(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)

GK: Coming up later on many of these public radio stations, THIS AMERICAN LIFE OF MINE with your host Ira Gress.

TR (IRA GLASS): The other day uh I was looking for uh ---- I don't know what, something ---- and I am poking around under my bed and uh here was this big box of stuff, and I'm going, like, where did this come from? And it was from camp when I was kid and I'm going, like, oh no--- And then there's uh this shoebox, like, full of shells. Clam shells? And suddenly I'm like remembering this whole EXPERIENCE of picking up all these shells, you know, and I look down and there's this really pretty shell in the water and uh I pick it up and suddenly this bug or something flies right into my eye and so I'm like rubbing my eyes and I notice something really amazing and that's, you know, when you like press on your eye you see all these incredible colors, these very bright points of light, like neon almost, and suddenly I'm going, like, wait a minute, maybe beauty is not an objective thing, maybe it's like uh actually in the eye of the person who is looking at whatever it is, and maybe it doesn't even matter what you're looking at, as long as you have that EXPERIENCE, and that's what I'm going to be talking about today on THIS AMERICAN LIFE OF MINE. About beautiful things that maybe you wouldn't even think are beautiful at all but I think they are because that's what I see, and I'm the host of the show.

GK: That's coming up later, THIS AMERICAN LIFE OF MINE with your host Ira Gress.

(c) 2000 by Garrison Keillor