Garrison Keillor in top form. Some of us knew about this coolness business already. We've just been too cool to mention it a lot. :)
I once met Mr. Keillor in a pot luck lunch line in
San Luis Obispo, CA. He's a very tall man (perhaps 6'5") and has huge but extremely soft (almost squishy) hands. I mentioned that I used to listen to him during the morning drive time when I lived in
Red Wing, MN. He noted that was a very long time ago and I agreed. His presentation at the church made me think of him as the Midwest's answer to
Robin Williams. Very sharp and witty mind at work on stage. Very nice fellow off stage.
He had a Q&A session and I got the last question in which was "When will we see
Prairie Home Companion: the Movie?". He noted that he'd gone down this path once and ended up having the project orphaned by a change in studio ownership, organization, yada yada. He was do disinclined to doing the project that he said that if I wanted to give it a try at getting the movie made, please do so. Fortunately, I didn't take him up on his kind offer and
the resulting movie that did result came out pretty good.
Sitting on Top of the World - Truthout.org - 12 Nov 08
"Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves a few more weeks of quiet exultation. It isn't gloating, it's satisfaction at a job well done. He was a superb candidate, serious, professorial but with a flashing grin and a buoyancy that comes from working out in the gym every morning. He spoke in a genuine voice, not senatorial at all. He relished campaigning. He accepted adulation gracefully. He brandished his sword against his opponents without mocking or belittling them. He was elegant, unaffected, utterly American, and now (Wow) suddenly America is cool. Chicago is cool. Chicago!!!
We threw the dice and we won the jackpot and elected a black guy with a Harvard degree, the middle name Hussein and a sense of humor - he said, "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher." The French junior minister for human rights said, "On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes." When was the last time you heard someone from France say they wanted to be American and take a bite of something of ours? Ponder that for a moment."