(00:00:35) Well, if you could set your love letter aside for just a moment. Yes, you've got your radio on understand that pick up your cell phone. If you've got one handy or run inside the house. Yes, and give us a call here at one eight hundred two to seven 28:11. Hi everybody Gary eichten along with Patty Ray Rudolph special edition of midday here today as we try to ramp up our fiscal year on a successful note. We still Patty Ray have 3938 people to bring in under the in the tent by Wednesday at midnight, but it can be done can be done lots of midday listeners listening right now who have not yet had a chance to call in with their membership pledges you maybe you've never been a member. Maybe you want to try it for a year. Maybe you are already a member, and it's time to renew. Maybe you can just make an additional contribution, whatever your circumstance. We hope to hear from all of you and really need to hear from all of you. Has a chair membership money that pays for the programs on this station 1-800 to to 728 11 more from Anna quindlen coming up. Let's give them a quick overview here Patty Ray. We've got the drawing we should mention that quickly and then we're going to actually have a drawing right today's drawing know what we're doing right now is today's giveaway is the iMac computer (00:01:56) and this (00:01:57) for people like me is perfect because it you just don't have a big thick manual the horse ran with that. You know, you get mad you get frustrated you throw it at the dog, whatever. No you just plug in the power cord the modem cord attached the keyboard the mouse and Away you go and the first thing you have to do when you do this is to get online at npr.org and you can pledge that way too. But if you don't have your computer handy right now, right and still pick up the phone and dial 1-800 to to 728 11 and we make it so easy three ways to pay credit card check or the easy payment plan, which is just An affordable direct monthly payment plan like you do with a lot of bills. A lot of people are doing this now and it just goes every month like your house payment your car payment whatever you were on that too, but it starts with you by picking up the phone and dialing 1-800-273-8255 own call from you. You'll support good quality programming through the year. Do your part we're not asking for a fortune. Whatever works for you. $66 is the basic level. A lot of people joining at the $10 a month level $120 for the full year. Whatever level you join at even if you don't join will automatically enter you in the drawing for the iMac computer now do we actually give away these things? We keep talking about these giveaways. Does anybody ever win? You betcha off we go now to pledge Central where you and care and Catherine land for are standing by to let us know who wins the big trip to the Western Rockies. Hi guys. Hi. Gary this is Ian. We Catherine might have a major conundrum here. We're trying to work out how we can get our name into the box and select our name so we can go in the trip. It's not going to work. I'm gonna work it's not going to work now now now because of course one of the things that we like to do for listeners when they pledged their support is we give them, you know you and I going it just it's not enough of a token of gratitude. I'm really sorry. Can we maybe just talk about it just so he can consolidate such a great trip and you know, I was on one of the people urging people to call up and pledge that they could have a shot for this trip to First Class round-trip airline tickets a deluxe five-day tour of the Rockies of western Canada. It's a Northwest World Vacations Canadian tour for nights accommodations in four-star hotels, I don't know about you but I've only made it up to two stars. So (00:04:20) I would I would love to be able to win (00:04:22) this giveaway and and you get to say Banff. That's right and you get to say bamf you get to go through bamf. In fact, you get to visit Lake Louise, which is stunning. You also get to go from Calgary to Jasper it It's a great trip. And someone's going to get it in just a few seconds. Well, I think what we have to do is have a have you do the honors. We always wanted to have this is this is a major radio moment here what they don't even understand I'm wearing rhinestones. I've got on the fitted evening gown gorgeous. Just here we go. Okay Catherine is now approaching the books. I've always wanted one of those drum rolls to okay. Boo this is exciting other boxes falling over this is so high-tech. Yeah and the winner Andy faith and st. Cloud. Wow. Congratulations. (00:05:12) Andy faith and st. Cloud you are the winner of the Northwest World Vacations Canadian tour and of course, you're a winner (00:05:19) because you helped support great programming here in NPR. It's the best it's the best but he got a call now. What's that? Number? Guarantee? You not pick your nose possibly. Let's see 1 800 2 to 7 2011. Thanks guys. I'll take off the rhinestones Catherine land for his Vanna White. You know, it's an amazing concept really. Would you like to buy a vowel available at the $10 per month level only rhinestones, huh? Oh my well right now we're in the midst of a yet another giveaway. Of course as we said the iMac computer the third generation and we'll have that drawing tomorrow afternoon. So if you want to make sure that your name is included in the we can't guarantee you're going to win obviously, but you know the universe for these things is not all that large. It's just a question of Who's actually called during this during this particular drive? So everyone who pledges is entered in the drawing, but you On hand, right. So what do you know there aren't millions of people calling there are