Heard read by Garrison Keillor, on Writer's Almanac very early this morning while writing a paper:
Science By Jim Harrison from Saving Daylight. © Copper Canyon Press. (Buy.) It was one of those mornings utterly distorted by the night's dreams. Why go to court to change my name to Gaspar de la Nuit in order to avoid thinking of myself as a silly, fat old man? At midmorning I looked at the dogs as possibilities for something different in my life. I was dogsitting both daughters' dogs plus our own: Lily, Grace, Pearl, Harry, Rose and Mary. I shook the biscuit box and they assembled in the living room on a very cold windy morning when no one wanted to go outside except for a quick pee and a bark at the mailman. I sang, "He's got the whole world in his hands," as they waited for their snack. Harry was embarrassed and furtive and tried to leave the room but I called him back. I tried, "Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today," and Lily, the largest of the dogs, became angry at the others who looked away intimidated. I tried something religious, "The Old Rugged Cross," to no particular response except that Mary leapt up at the biscuit box in irritation. I realized decisively that dogs don't care about music and religion and thus have written up this report. This scarcely makes me the Father of the A-bomb, I thought as I flung the contents of the full box of biscuits around the room with the dogs scrambling wildly on the hard maple floor. Let there be happy chaos.
-cvj
