Talk of the Stacks: Calvin Trillin

Comments (0) By Melissa Wray Wednesday, Dec 5 2012

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Minneapolis Central Library

300 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55401-1992

Category: Libraries

Region: Minneapolis (Downtown)

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Prolific American journalist, comic, memoirist, food writer, poet, and novelist Calvin Trillin will be in Minneapolis this Thursday. His résumé includes a longtime stint as a staff writer at The New Yorker, and work as a deadline poet for The Nation. However, this Talk of the Stacks installment will cover two of his books: the paperback edition of Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of His Funny Stuff and the just-released Dogfight: An Occasionally Interrupted Narrative Poem About the Presidential Campaign (both from Random House). Quite Enough brings his dry humor and aw-shucks chuckles together into one hilarious collection (one great section title: "Bagels, Yiddish, and Other Jewish Contributions to Western Civilization"). The work pokes a satirical finger at a variety of things, such as Trillin's childhood in Kansas City (including his mother's ability to feed her family solely on leftovers), politics (there's a section featuring poetry dedicated to folks like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Steve Forbes, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney), and his thrifty view on tuxedos. Dogfight dissects the 2012 presidential election, though other poems and prose frequently pop up for pithy interjections. (Photo by Richard Stamelman)
Thu., Dec. 6, 7 p.m., 2012