Monday, December 22

Thinking woman’s sex objects Calvin Trillin and Garrison Keillor give their tally-whackers a good scrub, iron their shirts and show up in public to discuss Mr. Trillin’s latest tome, Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme. “I’m hoping Garrison will sing a few of the songs,” said Mr. Trillin of his fellow humorist. “Like a song for Sarah Palin called, ‘On a Clear Day I See Vladivostok.’ And there’s also a song to the tune of ‘O Tannenbaum’ called ‘Mike Huckabee.’ … I think Garrison would be very good because he’s had some church training!” Mr. Trillin said his book of election rhymes came to him last spring. “It’s sort of like asking somebody, ‘Where did you get the idea of doing a model of the palace of Versailles in beer cans?’ The answer is usually something like ‘I had these cans in the garage.’”

[Calvin Trillin in Conversation With Garrison Keillor, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, 8 p.m., www.92y.org]

mbryan@observer.com