(THEME)
Tim Russell: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still seeking the answers to life's persistent questions...Guy Noir, Private Eye.
Garrison Keillor: It was February, cold in St. Paul, bitterly cold, children coming down with ADHD, Arctic Dermal Heat Deficit, which requires that a child be kept home from school, and young people coming down with feelings of futility and despondency which requires them to become artists --
Sue Scott (TEEN):
Let us go then, you and me,
When the sky is dark at half past three
Like somebody threw a blanket over us or something,
Let us go through snowy streets
With sneakers on our feets
Past the cheap motels
Burger Kings and Taco Bells--
GK: One morning I got a call from the manager of the opera company which was putting on the premiere of an opera called "Angry Fruit"--
TR (HIGH, TIGHT): Mr. Noir, it's Mr. Peck at the Ordway--
GK: Yes, of course.
TR: Thank you for not saying "Cold enough for you?"--
GK: You're welcome.
TR: You've probably heard about our new opera, "Angry Fruit" --
GK: Yes. I hear the costumes are wonderful.
TR: We're having a terrible problem with a cellphone ringing during the performance--
GK: Well, send the ushers down the aisles and find the culprit and throw him out in a snowbank.
TR: We've tried but we can't find him.
GK: You need to hire bigger meaner ushers, not these retired kindergarten teachers. You need big men with gold chains and dark glasses.
TR: We've been having the audience go through metal detectors and still we keep getting this cellphone. Same one, night after night. The tone is the cry of a loon.
GK: A cellphone with a loon tone, huh?
TR: Right. So last night we had the audience remove their shoes and jackets and submit to random body searches and two minutes into Act I, there it was again--
GK: A terrorist at the opera.
TR: Could you come to the performance tonight?
GK: Of course. (BRIDGE) I arrived at the opera and the backstage was crowded with singers dressed as bananas and plums and tangerines and the stage manager was making the curtain announcement--
Tom Keith (P.A.): Welcome to tonight's performance of "Angry Fruit". Please turn off all cellphones or pagers. This is your final warning. If your cellphone goes off, you will be arrested and taken to the cellar and tortured by sopranos. Enjoy the show. (CLICK)
GK: I stood in the wings as the tenor stood onstage in a prune outfit and sang--
(SYNTH STRINGS, BIG GLISS)
Vern Sutton (SINGING):
We prunes are angry. We have a right to live
Even though we are considered a laxative.
Our lives are hard. We walk a rocky path
With second bananas, and sour grapes who are filled with wrath.
We are leaving Oklahoma
And heading for Sonoma
Carrying our heavy load.
We will open a winery and make Pinot Joad.
All fruits are brothers in harmony
Or sisters, as the case may be. (LOON TONES)
GK: And just then the cellphone went off and the conductor turned and yelled at the audience. (TR ANGRY ITALIAN) And the audience yelled back (TK SHOUTING, OTHER SHOUTS) And there was a riot in the opera house. In Minnesota. (MOB) Unbelievable. Minnesotans, shoving and yelling and throwing food. At the opera. (BRIDGE)
GK: After the police had arrived with dogs and fire hoses (DOGS, HOSING, MOB) and the maestro had been taken off to jail (TR ANGRY ITALIAN) -- I spoke to the tenor, Marvin Molto--
VS (SPEAKING, SHARP): That sound wasn't coming from the audience. I'm pretty sure about that. It came from the ceiling. Weird.
GK: So you think it was deliberate sabotage.
VS (SPEAKING, SHARP): I do. Somebody who knows that there's something about the cry of a loon that arouses Minnesotans.
GK: Well, it is our state bird.
VS (SPEAKING, SHARP): It arouses something primal in people, something wild and visceral -- something opera tries to arouse and cannot. --Maybe I just need more vibrato--
(BRIDGE)
GK: And then calls came in from all over town. It wasn't just the opera. At the Club Thompson where the jazz sensation Nora Johnson was performing--
(PJ SINGING IN BACKGROUND)
SS (DEEP): I'm Nora's manager, Sylvia. Thanks for coming.
GK: What sort of cellphone tones you hearing?
SS (DEEP): They're the cry of the loon. And when people hear it, they jump up and dance on the tables.
GK: That doesn't sound good.
