(PIANO, TRAUMEREI)
Garrison Keillor: Fall in Minnesota, a sweet wistful time, bare trees, browns and gold and russet and burnt ocher. Our football teams are losing, of course, which we fully expected and this reminds us of old girlfriends who told us they didn't have that sort of feeling about us, and old job interviews with businesses who didn't have that sort of feeling about us either. Our application to Harvard that came back with the form letter that was written in very short sentences using very simple words. Our children's nursery school application that came back, saying Maybe next year. But we were brought up to smile our way through rejection. We were brought up to...
Look for the silver lining
Whene'er a cloud appears in the blue
Remember somewhere the sun is shining
And so the best thing to do is make it shine for you--
Winter is coming, and the silver lining of that cloud is that we aren't that attractive anyway so a heavy parka and snowpants is a good fashion move for us, and a scarf and a ski mask is only an advantage, and when God dumps a few feet of snow on us, we bundle up and go out and start shovelling, and have heart attacks, and suddenly everything is even whiter and more brilliant and you run into people you used to know......
Tim Russell (REAGAN): Well, how are we doing today? Don't recall seeing you around here before. It's a new morning, that's for sure.
Sue Scott (MARILYN): Hi. Surprised to see me? Well, turns out Luther was right. It was by faith and not by works. So -- get ready to be surprised, big boy.
TR (MR ROGERS): I guess that God likes you just the way you are. Yes, he does. And now you'll be my neighbor forever. Yes, you will. Do you know how long forever is?
TR (LINCOLN): Howdy. Lincoln's the name. Abe Lincoln. You're from Minnesota, huh? Gets cold there, doesn't it. Your boys sure saved the day at Gettysburg, I'll say that.
... look for the silver lining
Whene'er a cloud appears in the blue
Though John Wilkes Booth creeps up behind y'
The happy ending of the story'll be a really nice memorial.
GK: I grew up in a sod hut on the prairie in a family of 13. We were Swedish sharecroppers. My dad raised soybeans which he thought were lingonberries (TR SWEDISH) and we made soybean jelly and nobody would buy it so that was my diet through childhood which rotted my teeth to little blackened stumps so I never smiled. My mother Birgit went insane (SS SINGING IN SWEDISH, IN VACANT WAY). She just seemed happier that way. It took her mind off her troubles. Dad didn't talk much. He mostly expressed himself by clearing his throat. (THROAT CLEARING) And when winter came (BLIZZARD) we were snowed in for days, weeks. And so books meant a lot to us. It was the only escape. The Three Musketeers, I read it over and over.
(HORSES WHINNY)
TR: (FRENCH SHOUT)
Tom Keith: (FRENCH RESPONSE) (SWORDFIGHTING)
(CANNONS)
TR: (FRENCH SHOUT)
TK: (FRENCH SHOUT) (THEY MOUNT UP AND RIDE AWAY)
(TRAUMEREI)
GK: Fiction -- that's the secret for some of us. Fiction is the silver lining. Your life is hard and dull and so you turn to fiction where the sun is shining. Is that a bad thing?
Steven Koop: Well, what do you think?
GK: Well, I was hoping you'd tell me what you think, Doctor.
SK: And what if I did tell you?
GK: Why do you only converse by asking questions?
SK: Does that make you uneasy?
GK: Yes.
SK: Why?
GK: Wouldn't it make you uneasy if you talked to someone and they only asked you questions?
SK: Is that a question?
GK: What do you think?
SK: What else is on your mind these days?
GK: Not much. Winter.
SK: How do you feel about that?
GK: How do you feel?
SK: What's that music I hear?
GK: Aha. You noticed.
SK: Is that Schumann?
GK: Yes. I love Schumann. Especially in November. Especially this piece. "Traumerei." Dreams.
SK: What does it make you think of?
(PAUSE)
SK: You haven t said anything for almost the entire hour.
GK: Oh?
SK: Any dreams we should talk about?
GK: No.
SK: How about day dreams?
