Texas Pages

Garrison Keillor spoke Tuesday evening in Dallas, and special contributor Manuel Mendoza was there to file this report (now updated with additional quotes; our interview with Mr. Keillor is posted here.):

Garrison Keillor was in Dallas to promote his new Lake Wobegon novel, Liberty, but never cracked it open. The author/humorist/musician/radio host didn't even mention the book until almost an hour into his appearance Tuesday at Unity Church of Dallas.
"I wrote it, but I haven't read the book yet," he said at one point.
Instead, he recited and sang sonnets. "I've been writing these sonnets, and I don't know why," he said. He later explained, "A sonnet reins you in a little bit...and sometimes you find that's all you needed to say. Most books are too long."
The sonnets ranged in subject matter from James Joyce to endangered polar bears to lovers past and present. They were a jumping-off point for what turned out to be a funny and serious essay on writing and life and the relationship between the two that he seemed to improvise on the spot.
Mr. Keillor weaved the talk around his familiar biography, which plays out every week on his public radio show, A Prairie Home Companion. Religion was at the heart of it. He was in a church, after all.
"I came from dark people, and they had good reason to be dark. We were in Minnesota," he said. "We believed in forgiveness, in theory. It depended on the circumstances."
Dressed in high-water jeans and red socks and sneakers, he looked the part. But Mr. Keillor is an urbane wolf in rural clothing.
"I'm a city person," he said. "The part of small towns I like is the dissatisfaction."
His "sanctified brethren parents" and community's literal belief in Scripture unintentionally passed on to him a love of language, he said, "verbal art."
Teachers, who he called "goddesses of learning," extended that love to secular "imaginative literature." And then came rock 'n' roll, which he used to secretly listen to on a tube radio hidden under his bedsheets. To make the point, he moved from sonnets to Jerry Lee Lewis lyrics.
He never referenced the dust-up over his last visit to Dallas, and he stayed clear of politics -- until he was asked about it. Last time, he said he was told to avoid the subject. This time, the audience of about 800 was eager to hear what he had to say, and he obliged.
Did he have any thoughts about the upcoming election? "Hundreds, hundreds," he said. "It's going to be on the first Tuesday after the first Monday."
On George Bush's low approval ratings: "It makes you worry for his employment prospects. I hope his financial portfolio is in better shape than mine."
Who will win the presidency? "It'll probably come down to the skinny guy and the bitter old man."
And on Sarah Palin: "She will get a terrific book deal in December, January at the latest, and she'll have a lot of time to work on that...The American people have a very keen ear for when someone is talking and the clutch is not in gear."