still important to pledge because it is 11 listener at a time when member of it at a time is what builds Minnesota Public Radio into the communicator it is today and it all starts with you the listener by picking up the phone at one eight hundred qt7 28:11. Now we're going off to Anna quindlen in a couple of minutes, but we want to remind you that she has a book out called how reading changed my life and she was in the Twin Cities talking about reading and her love of reading and what we're doing is offering that book is a special premium available at the $10 per month level. So if you'd like a copy, give us a quick call here 18000227 28:11. The important thing to keep in mind again is that this is the end of our fiscal year. We're trying to make sure that our books balance. It's really very simple. We depend on listener member support for the bulb of our financing here. The public radio yet. That's how we pay for the programs. We're not expecting that you'll you know, pledge millions of dollars in like that do what you can $66 is the basic rate. A lot of people join at the $10 per month level. Whatever works out for you do give us a call though because we need your membership support right now seven people Patty re on the line and we need to sign up about 80 folks this hour we and we came up a little short last hour. So we have a ways to go here 1-800 to to 720 and 11 is the number to call are you can pledge online and npr.org we have three ways to pay credit card check the easy pay plan where it just shoots right out of your account at once a month just like a lot of people are doing nowadays was the house payment car payment whatever and you can do it too with the EZ Pay plan that we have here at Minnesota Public Radio. 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Our volunteers will be standing by everybody who calls in right now will get their name automatically entered in tomorrow's drawing for that new iMac computer now today on midday as we said we've been featuring best-selling author and former New York Times columnist Anna quindlen. Anna quindlen has written several. Books including the bestsellers object lessons and one true thing. Her latest book is not a work of fiction as such but rather an Ode to reading it's called how reading changed my life. She was in the Twin Cities the spring to talk about reading she spoke at the Darth Yeshua and synagogue in Minnetonka as part of the library Foundation of Hennepin County's pen pals author lecture series during the first hour of midday, we heard her discuss her love of reading and books this hour we're going to broadcast the question and answer session that followed her speech. It was moderated by solvei Nielsen of the Hennepin County Library here again is Anna quindlen (00:09:56) now, I've agreed to do Q&A for a while, but I got to tell you that I once had a really bad QA experience. So I hope these questions are nice. I think it was about ten years ago that I was giving a reading of my first novel object lessons in the People's Republic of Berkeley, California. And I was at a bookstore that I'm like this amazing room had very poor Acoustics. So I was told to repeat each question for the audience and and I finished reading a chapter of object lessons and I recognize one woman and she said I wish I had known more about your book when I came here tonight because I found it overtly know I found that it was offensive to people of color gay men and lesbians and Jews. So I repeated that to everyone and then I talked a little bit about the difference between how we would like the world to be and how it really is and the difference between fiction and the ideal life and then I recognized someone else in a man said I never miss your column in the New York Times and I find it overtly sexist and covertly Pro imperialist. So I repeated that for everyone and then I said I can take one more question and I'll be doing that again here tonight. And so a man at the back said how can you possibly justify your paper shameful coverage of the Gulf War so then I was finished and and the group was moving out and this young man with kind of a puckish little face who I think was a student at Berkeley turned me on his way out and said did you learn anything from this experience? And I said, yes, I now believe Patty Hearst entire story and no one laughed. So I was going out to the car with my minder because when you're on book tour, you always have a minor. I have a wonderful mind or tonight in Minneapolis who I known before and San Francisco. You have the mother of all minders whose name is Kathy goldmark. And as we were walking out I say Kathy you've been to this bookstore many times have they ever been that mean to anyone before and she thought for a moment and then she said they were almost that mean to G Gordon Liddy. So I hope the questions are nicer than they would be if I were G Gordon, Liddy. Just wait. Thank you. Anna quindlen. I think I have felt and I think maybe some of the rest of you have to like we've known you for a long time. And that's why we comment about your haircut because that's an important decision and we wonder about the process and when did you do it? That's the first question. Well, I was having a massive hormonal surge. That's okay. I don't remember where my keys were. Actually the question is sort of related. Because of the nature of your columns and I think also because of the nature of your books the fiction we do feel like we know you a lot about you and a lot about your life and I wonder how that feels to you people who want to know why you got your hair cut. I mean, that's a presumptuous thing to ask. How does it feel to be so known to so many people Well, that's that's a difficult