it is now necessary for certain type of Washington reporting. My math is week. It was my worst subject. I was never able to persuade my teachers that many of my answers in math Were Meant ironically (00:10:57) and (00:11:01) some of you might have read several years ago the the Texas state legislature passed a resolution in favor of changing pi to an even (00:11:13) three. And (00:11:18) and I was for it. I thought it was a good (00:11:20) idea. (00:11:24) So I've never written much about economics. I did do a column once about a couple this is during the Reagan Administration a couple had come back from the Caribbean and reported that actually seen a voodoo economics (00:11:38) ceremony, which (00:11:41) was horrifying (00:11:45) spectacle awful (00:11:47) smell of people cooking the books (00:11:49) and the (00:11:56) I was like most reporters. I was terrified when Clinton first got into office and said he was going to concentrate laser-like on the economy because we don't know any economics at all. And I thought the best thing to do was to get a sort of a preventive strike ready a sentence that made it sound as if I actually knew something and this was around the time that Clinton passed that first budget by I think one vote in the house or the Senate and my sentence was The question is what's going to happen when the deficit reduction component begins to bite? I have no idea what that means. I actually cobbled it together from a couple of sentences. I heard on (00:12:54) NPR (00:12:57) I think components a good word. It adds gravitas. I think to any sense and begins to bite. I think it was a fishing show or something. I can write and people would say, well, what do you think about what's going on with economics? I would say the question is what's going to happen when the deficit reduction component begins to bite. And people would say good (00:13:24) point good bro. (00:13:31) Turns out they didn't know any more about it tonight (00:13:33) ever. (00:13:37) The other kind of another kind of riding I do is I did for about 20-25 years. I guess was a was a column commentary on the news and people ask me sometime. Aren't you ashamed to to be making a living writing snide underhanded probably unfair comments on respectable public servants, and my only real defense was it wasn't much of a living? I've told the story many times of My First Column how I met with the then publisher. Now editor of the nation the Wily and parsimonious Victor s navasky and about doing a column and I said at the end of the conversation how much had you been thinking of paying me for each one of these columns and he said, oh something in the high two figures (00:14:40) and (00:14:47) I said what do you mean the high two figures and he said well, we've been paying 65 right? Well, it sounds like the middle two figures to me. So I turned it over to my high-powered literary agent and I said play hardball and he got them up to a hundred. So I was making $100 a column for the nation a couple of months after I started navasky came to me and said what about these quotes when I said what quotes are those and he said did John Foster Dulles really say you can't fool all the people all the (00:15:25) time, (00:15:28) but you might as well give it your best (00:15:29) shot. and (00:15:36) I said Victor at these rates. You can't expect real (00:15:39) quotes (00:15:47) people sometimes ask if if I get up I used to get complaints writing about politicians and things I never got many complaints. I would I don't think politicians would admit it that it bothered them or maybe even that they read this stuff. But the people who complained a lot where the animal people you can't write anything about animals without getting letters of complaint when I had the column at time. I remember just casually mentioning one week that corgis looked like dogs that had been assembled from the parts of other (00:16:26) dogs and (00:16:33) Not even the parts that those other dogs were particularly. Sorry about losing really I got a lot of mail from Corgi people. I used to write a lot of animal columns in the summer because I live in Nova Scotia in the summer and CBC the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which they have fantastic facts on CBC of All Sorts used to come home around Labor Day and I had enough facts to last me till March or April usually from CBC and particularly animal facts and the animal facts really made you think about they had a something about hummingbirds when they said a hummingbird weighs as much as a quarter. So I start well does it weigh as much as two dimes and a nickel that my daughters were very worried about how you weigh a hummingbird because there always seemed to be in motion. I tried to put their minds at rest. I we've seen those nature shows where they stun a wildebeest (00:17:44) and (00:17:49) and they send it on its way with a with a dart with little tag in its