In Which Justin Recieves an Extra Helping of Encouragement and a Good Lesson on How to Handle Fame.

"Irony is naturally a sophisticated and mode, and the chief difference between sophisticated and naive irony is that the naive ironist calls attention to the fact that he is being ironic,whereas sophisticated irony merely states, and lets the reader add the ironic tone himself."
--Northrop Frye in Anatomy of Criticism

My parents bumped into Garrison Keillor the other day.

He is a real live humorist who, plus also, has his own bookstore. Pretty much my dream existence,although my bookstore will have a coffee shop and my stories in the New Yorker will fix the hole in the ozone layer and do other good stuff too.


Mr. Keillor was kind enough to autograph the very valuable stationary my Mom had with her.


His words are now framed on the desk where I am doing some of my best writing---The endless practice of autographs which will be put to good use any day.