(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell, FN: Fred Newman)
Minnesota is a beautiful place (OLD MAN: What you say?), I said it's a beautiful place (OLD MAN: Whose face?), a beautiful place, (OLD MAN: Never heard of it), but everybody in Minnesota is suffering from a really bad cold (COLD SFX), snarfling and sneezing and snorkeling and some people have the stomach flu (THROW UP), and that's why we left home and came to New Orleans, came through airport security (HIGH POWERED X-RAY HUM) and flew on a no-frills airline, Question Air (AIRPLANE, ENGINE MISSING) and landed at .magical mysterious New Orleans (BOAT HORN) ......on the edge of the Louisiana bayou (SFX)......New Orleans the birthplace of jazz (MUTED TRUMPET)......where the great King Oliver and Louis Armstrong started out (TRUMPET W. STATIC).....so it's exciting for a Minnesotan, to wake up early in your hotel (JACKHAMMER) and take your shower (SHOWER) and dry your hair (HAIR DRYER) and have a little breakfast of yoghurt (GLOPPING) and a cup of hot coffee (SCREECH OF PAIN) and walk down to the street (RACEWAY) and walk to Jackson Square behind someone with a boom box (HEAVY ,METAL) and walk around the square and listen to the street singers (ROCK VOICE, FOLK VOICE, OPERA VOICE) and then the bells from the Cathedral (BELLS) announce early Mass (GREGORIAN CHANT, ECHOING) and walk along and watch the tap dancers (TAP) and the mimes () and the poets ("spare change") and the painters (GLOPPING) and the skateboarders ("I mean, dude, like totally......") and the small children (INFANT CRYING) and their mothers ("I say, I give you a cola, I don't know what more you could want, honey") and finally you find a park bench in the sun, where it's quiet --- (LAWNMOWER) well, almost quiet --- and after awhile (MOWER FADES) it is quiet......and you sit down and put your hat over your eyes and wait until so tourists go past (HELICOPTER GOING OVERHEAD) and you close your eyes and go to sleep and dream that space aliens, the same ones who took Elvis (ALIEN SFX SPEAK), are coming after you, but first they seem to be more interested in beignets, so you're okay, for now. (MUSIC OUT)
© Garrison Keillor 2002