hear something and it's the same thing for hummingbirds. The hard part is not even hitting it with a little Dart the hard part is slapping it on the cheeks to bring it (00:18:08) around. And (00:18:15) so I got a lot of mail about how Ivan encouraging people to stick pins in a hummingbird's and I was not one of the people by the way who who during the time Dan Quayle was in office occasionally, his stare was described by people as like a deer staring into the headlights. I never said that but I would bet that the people who wrote that got more Angry mail from dear people than from (00:18:49) Quail people and (00:18:52) and and quail had a very very loyal group of followers. I have to say I did get some letter I even got some letters From them when I hadn't even mentioned his name, I did a column once suggesting that we pass a constitutional amendment making AC average a requirement for the (00:19:16) presidency. I got a lot of a lot of letters from the quail people. (00:19:29) One of the advantages I had in have in commenting either in columns are in poetry about people in Washington as I don't go to Washington much. So I don't see those people. I think it's hard to to criticize people who you know, or you meet even if you just barely know him the sort of a limit that I don't feel I have and sometimes I've had this sort of Daydream Nightmare of going to a party and encountering all of them. I mean the way I see it I show up for a dinner party in New York and I'm the just about the first one there because I had allowed some time to find a parking spot and I get one right away and the only other person that the host is not even home from the office the only other person beside the hostess is Steve Forbes and and the hostess says well, I have something to the kitchen. She runs awesome sure, you two have a lot to talk about and Steve Forbes is wearing that maniacal grin that he always had honest is pretty near the cutlery to and I and I sort of breaking the ice. I suppose you'll be wanting to know why during the campaign. I kept referring to you as a dork robot. (00:21:09) And before he can reply Senator torricelli comes in. (00:21:15) Wanting to know why I suggested as a campaign slogan for him never been indicted. And then all of a sudden the people, you know, it's one of those parties everybody seems to arrive at once Billy Graham. Is there pounding on a Bible asking why I said he was the only evangelist whose notion of hell is a place where he doesn't get to play golf with the president. And and there (00:21:41) is there is Senator (00:21:46) D'Amato the former Senator and he's calling me terrible names. He he he has used his bad language as we know from one of the campaign's very angry that I once Rhyme D'Amato with sleezeball (00:22:06) obbligato (00:22:10) and this was in a poem and I (00:22:16) don't know what tomorrow is hard to rhyme (00:22:17) Senator. I am from Kansas City. I can't bring myself to say tomato and it's always all rhyme. It's all sleezeball. Obbligato happens to rhyme with D'Amato. He said well, not the sleaze ball part and I that's a good point. But meanwhile Donald Trump is there and Ronald perelman and all these people and here Senator Gore the former Senator Gore former vice president Gore lecturing me wouldn't lie at Great length on why I referred to him in a poem as a man like (00:22:54) object. um And then and then Here (00:23:05) Comes Kissinger about Kissinger, I mean one little war criminal reference would make him mad. I mean talk (00:23:15) about talk about hypersensitive and (00:23:22) it turns out that's not what made him at all he's I had asked in some column if if George Schultz is a former secretary of state with a PhD and is known as mr. Schultz. How come Henry Kissinger a former secretary of state with a PhD is always known as dr. Kissinger. And the only thing I could think of is that maybe Kissinger had a Podiatry practice on the (00:23:50) side. (00:24:00) Well, when I say poetry this is not actually poetry in the it's not like Wordsworth in that crowd. It's more verse and the word doggerel has been mentioned but I I'm a deadline poet. I do want to once a week for the nation and I have some it sometimes gets sort of scholarly. I actually had a footnote in a poem a couple of weeks ago because I used a French word in a poem and I had a footnote poetic footnote which said to use old Europe's language French may seem to Hawks contrarian par don't we've changed our friends too fast for me to learn Bulgarian. The way the way my poetry started was I was inspired by John sununu. I not the current Senator but but his father who was the George Bush White House George Bush White House was a terrible disappointment for a lot of people in my trade because in the first place it was very clean their nobody got in trouble for anything and we hate that and and they all look alike to I mean, they you couldn't really tell the