GK: Oh, just the usual.
SK: What's the usual?
GK: You know.
SK: You're still daydreaming about being Italian?
GK: Yes.
SK: And how does it feel to be Italian?
GK: Oh, you know. Like this. (SINGS, TO "LA DONNE E MOBILE):
The sun it shines today
And life is beautiful.
This wine is fabulous.
And I am thirty-four.
I am Italian,
And I am handsome.
Look at my hair... it's long and it's black
And it's thick and it shines
And I'm rich and I'm smart
And all I do is sit around and sing.
SK: And how does Schumann make you feel? Does it make you think about jobs you were turned down for and colleges you wish you'd gone to and about having a heart attack while you're shovelling snow?
GK: Sometimes, yes.
SK: Does it make you think of poetry? Like the sonnet by Shakespeare?
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see's the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
GK: Yeah. Something like that.
SK: I used to have a Schumann problem, and then I joined a support group called SchumannAnon. (MUSIC STOPS ABRUPTLY)
GK: Why did you turn off the music?
SK: I switched to jazz. Listen to this-- Doesn't this make you feel better?
(JAZZ TRIO PLAYS SILVER LINING UPTEMPO)
GK: No, it doesn't. I don't like jazz.
SK: Wait, there's a bass solo.
(BASS SOLO)
GK: I don't think so.
SK: Where are you going?
GK: I'm going to go down the basement and look for something.
SK: Look for what?
GK: I'll be right back. (FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPEN) (CLICKS OF SWITCH) Darn. The light bulb's burnt out again. I keep forgetting to replace that. (DESCENDS DOWN CREAKING STEPS) -- Dark down here. Hope nobody left a roller skate on the stairs. Looks like there's a light on --behind that door -- door to the furnace room. (FOOTSTEPS ON CONCRETE) (KNOCKS ON DOOR) Larry? (DOOR OPEN) Hi, Larry.
TK: Hi.
GK: You busy?
TK: Nope. Got all the time in the world. That's the nice thing about living in the basement. Your time is your own.
GK: We were hoping maybe you'd come up for Halloween. We had a mask for you.
TK: I thought about it and then I decided not to. So what's going on up there?
GK: Oh, not much.
TK: You're in therapy, aren't you?
GK: No, not really. We just meet and talk......
TK: You're nuts, aren't you. A danger to yourself and others.
GK: I'm okay.
TK: It's always the real quiet polite ones -- you see that all the time -- they're the ones who crack under the strain and they wind up walking into a shopping center waving a .22 --
GK: I'm fine.
TK: You fit the profile exactly. You're a candidate for a mental breakdown.
GK: I'm fine.
TK: Got an extra rollaway down here.
GK: No, thanks.
TK: Got the TV. Record player. Got all my old Kingston Trio albums.
GK: I don't want to live down here.
TK: You can have your own space over there by the water heater. I won't bother you. Complete privacy.
GK: I'm fine, thanks.
TK: We could play cribbage. You remember how to play cribbage? You and I used to play cribbage a lot.
GK: That was a long time ago. We were young, we had time to kill, and now life is going by so fast.
TK: Not for me it isn't. I love killing time.
GK: Come on up -- I'll introduce you to people -- you can make friends --
TK: I've got lots of friends. Friends online. We meet in the chat room every night.
GK: Larry, it's not too late to come up and have a normal life.
TK: Nobody has a normal life.
GK: Come on.
TK: Nobody's normal anymore. Life got crazy. That's why I moved down here. Compared to most people, living in the furnace room is darned normal.
GK: You need to get outdoors, get some fresh air.
TK: No such thing. Here, I'm going to shuffle. (SHUFFLING)
GK: I'm going upstairs -- come up whenever you're ready. Life is good, Larry.
A heart filled with joy and gladness
Can always banish sadness and strife,
GK: Well, maybe one hand. (SLAPS CARDS DOWN)
GK:
So always look for the silver lining
And try to find the sunny side of life.
(BAND CHORD BUTTON)