question. I remember writing a column once when I was still writing the column Life in the 30s and having a reader right into me and say the Anna quindlen I know would never have written that and I stomped around the kitchen and said how dare she she doesn't know me and my husband said you cannot expect people into to invite people into your home once a week and then not have them feel as though you've sat down with them and it was really a Moment of clarity for me because he was absolutely right. It was also a moment of connection. I spend most of my life sitting alone in a little room in front of a computer screen by myself. So that on those occasions when I do come out in the world and there are people who say to me Oh my gosh, Maria's 10 already. I remember the day she was born or couples who come up to me and the wife turns to the husband and says, this is my husband. He's a boyfriend or gay gay men are lesbians who come up to me and say I used your column as a way to come out to my parents. It would take a harder woman than me to feel as though my privacy was being invaded by that to feel like you had thousands of friends that you'd never met across the country who cared about what you said and how you said it, you know most of the time it's just it's just an amazing feeling occasionally. It can get tough. I mean my kids and I stopped taking public transportation to school in the morning because it was fairly common for people to approach me and say really really nice things about my work and one day my second kid just blew and said, you know when you're with me taking me to school, you're my mom you're not the writer and I don't I feel like those people really invade my privacy and I realized that there was inevitably going to be a Chasm between how he felt about the way I was perceived and how I had learned to feel about it. But most of the time you know, it's it's just like it's wonderful. It's wonderful. Good answer. Well, I've got all kinds of questions here. So I'm going to defer and ask other people's and not my own several of the questions asked what are you reading now or describe the trajectory of a recent weeks worth of reading including magazines newspapers nonfiction fiction anything anything everything. I read a couple of newspapers every day. Obviously, I always read the New York Times. I always read the New York daily news. I started out in New York on a tabloid the New York Post. There's still a lot of tablet in me and I still love to read them. I read the Wall Street Journal practically every day. I read time and Newsweek every week. I read the New Yorker. I always read People magazine. My favorite magazine right now is an English magazine called hello, which is very hard to get. It's about almost nothing. Which I find incredibly soothing at the end of a difficult day. I'm trying to remember the last novel. I read was the house of sand and fog by André de bus which I would recommend highly it's really a wonderful novel with an incredible narrative voice. And right now I'm reading a biography of George Eliot which was published in the UK and I hope will be published here because it's really just an incredible Revelation about not only Mary Ann Evans, but the Victorian age and and her vast population. She was a writer whose readers really felt as though they could write to her and ask her for solutions to their problems and how to proceed in their personal lives in a way that we tend to think of specific to latter half of the 20th century. But of course as we learn over and over again, all the things that we think are specific to our own time have all happened in times past. The novels that I liked the most this year, I loved reservation Road by John Bernard Schwartz. I thought that was a wonderful book. I love Charming Billy. I read and reread Russell Banks a lot because I think he's probably America's greatest living novelist either him or Don delillo. I like to tell people that Thomas malins Henry and Clara because I think it's an astonishing novel that didn't sell as many copies as at ought to have and I also want to mention here that when I'm revising I don't read what I think of as literary fiction because they tend to pick up stuff ticks from it. So I tend to Read Mysteries and my favorite group of mysteries right now Bar None are the ones by John Sandford, which I just think are really good. I love the main character. The detail work is really great. I've come a little late to them. But his agent sent me a couple of them and now I've read them. On in that horrible state that you get in when there aren't any more. I mean, I luckily he's still alive. I'm really upset about the fact that there aren't any more Lord Peter Wimsey books and I'm not going to get any more of those. So that was pretty good. But you should all know that the book that she's been talking about tonight or reading from and talking about how reading change my life has 11 book lists at the end and they're great lists, and I'm just going to tell you the name of a couple of them 10 mystery novels. I'd most like to find in a Summer Rental 10 books for a girl who has full of beans are ought to be and this one I like 10 of the books my exceptionally well read friend. Ben says, he's taken the most from Etc. Oh, that's my friend Ben cheever who has a new novel called famous after death, which is really wonderful to so I should put in a plug for Ben's book. He's really probably the best red person. I know. The next card says greetings Anna from the Minneapolis Betsy tacy Society. Actually, they're coming out with an some new additions of the Betsy tacy book and the speech that I gave several years ago to the Betsy tacy Society is going to be the forward to at least one