Secretary of the Treasury from the attorney general and except for sununu who didn't look like the rest of them wanting shaped like the rest of them and also had that wonderful thing that that the jackals of the press really look for and that has a wonderful sense of self-importance who mainly You're stood and being the smartest person in the room or being fought to be the smartest person in the room. And I think was Ed Rollins the Republican political manager who said that John sununu was a lesson in the Perils of telling your child that he has a high IQ. Also, he had that fantastic name sununu. I think it's absolutely beautiful name and I kept thinking that name sununu and eventually I came up with a poem that was called if you knew what's a new (00:26:37) new and (00:26:43) So I called the Wily and parsimonious Victor asked of asking asked him if he was interested in his poem and he said well said it over and I and then he said yeah, I think you should do a poem every week and I said, well I hate to bring this up again. But what were you thinking about paying me and he said we'll pay you $100 apart. So they're a lot shorter than columns and I thought that was a very much money until I started investigating how poets are paid in this country, which is by the line normally and the highest payer is the New Yorker. I'm proud to say which pays $10 a line. If you do the math, you can see why there's not a huge crowd in front of the Poetry booth at the career day Fair. And I was getting $100 no matter how long the poem was. So all I had to do to be the highest paid poet in the United States was to write a short poem and I tried it out pretty fast. I mean, I remember when Lloyd bentsen was confirmed as Secretary of Treasury, I did a poem that was called Lloyd Benson's dealings with special interest groups, which was the man is known for quo pro quickness in Texas. That's how folks do business. now that's fifty dollars a (00:28:19) line for the (00:28:27) And and so I kept occasional I sometimes write long points. But when I want I feeling kind of low and I want that buzz you get for working at the absolute top dollar in your field. I ride a 2-line poem and even during the campaign. Remember when when George Bush's Yale transcript was leaked in not not very impressive but it had seemed to have no effect on his campaign whatsoever and I wrote a poem that was oblivious Leon. He sails with marks not quite as good as quails (00:29:08) the (00:29:12) Of course the fact that those marks got him in the Harvard Business School is a confirmation of which class of Americans the original affirmative action system was designed to benefit. I have a problem that Wordsworth in that crowd did not have and that is I have to rhyme things and and a lot of people persist in going into politics whose names are not good rhyming names. My candidate was Ross Perot the only iambic candidate and I mean, even when he didn't run he was my candidate Clinton is a bad name to rhyme and remember during the during the unpleasantness of the end of Bill Clinton's term at the beginning. It was said that Hillary Clinton was going to take over his defense and she appeared on The Today Show and and I just couldn't do anything with Clinton. So I had to use her what we used to call. Maiden name. I guess whose name of origin or slave name whatever you call that. Now the poem was and so it's up to our MS Rodham to prove bills white house isn't Sodom. It's left to this adroit Senora to show that it is just Gomorrah (00:30:53) and (00:30:55) And Bush is it is it is a difficult name you I know it sounds easy. It's one syllable and but really it rhymes with tush but this I think is disrespectful. And so I've never I've never done that and and I wanted to write a poem. When when the first George Bush left office. I get sort of sentimental when they leave and fortunately he had a lot of middle names so my poem which was due to you George Herbert Walker. Though never treasured as a talker your predicates were often prone to wander now nameless Off (00:31:43) Alone. (00:31:51) You did your best in your own way the way of Greenwich Country day. So just relax and take your ease and never order (00:32:01) Japanese. (00:32:08) I also write Memoirs is I have a tremendous disadvantage in writing a memoir and that is I grew up in the Midwest and well I hesitant here because there might be people who might carry this back to New York where it would get me in a lot of trouble but I had a sort of a happy childhood. I think it's safe to say that in Minneapolis, but I don't I wouldn't want it known in New York (00:32:37) really (00:32:39) and and to write a memoir these days You're supposed to have some hideous secret to reveal some horrible, you know, incest or bestiality or something and I could imagine myself after I wrote first moment. I thinking obviously, you know, what if I'm sitting around in some memoir Gathering