GK: St. Paul is a pretty quiet town. A quarter-million people, which is about the right number for a city. With a quarter-million you can afford to have a good library and that's what you need, so people who need excitement can go down and take out Tolstoy's War and Peace and that's great (HORSES, SHOUTS IN RUSSIAN, CANNONFIRE, TUMULT, EXPLOSIONS, HORSES, SHOUTING, GUNS FIRING), and after that you're grateful to live in St. Paul rather than serving in the Czar's army, glad to walk through the snow (SFX) and wave to a snowmobile going by (SFX) and drop in at the coffee shop (ESPRESSO) and look at your e-mail (BEEP. YOU'VE GOT MAIL) and check out the videos that people sent you links to ---- the video of the cat who sings Stephen Sondheim (CAT, ISN'T IT RICH, AREN'T WE A PAIR, ETC) and the video of the man who dives fifty feet onto a wet sponge (SFX) and that's good enough. There's no need for you to dive fifty feet onto a wet sponge, is there. No. In St. Paul we don't go in for that. Or for training dogs to sing show tunes.
Maybe over on University Avenue you'll find a car cruising along whose enormous bass speakers (BASS THROB) make the sides of the car flutter like membranes ------ (SFX) ----- but otherwise St. Paul is peaceful. People reading good books (PAGE TURN, THROAT CLEAR) and sipping herbal tea (DECOROUS SIPS) and petting the cat (PURR). A quiet civilized place to live...
GK: ...Ever so often a plane flies low over the city (SFX) and now and then the peacock at the zoo gets upset. (PEACOCK SHRIEK) But otherwise silent.
The westbound Empire Builder comes through at 10 pm from Chicago and the eastbound leaves at eight in the morning (TRAIN WHISTLE) and that's the big excitement. Some things that are legal outstate, such as bears driving snowmobiles (SFX) which you'll find in St. Louis County or someone bungee-jumping while playing a saxophone (SFX) ---- they do that farther downriver ---- ever so often a kid runs his fingernails down the blackboard (SFX), but this is a quiet town, St. Paul. People drinking herbal tea (SIPS) and reading Moby Dick ---- (WAVE, WHALE BELLOW, AHAB SHRIEKING: Thou whale; I stab at thee (SQUORT) I spit my last breath at thee (SFX). I am tied to thee. I and my spear. (SQUORTS, WHALE BELLOWS) and then we put on a little Chopin. (PIANO TAG)