of the books. So I'm pretty happy about that. It was that speech I gave called bets here a feminist icon. So they're going to they're going to pretty much take it in its entirety for those of you who don't know the Betsy tacy books. They're they're set in a town called Deep Valley Minnesota, which is really Mankato and there by a woman named Maude heart Lovelace and they're absolutely wonderful in the world is divided into a whole lot of people who've never heard of them and a fairly discrete group of us who not only have heard of them, but sort of lived. I eat sleep everything them which now includes my daughter who you know, keep it kept saying is she going to wind up with Joe Willard or not? And of course I piously said I can't tell you that. A lot of the questions have to do with the writing process both technical things about it as well as emotional things. So I'll ask a couple of them and you can choose pick and choose what you want to say. Was it emotionally difficult to write a book like black and blue what prompted you to write it and also questions about how do you schedule your day when you're in the middle of a book writing a fiction book black and blue was less difficult than you might think mainly because I found the protagonist Fran Flynn both so accessible to me as a writer and so easy to be with I really really liked her better than anybody else who's been in any of my other novels and I found a way and I'm not sure how this happened to sort of effortlessly Channel her first person void not effortlessly. How could I use a word effortlessly about writing to fairly Constantly Channel her first person Voice through the book. So while there's some difficult material in that book. I just liked Franny so much the being with our for two years was was actually pretty great. I wanted to write a novel about identity. I wanted to write a novel about the fact that women sometimes seem to become The aggregate of all the people that we love and care for so that after a while where somebody's mother Somebody's Daughter somebody's wife. Somebody's best friend. I mean, I have a refrigerator magnet at home that says mom is not my real name and it's there because there are days when I feel like Mom is indeed my real name My Only Name. So I wanted to write a book about who we are at base when you remove many of these connections and I thought that the best way to do that would be to write about a woman who had had one life and taken up another but I don't think people do that easily. I mean, I don't believe in that whole picaresque tradition that one morning you wake up and think oh, I'll become another person. You know, I'll leave behind this life that I've so carefully built So eventually I decided to write about a woman who sort of been shot out of the cannon of her life by the need to leave her husband to who physically Be used to her beat her up. And that's where we came around to black and blue and my writing process on that is pretty much. You know, what it is. Now on the new novel. I'm working on I usually try to Fritter away as much time as possible first thing in the morning, but by about 10 o'clock I sit down and I only work while my kids are at school. So it means I have a real truncated working day and I usually write from 10:00 till about 2:00. And at first I used to think that this was because I wasn't very good at this that it wasn't that I couldn't write anymore was that I couldn't imagine any more after a while. But you know, I'm reading this biography of George Eliot. She worked she wrote about three hours a day Edith Wharton did oh lots of the writers that I've been I've read about or met seemed to have the same sort of window of opportunity. So that's what I take and then if I have any additional time, I work. Speeches I answer my mail things like that, but it's usually about three-and-a-half to four hours when I'm writing. Several people asked about what you are currently working on and I know that this is sometimes the question writers don't like to answer but are you willing to say anything? Well, it's not that we don't like to answer it per se Scotty Reston who was a columnist and an editor at the New York Times for many years once said, how can I know what I think until I read what I write the truth is that that many of us can't really answer the question. What is the new book about until we're really far into the new book it begins to take shape in terms of themes that we hadn't really expected or or directions that we didn't know it was going to go. It seems like a certain kind of story and then suddenly what we're really trying to say leaps out at us. So I'm way too mushy on this new one to talk specifically about what it is to challenge. I'm trying to set myself in this new book because I do try to do. Something different each time to push myself a little farther is that the protagonist of this book Ismail which I haven't done before but in terms of its specifics, I think I'll leave it go for a little while. We'll wait a couple other questions have to do with the movie version of one true thing and asking what it is like for you to see it or if you've seen it. Well, yeah, I mean I saw it before it was released in the theaters and then we went to the premiere and my children and my husband saw it Dad, you know, the movie itself wasn't so strange for me. Although there were moments when when a line of dialogue would come out of somebody's mouth that I actually written in the book and and it was so real and I think you know, I did something here. I really made I it was like Tang, you know, I they Constituted it and the the moment that stands out in my mind. Is that one night. I went to the house in Morristown, New Jersey where they