comparing notes with a bunch of other Memoirs and they're talking about their hideous secrets of just curl your hair and they they look over to me and say so you have any secrets your Memoir and all I can think of is is secret about my colleague dog chubby. And this is just not impressed them. Just chubby. This is really true story when I was about three or four we had a little Collie puppy named chubby and sort of sickly and one day he disappeared and my parents told my sister and me that chubby had been given to some friends who lived on a farm where he could Frolic with the other animals and get a lot of sunshine and feel better. I didn't think much about it and then and then some years later. I believe I was home from college we were having dinner and Chubby's name came up and I said, why didn't we ever go visit (00:34:20) chubbier to home and (00:34:29) my sister looked at me crazy said it wasn't any (00:34:33) Farm. (00:34:37) Chubby had to be put to sleep and I said Chubby's gone (00:34:43) and and my mother said (00:34:50) chubby probably be gone in any case because Collies ordinarily didn't live 18 or 20 years and I said How about you but why am I just finding out now and my father said it's not our fault. You're slow on the (00:35:07) uptake. (00:35:13) Just to show you the other apparel of memoir writing after I put that in the Memoir. My sister called me and said the dog was not called (00:35:22) chubby (00:35:24) dog was called George. Could you were called (00:35:28) chubby? when I went on a book (00:35:46) tour in For one of those Memoirs. Somebody asked me to book store. Are you afraid that your girls might write a memoir about you someday? I have two daughters and I said no, I'm not afraid at all because when they were about five and eight I had them sign a (00:36:06) nondisclosure agreement. The (00:36:14) nothing fancy just I think it's the same one. They use in Buckingham Palace for the server. So just trust Daddy just sign it. I also write write novels but most of my novels are based on reporting or they're not really novelistic novels. I guess all of them. I should say aye I wrote a novel about working at a news magazine and about the sort of you writer called a floater who's sort of a utility infielder and I admitted in the flap copy that I was the Floater referred to who tried to get out of the religion section by putting alleged in front of any historical religious (00:37:01) event (00:37:05) that I found that all questionable. I am alleged parting of the Red Sea (00:37:10) they were there. (00:37:14) the a lot of people thought that the last novel Tepper isn't going out which and I not here to boast. But I think it's the first parking novel. (00:37:29) I don't know. (00:37:33) It's It basically a little bit on experience to and I admit in the I think in the jacket copy that I was the co-editor of a publication called beautiful spot to magazine of parking which was described in correctly on the flap copy is a one-issue publication that came out in 1963. We like to say the second issue hasn't come out yet. We're having some production difficulties and it also some people wondered whether the mayor in the in the novel whose name Frank do Cavalli who's a mayor of New York whose a rigid vindictive mayor with an Italian name was based on anyway on the pre canonization Rudy (00:38:31) Giuliani. (00:38:35) and I tried to explain that I was been a most people live in New York a great supporter of the mayor's performance after 9/11 and I said, it just goes to show you that there are times when a paranoid control freak is precisely what the occasion (00:38:53) calls for the (00:39:01) I guess what's been in the news about my trade mostly lately is is the situation of the New York Times and I think the New York Times credit. I believe they were the first or may have been the first newspaper to put in a Corrections column where they where they admitted that they made mistakes. And so I'd like to end by reading a short piece. I wrote for the New Yorker some years ago called Corrections. It's about the correction column newspapers. January 14th because of an editing error an article in Friday's theater section transpose the identifications of two people involved in the production of waiting for Bruce a farce now in rehearsal at the Rivoli Ralph W Murtaugh jr. In New York attorney is one of the plays Financial backers Hillary murtagh plays the aunjanue the to murtaugh's are not related at no time during the rehearsal visited by the reporter. Did Ralph murtagh sachet across the (00:40:09) stage. (00:40:13) March the 25th because of some problems and transmission there were several errors in yesterday's account of a symposium held by the women Civic Forum of rye on the role played by slovenliness in cases of domestic violence, the moderator of the Symposium. Laura murtagh should not have been identified as an unmarried mother of eight