SS (DEEP): Exactly. The tables are tiny here. --
(PJ FOREGROUND SINGING)
(LOON CRY)
GK: And sure enough-- there was that sound (SHOUTS AND FURNITURE CRASHING) and before you knew it that listening crowd had become a dancing crowd (WHOOPEES) and people were taking off their sweaters (BAND: THE STRIPPER OPENING...) and dancing in their underwear and (GLASS BREAKAGE) once again the police had to be called and (SIREN) they took people away in buses. (CROWD SFX FADING, BRIDGE)
GK: It seemed to me that the loon cry came from one of the spotlights. So I called an electrician to check the lights and meanwhile I got a call from the Coffeehouse Cafe where the guitarist Don Hughes was performing -- a jazz-folk fusion artist, and one of the new wave of minimalist guitarists -- I arrived and he was playing "Michael's Boat, A View From The Shore" --
(Pat Donohue INST, TWENTY SECONDS, AND THEN...)
VS (WHISPER): I'm his manager. Soffet is the name. Stephen Soffet. With a p-h. S-t-e-p-h. We're recording tonight for Don's next album -- called "Michael's Boat and Sylvie's Water" -- we love playing in Minnesota -- people here are such good listeners -- he did a 45-minute instrumental last night called "Taking A Message To Aunt Rhody" -- people sat and didn't make a peep for 45 minutes -- .it was like church -- you wouldn't find that in New York or New Orleans -- people would be talking -- but here--...(LOON TONE, GUITAR BWANGGG) -- O my gosh-- (TK CRY OF ANGUISH, OFF) Don!!! No!!!! (TK ANGUISH) He's trying to hit that man with his guitar!!! Don-- that's a $40,000 dollar gui--(CRASH OF WOOD. AUDIENCE YELLING) What is going on here? People! Stop! (GLASS BREAKAGE, WOOD, YELLING, WHOOPING) People! Stop this! This is Minnesota! What's got into you?? (CROWD FADING INTO BRIDGE)
GK: Once again, the police were called -- buses -- hauling semi-clothed customers out -- thousands of dollars worth of damage -- And then I got a call from the electrician back at the Club Thompson--
TR (ON PHONE): Yeah. This is Henry. I did the wiring here when they renovated. Listen-- somebody's been tampering with the cold air return and I found some wires that -- I don't know-- I think somebody's put some sort of electronic gizmo up there.
GK: Did you also rewire the opera house?
TR (ON PHONE): Yeah--
GK: And how about the Coffeehouse Cafe?
TR (ON PHONE): Just did that last week. Why do you ask?
GK: Were there different architects on these projects?
TR (ON PHONE): No. Just one. The firm of Henry, Francis, & Toulouse.
GK: I see. And who was the architect who worked on these?
TR (ON PHONE): A young woman named Christine Bon Temps. (STING, AND BRIDGE)
SS: So-- I see you've got the goods on me, Mr. Noir. I won't try to wriggle out of it. I did it and I take responsibility for it.
GK: Why did you do it, Miss Bon Temps? Install this loon call in all of these music venues-- when you knew it was going to cause a public disturbance--
SS: It's a long story, Mr. Noir.
GK: How long? 'm sorry. I just couldn't stand it any more.
SS: I spent years becoming an architect, Mr. Noir. I studied Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright -- I spent a year in Rome -- I studied concepts of light and space and time -- and then I got out of school and got a job and instead of creating beauty, I had to sit at a drafting table and draw in where the electric outlets should go. I wanted to be an artist and instead I was the one who planned the toilets and where the sink should be.
GK: So you turned to crime--
SS: I'm from down South and I find myself living up north and I'm designing electric outlets and I'm surrounded by all of these solemn people who never smile and--
GK: So you figured, you'd cause a riot.
SS: I thought they needed Mardi Gras. And when people hear that loon cry -- they open up-- they laugh, they dance--
GK: That can be a dangerous thing when it's icy like this. -- So these three locations were the only ones where you put the loon call tone--
SS: No, there was one more. The Fitzgerald Theater.
GK: You mean, for the--
SS: For that radio show-- what's it called?
GK: The Casa Compadre de los Prairie?
SS: Yes. (BRIDGE)
GK: And that's why last week's show was interrupted sixty times by fundraising announcements. It was the loon call -- it automatically triggered a tape deck in Minnesota Public Radio master control--
TR (ON TAPE): If you value this program, we'd like you to go to the phone right now and give us a call. It's pledge week and we're (FADE) taking a minute now to talk to all of you who listen and who have not yet become members...(THEME)
SS: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions...Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(FADE)