were filming most of the movie and when I walked up the steps to the house and then into the house, it was the house it just utterly I mean the art director had just done such a brilliant job and it was sort of Staggering to me that it that it was there that it had the sort of you know books that I would expect in the stenciling that I would expect in the quilts and and all the rest of it and that sort of really took my breath away. But you know, I was ready. I was ready for almost anything. I think what I was not fully ready for was to love it as much as I did because I just thought they did a really wonderful job, even when they changed the the book of making it true to the spirit. Are at and I thought there was the relationship between Maryland Meryl Streep and Renee Zellweger was was really it was it was sort of astonishing to me. But I was I was happy above all that. I liked it so much and and that my children really liked it too. I mean they've watched it since on video and it's very it's very moving for them. And it's also given us yet another opportunity to talk about the difference between my real life and fiction which we talked about over and over again because it's Quinn had a difficult time when he read one true thing because as I did he didn't really like Ellen very much but the book was written in the first person. So the question obviously in his mind was was Alan me and if Ellen was me, what did that mean to him and so on and so forth. So we've had a lot of good discussions about how you use the facts of your life as a jumping off point. For something that's different and transformed and launch adults even have difficulty with right as a concept. So to deal with your own mother, I mean but that is really very interesting. I think. Yeah. Well, it's been it's been interesting for us to talk about and the movie the movie brought it up all over again have they read your books or Columns? Of course, they're young still Quentin has read everything except black and blue which he wanted to read and I suggested that he hold off for a year or two because I think it's kind of rough particularly in the portrayal of that marriage and again, you know, your mother having written that kind of book. I just think even though he's a very sophisticated reader that he should hold off Maria's trying right now to read object lessons, which is kind of a stretch for a ten-year-old and both of the boys return over and over again the living out loud because they like reading the stories about themselves which were my life in the 30s columns. Christopher has self-consciously not read any of my novels and he one day in the car. He finally blurted out. I'm afraid to read them because if I don't like them, what will I say how sweet I know he is. He's incredibly sweet and Quinn said to him matter-of-factly. Oh Christopher, of course, you'll like them you'll just be embarrassed by the sex scenes and crystalline her sex scenes and I said don't know sex scenes and Quinto mom. So these are the problems with fiction but but they like the columns question. Is there a possibility of doing a column again? Neither interest? I don't I can't imagine ever doing a column again. I mean I did I could never do a column like life in the 30s again because I couldn't write about my kids in adolescence and be honest without compromising their privacy just incredibly I mean when you're 15 years old and your mother goes good morning. It's like oh God, she's always invading my privacy. You know, the last thing you want is your friends to come into school and go yo, man. My mom said, it's your mom weren't like a really good column about like your love life. You know, I mean you just you just can't do it when they're this age. And as for a public opinion public affairs column like I did with private public and private You know, I did that for five years and I did that column as hard and as dedicated and as well as I know how to do a column and I just wanted to leave when it was still good and it was still fresh and I think I would feel like backtracking to me. Well, I feel personally said I mean the columns were great. I thank them and I miss them and I feel still interested in what you think about a lot of things so we'll have to look for the news in the novels. Thanks. It's always nice to hear that. So we'll take a different tack again. What do you think of the top 100 books of the 20th century list? Well as I say with the listen the back of how reading changed my life making lists is always it's a Fool's errand because the moment it's set in type you think oh, I forgot X, you know, I mean some of my favorite books in the whole world are on that list and I thought it was a pretty great sampling. There's been a lot of complaints that there weren't enough women or people of color and they're probably could have been more. I mean someone someone once said someone said about that list, that's the same listed a professor of English could have compiled in 1955 and there's a certain truth to that on the other hand. We have to keep in mind that people of color and women were systematically excluded by societal Expectations by They're their roles in life determined by the societal exploit expectations and by publishing houses from publishing a lot of great novels during the 20th century not because they didn't have it in them. But because it wasn't what was wanted. So when you see overwhelmingly white men, those were the guys who got published now if somebody did a list of the best 100 books in the 1990s and it was 90 white guys and 10 women, then I'd say whoever made this list needs their head examined because we have such great women writing such great novels now, but you know, I just think I just