mrs. Murtagh. The president of the women's Civic forum is married to Ralph W. Murtagh Junior an attorney who practices in Manhattan the phrase he was raised with a Hogs and he live like a hog was read by mrs. Murtagh from the trial testimony of an Ohio woman. Mrs. Murtaugh's own husband. It did not refer to mrs. Murtaugh's own husband. Mr. Murtaugh was raised in New York. April the 4th an article in yesterday's addition on the growing contention between lawyers and their clients should not have use an anonymous quotation referring to the firm of Newton murtagh and Clayton as ambulance-chasing jackals without offering the firm an opportunity to reply. Also the number of hours customarily build by Newton murtagh Partners was shown in correctly on a chart accompanying the article according to a spokesman for the firm the partner who said he builds clients for 35 or 40 hours on a good day was speaking ironically there are only 24 hours in a (00:42:00) day. (00:42:03) The same article was an heiress to the first name in background of one of the firm's senior Partners. The correct name is Ralph W Murtaugh jr. There is no one named Hillary murtagh connected with the firm Ralph W Murtaugh jr. Has it no time played in aunjanue on (00:42:20) Broadway April the 29th (00:42:25) because of a computer error the early editions on Wednesday Miss identified the person arrested for a series of armed robberies of kitchen supply stores on the west side of Manhattan the so-called pesto Bandit. The person arrested under was Raymond column 22 of Queens Ralph W Murtaugh, (00:42:49) the third (00:42:50) nineteen of Rye should have been identified as the runner-up in the annual squash for Kids Charity squash tournament in Rye rather than as the alleged robber. May 18th because of an error in transmission a four-bedroom brick Colonial House on weeping been Lane and Rye owned by mr. Mrs. Ralph W Murtaugh jr. Was incorrectly listed in Sunday's real estate section as being on the market for (00:43:20) $17,500. (00:43:25) The house is not for sale. June the 21st in Sunday's Edition the account of a wedding that took place the previous day at st. John's Church and Rye was incorrect in a number of respects. The cause of The Heirs was the participation of the reporter in the reception. This is in itself against the policy of this newspaper and should not have occurred Jane murtagh was Miss identified into mentions. She was neither the mother of the bride nor the Father of the (00:43:55) Bride. She was the bride. (00:44:01) It was she who was wearing a white silk gown trimmed in tool. The minister was wearing conventional ministerial robes. Miss murtagh should not have been identified on second mention as mrs. Perkins since she will retain her name and since mr. Perkins was not in fact the groom. The number of Bridesmaids was incorrectly reported. There were eight bridesmaids not 38 their dresses were blue not glued. The bridegroom's name is not Franklin Marshall. His name is emery barnswell, and he graduated from Franklin and Marshall College. Mr. Barnswell never attended Emory University which in any case does not offer a degree in furniture stripping. Mr. Barnes Wells ancestor was not a signer of the Declaration of Independence and was not named Hector boom boom (00:45:00) Bandini. (00:45:03) The name of the Father of the Bride was inadvertently dropped from the article. He is Hillary (00:45:08) murtagh. Thank you. Writer and humorist Calvin trillin speaking (00:45:16) recently at a theater and congregation in Minnetonka. The event was part of the pen pals lecture series sponsored by the library Foundation of Hennepin County. Well after his speech Calvin trillin took some questions from the audience during the Q&A. He was asked about taking visitors to play Tic-Tac-Toe with a chicken apparently a tourist attraction in the Chinatown area where he lives humorous poet and author Roy blunt Junior wondered if the chicken had been trained, who is your favorite writer? Who is my favorite writer? I'm not sure. I have a favor writer because they're all so different and I think Mark Twain was a pretty decent writer and he's from his era most famous writers are from music. (00:46:08) I (00:46:08) actually once Garrison Keillor once organized for the authors Guild benefit program where four or five of us were asked to write rejection letters for famous works of literature and I think Garrison himself rejected Walden Pond by thorough. He he said that there were a lot of good aphorisms in it, but the structure wasn't very good and she suggested making it into a calendar. (00:46:49) I (00:46:51) rejected the Wasteland by TS Eliot in iambic pentameter, of course, and I said the last two lines were I know this is a blow Tom not to worry. You're still the greatest poet from Missouri and it hurt me to say Missouri because Missouri is the way you pronounce that. (00:47:15) Do you still take friends who come to