Whats Garrison Keillor like?
He is very generous, but he’s a big nerd. I say this with huge amounts of respect. He is a restless, brilliant man. He is always creating. But by the same token, he has only one foot on this planet. He has many, many eccentricities. You can be talking to him and he’ll drift away and you know he’s gone someplace else. Garrison and I now — especially when we’re doing these non-broadcast tours where we do several shows in a row — we just go out there without scripts. I know his timing. How has scientific understanding of sound grown since your 1980 book? There’s so much more understanding of how the voice works, the musculature and particularly the way it’s controlled by the brain. There’s recordings now of plants where, during a drought, the actual cells on the inside start collapsing. And the sound is like (here he does a series of rapid click-putts). Well, the insects hear that and they go in (and damage the tree). It’s the sound that attracts the insects. (Researchers have) done thi