think those lists are always a Fool's errand and and they tend to make people feel a little bit. I mean, my father called me after he saw it and said well, Do I have to read this book Ulysses? And I said well Daddy Ulysses is like the most famous book that everyone pretends to have read and he said oh sort of like de tocqueville and I said exactly. Yeah, so I don't know if he bought it and tried to read it. But you know, I I mean, I think I think people should read what speaks to them and what they love a young woman at a college where I was speaking last month said that she started reading voraciously with those sweet Valley High books and and then those books took her to the great books. My attitude is you know, whatever takes you there. This is a long question. But I think it's interesting you seem to have made your mark in your literature literary career by finding or emphasizing was what is extraordinary in the lives of ordinary people. This may be an uncanny Knack or a skill you've acquired. Do you link this ability to a special gift you possess or to your years of reading and working to understand the stories of others have created. I don't know where that comes from except that. It was a constant in my life as a reporter. I mean it never failed that I would go and talk to somebody who was planning a garden and some vacant lot and in Brooklyn or a woman who was going back to college after 40 years raising her children, and those people would just have an incredible story to tell I these same students I was with it a college said to me at dinner afterwards, you know, who was the most interesting person that you ever interviewed and I said, well I can tell you some of the famous people that I've interviewed but those aren't really the most interesting people over and over again, they were ordinary people who were doing wonderful things. I mean my last column for the New York Times was a column called everyday angels and it was really about how my work had made me a better person because over and over again. I've been exposed to people who were really doing something. To rectify the wrongs and the and the hurts and the evils in The Human Condition and that that that just was with such an extraordinary gift that I got from the newspaper business. And so I suppose either I was always looking for that newspaper stories and found it because it was something that I felt deep inside or that that the newspaper work helped me to find it in my fiction. I will say that I'm from a large Irish Catholic family with a great oral storytelling tradition and there are always these stories in our family about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. My father loves to tell the story about how my grandfather When Christmas had eight children and and he didn't he didn't have enough money for a Christmas tree and so he went out in his car and he climbed on the roof in there was a Christmas tree tied the top of I think it was a Bank building and he started to try to get it down and a policeman pulled up and he told the policeman why he was doing what he was doing in the policeman helped him get the tree down and and put and put it on the in the trunk of his car. And I mean that's that's that's an extraordinary thing happening to an ordinary person who happens to be related to me. So I think I think the truth is that that they're there in all our lives. We just sometimes we just sometimes forget about them. I can take one more one more question. Actually, I was going to say thank you. Is there anything you'd like to? I feel like you've given us a tremendous lot. Is there anything else you would like to say about reading about libraries about books? I think the passion that this book reveals about your reading life and your love of not just reading but physical books is warming to the hearts of all of us who work in libraries and we're just thrilled that you've been here and that you've given some words about all of these things. Well, I would like to say one thing which is I try to communicate to students who want to write whenever I talk to them that writing is a transactional process. I mean if a radio plays in an empty room, there is no sound so that there's two parts to being a writer one is writing and the other is finding readers and the extent to which I've been able to find readers over and over again during my writing life has just been Huge gift to me and whenever I can I like to take the opportunity to say, thank you. Thank you, Anna. (00:39:12) Best selling author Anna quindlen speaking recently and adopt the Assurance synagogue in Minnetonka as part of the library Foundation of Hennepin County's pain pale pen pals author lecture series and a quinlan's latest book is titled how reading changed my life by the way, it's just been announced that Anna quindlen will indeed begin writing a column again this time for Newsweek magazine Gary eichten here along with Patty gray Rudolph for the remainder of our new now urging all of you who've been listening this hour to take the next step here and become a supporting member of Minnesota Public Radio. Now, we've got an additional incentive for some of you if you've been looking for that little extra boost and if you've enjoyed listening to Anna quindlen, we have that book available how reading changed my life that's available at the $10 per month level as a special thank-you gift the big big news here though. Patty Ray is the time running short and the need is A real one. It is a very real one Gary. We we we haven't done too. Well this last hour or so and we only have about 14 minutes left to go to make our hourly goal of 80 members new members and we've got about 47 left to go there right reading that right. That's