Manhattan to Chinatown to play Tic-Tac-Toe with chickens (00:47:23) the the animal people the Pussycat Brigade got rid of the chicken. The chicken is no longer there. They said it was demeaning to the (00:47:33) chicken. (00:47:36) Although I never saw the chicken lose. So I think the chicken was stinky with self-esteem. (00:47:44) So (00:47:48) I for those of you who don't know about the chicken. This was a chicken in Chinatown that was in a cage with a glass front and and the sort of lettering the that those of us who wasted part of our childhood playing pinball machines are familiar with sort of backlit lettering which said your turn Birds turn and it was a real chicken in their pecking away at and he had a little thinking booth that was called where he went into and you could press here X's or zeros whatever they were from outside and I used to take people down there that was sort of my big tourist attraction in New York. I take guest down there play the chicken if you beat the chicken, you got a very large bag of fortune cookies worth by probably 35 or 40 sets and and only cost 50 cents to play in chicken and I put up the fifty cents because I was the host and I've often talked about this because it was amazing almost everybody everybody. I took down their sort of looked over the situation. They were the ones who are going to play I put the 50 cents it and they look around and they say The chicken gets to go first. (00:49:17) and and (00:49:27) I said yeah, but he's a chicken you're a human being surely. There should be some advantage in that and and then not all of them. But a lot of them said The chicken place every day. (00:49:51) I haven't played since I was a kid (00:49:55) and Roy Blount jr. Had told me at one point that that the chicken have been trained by former graduate students of BF Skinner (00:50:07) and (00:50:10) I always hope that was true because it would it would be a refutation of the false teaching that graduate study is of no practical (00:50:19) value anywhere. (00:50:20) And and when I did this story for the New Yorker I found out that was true these people used. In fact, I have a head for a wall of video of BF Skinner playing the chicken in Tic-tac-toe, and these people were from Hot Springs, Arkansas President Clinton's Hometown, and I don't know if there's Connection there at (00:50:44) all, (00:50:46) and which turn out to be the sort of small animal training capital of the country and I talked to a guy down there who had a place called IQ zoo and one of his acts a chicken danced while a rabbit played the piano and a duck played the guitar and and I said what tune do they play and he said their choice. (00:51:17) Thank you very much. Writer and humorist (00:51:21) Calvin trillin speaking recently at a death you sure and congregation in Minnetonka. His appearance was part of the continuing pen pals lecture series, which is sponsored by the library Foundation of Hennepin County. Well that does it for our midday program today, by the way, we will be rebroadcasting Calvin trillin speech nine o'clock tonight here on Minnesota Public Radio. So if you want to hear it again miss part of it, whatever 9 o'clock rebroadcast, and of course, it's also available on our website as are all our midday programs. Just go to Minnesota Public Radio dot-org click on the program tab go to midday and listen to your heart's content all the programs are there and while you're there you might want to weigh in on some of the discussions the online discussions apparently pretty Lively discussion underway on our 11 o'clock subject today namely whether Minnesota is Become a Republican state, but with last Fall's election, and this Spring's legislative session. So take the opportunity and to have your say online, Minnesota Public Radio dot-org. Hope you can join us tomorrow among other things tomorrow. We're going to take a look at corporate corruption, which is back in the news today course Martha Stewart. The multi-millionaire icon has been indicted on Securities fraud obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges tomorrow. We're going to hear from former chairman and CEO of Twin Cities based ATC telecommunications, Chuck, Denney and hope you can tune in. (00:52:59) On the next brush are journalists Youssef Ibrahim is researching a book on oil and War also Elaine pagels a professor of religion at Princeton University discusses her new book beyond belief about the secret Gospel of Thomas, which was suppressed by the church and kept out of the cannon join us for the next fresh air (00:53:19) eight o'clock tonight here on Minnesota Public (00:53:21) Radio (00:53:26) you're tuned and I do 1.1 KN o WF M Minneapolis and st. Paul partly cloudy Sky 72 degrees in the Twin City area right now and we can expect a high to reach the mid 70s. So it might warm up a couple of degrees. We can also expect possibly a shower or thundershower today tonight.