right brother distance, but it all starts with you if you pick up the phone now and I'll 1-800 to chew 728 11 or pledge online and MP r dot o-- r-- g-- and at does Gary said at the $120 level that's only ten dollars a month how reading changed my life by Anna quindlen. Some people have called Already gear. They really have yeah and Hennessy of Woodbury called in a membership and also the knudsen's I'll Fargo North Dakota Aaron by Aaron, um is from Platz Platz smoke Nebraska believe it or not, but apparently is at Gustavus right now and be moving to rush the city at the end of I so it's going to be a new Minnesota Citizen and a new member of Minnesota Public Radio. These are just some of the people who have heard the call acknowledge the please and know that there is a need recognize that and it picked up the phone and dialed 1-800 to to 728 11 because they know that NPR is their constant companion at work and the car on your way to school. Whatever were there were there with you with with programs like midday and Morning Edition and all things considered and they appreciate what we bring the quality of the program that we bring them and they want to make their membership count by calling 1-800 to to 728 11. All memberships are in fact created equal here. But some really do deserve a special mention. We've got we've got a membership here. I and I'm sorry the transcription here isn't the best but I believe my name is Daisy pelant. Yeah, and that would be A membership coming to us from the American Embassy in Beijing China Beijing China, you betcha. So wherever you are going Daisy wherever you are, give us a call or contact us online 1-800 to to 728 11 if you're going to pledge online its MP r dot org, that's probably how Daisy did it because I think even toll-free numbers they'll step from Peak amazing. Don't you think we have 12 callers on the line right now, and we really do need to stay on track here. We've felt a little bit behind over the weekend and fell behind what you say. Well, here's the thing our fiscal year ends Wednesday night at midnight June 30th. And what we have to do is balance the books to make sure that we have enough members in house contributing member dollars to pay for the programs. And so we started the weekend about 5400 members show. Where we needed to be we now have about 3907 members left to go. So we have a ways to go but we can catch up if all of you who are listening right now regular listeners to midday. Maybe you're tuning in getting ready for Ray Suarez and Talk of the Nation. If you're one of those folks give us a call here with a membership pledge, especially important if you're interested in getting a copy of any quinlan's book how reading changed my life we'll have to put that one away at one o'clock this afternoon. So 10 minutes to pick up on that offer. If you're calling us right now, you will automatically be entered in the drawing for the iMac computer third generation of the even you and I can know it's great. Yeah, you know, it's simple it it's the hot one and just plug it in and Away you go. It's from First Tech computer and Uptown and you get your choice of colors strawberry lime Tangerine grape or blueberry will have a drawing for the iMac tomorrow somebody probably Possibly somebody listening right now. We'll win that I'm at so you're not competing against the whole world. It's just, you know, a few hundred maybe a few thousand people and you got a decent chance to win but to have any chance at all. You have to give us a call. You don't have to pledge. We hope you will you don't have to pledge just call us at one eight hundred two to seven twenty eight eleven twelve callers on the line right now. Patty Ray can do it. Leave your magic here woman. We hear magic we need we need some members. Oh my gosh, but it's Gary was saying we make it very easy for you to become a member of Minnesota Public Radio 3 ways to pay the credit card the plastic the check or the easy pay plan went in which you decide what level you want to be a member ad and then we just do a little paperwork and it just goes right out of your account into our account. You're a member you get all the benefits of membership and you don't have to mess around. With your plastic or your checkbook easy play plan for $10 a month is it is the affordable direct monthly payment program that we are featuring this this time around and but you have to start the ball rolling by picking up the phone and dialing 1-877-487-2778 org as my father would say if he were here right now. Don't be a mugwump. You know. What a mugwump is. I haven't a clue a mugwump is a creature that sits on a fence with his mug on one side is one pain the other so don't sit on that fence make a decision and pick up the phone become a member of Minnesota Public Radio and 181 family family radio station is too late. It's been it's gone. It's radio and 1-800 to to 7 2011 20 callers on the line right now, and there's an open line for you lest you think this is going to take all day. It really takes just about two minutes. I said, I mean it sincerely will ask for your name your address your phone number what membership level you'd like to join it. That's really it. What membership level should you join at Penn's on think the one for you hands on what works for you? $66 is the basic rate. A lot of people joining at the $10 per month level anybody who calls whether you become a member or not. You will automatically be entered in the drawing for the iMac computer. You do have to call us though to get your name in the bin. Also another reminder here. We've only got seven minutes left to go on this offer. If you're interested in getting a copy of Anna quinlan's how reading changed my life which incidentally includes a lot of recommendations book recommendations in various categories the back of the book like copy as a special thank-you gift. Again. You have to call us 1-800-273-8255 ship level couple of quick reminders here Patty Ray. Well, we have just a moment going to say thanks to Northern Lights School of Massage. Therapy for providing free massages to our phone volunteers. Hopefully no massages being administered right now. Let's hope they're answering the phones. Also a reminder that this hours Habitat for Humanity sponsor is the huge a Anderson Foundation apart. Yeah, a proud partner with Anderson Corporation and supporting MPR and Habitat for Humanity. This is in conjunction with this separate effort that's underway a great opportunity to support a terrific organization. Tell me about it. We have a number of what we partnered Minnesota Public Radio is partnering with a number of Corporations and Foundations and what the rain here's the here's how it works for each membership that comes in during this end of the fiscal year Drive. These Partners will send ten dollars to a Habitat for Humanity. The idea being that we will build a home for Habitat for Humanity doesn't come out of your membership money anything like that. It's entirely separate but it is a great way to leverage your money youth is a community thing. Yeah, you know, you can contribute a little bit in directly to that by contributing directly to Minnesota Public Radio 1 800 to to 728 1132 callers left to go panty raid do this at 32 in 5 minutes 5 minutes to go. Are you want to five people who's not yet? A member of Minnesota Public Radio. Are you want to find people who wants to and needs to renew your membership give us a call here in two additional contributions. Give us a call 1-800 to to 728 1118 callers are on the line. You won't be alone Ranger, but you'll be more than welcome. We really need your support have an additional contribution of $75 gets you that book by an Inland how reading changed my life one as Gary said one listener at a time when member at a time is how we build our membership Foundation is solid foundation for MPR in that house for Habitat for Humanity one member at a time like Larry and Louise Rutger ruggers of Brooklyn Park Debbie Peg of Amory Wisconsin across the river there and another one from Wisconsin Jason Lee Burke of River Falls. These are just your friends your neighbors people. You know that of said MPR means something to me. What I get out of in PR is a constant companion enlightens. My life educates me. It means something to me it enriches my life and I'm going to help support it but the way it starts is by picking up the phone and dialing 1-877-443-6276 rends. If you're listening right down 19 callers on the line. We've got four minutes left to go. 29 just 29 more of you. If you've not yet called us here. We'll get to our goal this hour and get back on track as we push to the end of the fiscal year Wednesday at midnight 1-800 to to 728 11. You can't do anything about the other folks but 29 more of you if you call in with a membership pledge again, if you're interested in a copy of Anna quinlan's book how reading changed my life you really do have just three and a half minutes to go now and then we'll have to take away that premium that's available at the $10 per month level anybody who calls right now whether you pledge or not you'll be able to get in entered in the drawing for the new iMac computer. Third generation will be having that drawing tomorrow. Somebody's going to win it and why you might as well at least give it a shot unlikely frankly that you're well no, seriously. I mean, you know really it's unlikely you'll win but the odds aren't all that bad. So give it give it a whirl 1-800 to to 728. We've got 11 callers on the line 24 members shy of our goal. Just three minutes to go here twenty two. Shy of our goal Patty real we can do this gear. Try it at $10 a month. I mean my gosh you pay you pay. Oh, whoa. What is that? That's--that is the panic button. It is time to go to the panic button 008 dollars a month you pay three times that much every month for cable TV or your cell phone bill or whatever try ten dollars a month on the EZ Pay plan. It's affordable direct monthly payment program from your bank account to ours and you can just it do it. Now at one eight hundred to do 728 1116 callers on the line 21 left to go here and see the numbers. Yeah - I'm getting nervous here. I think we can do this. I think we can do this be romantic, but the scared a lot of people 1-800 to to 728 11 is the number to call. 802 to 728 11 come on in two minutes left to go. Midday listener. If you're tuning in for Ray Suarez, give us a quick call here last call now last call for the Anna quindlen book. If you'd like copy how reading changed my life by Anna quindlen at the $120 level and or make renew it with an additional pledge of $75 you get this book, but you've got to pick up the phone right now at 1-800-711-9327 your computer right now gerd to pledge online at npr.org so grab that phone and dial 1-800 to to 728 eleven ninety seconds. So but I'm sorry about 75 seconds left to go here 1-800 to to 728 11 get your name in for the iMac drawing. If you'd like a copy of the Anna quindlen book. Give us a call. Most importantly. Let's see if we can somehow get to this goal. We got about a minute left to go 18 of you left to go 18 at Two to seven 28:11. What are we got 30 seconds here every member matters. Ooh, 28:11, before we head off to Talk of the Nation. Our volunteers will be standing by make sure you join us tomorrow special on the Supreme Court tomorrow and midday. Thanks for calling in today and keep the phone's ringing we could still make that goal.