‘Parks and Recreation’ star kicks off Harrisburg Book Festival

It’s not every book festival that includes an event at a baseball field.

But homespun humorist and handyman (and occasional actor) Nick Offerman was a fitting choice for such an arena, as he helped kick off Midtown Scholar Bookstore’s Harrisburg Book Festival. The festival runs through Oct. 19, and features appearances by several authors.

The “Parks and Recreation” and “The Last of Us” actor was joined by co-author and carpentry collaborator Lee Buchanan for a special event at FNB Field on City Island on Oct. 15.

Together, the two promoted their new book, “Little Woodchucks,” with an evening of friendly chatting and a few tools, demonstrating one of the hands-on woodworking projects found in the book.

“Hello! Welcome!” Offerman said on his entrance. “Thank you all for coming out. This is my first baseball field.”

The actor joked that he would show off his slurve while he jogged out to the pitcher’s mound, and that Phillies player Bryce Harper was running the sound board for the show, since he was no longer busy with the postseason.

“Next year, buddy,” he said to Harper.

Offerman mentioned that “we love Pennsylvania,” particularly for our state’s beautiful deciduous hardwood forests, and that he once spent a year living outside of Philadelphia.

“I was 21, so I was able to live on Yuengling rejects – can you still get 16 ounce bottles with no label on them? They were throwing it away, but it was still delicious,” he said. “And we lived right next to a Pepperidge Farm, where you could for a dollar get a really old box of cookies.”

The show, like the duo’s new book, extolled the virtues of working with your hands and making things together as a family.

“My parents gave me my first set of hand tools around 7 or 8 for Christmas,” Buchanan said, noting that she once made her own walkie-talkies out of wood and bottle caps. “Some of the toys I made for myself, my kids still play with.”

As an ostensibly family-friendly presentation, Offerman promised to “do my God damndest” not to use profanity.

“For every bad word I say, I will throw 100 dollars tied to a brick through a window at Mid Penn Bank,” he said.

The conversation was filled with humor, along with plenty of earnest calls for young people (and not-so-young people) to treat things such as video games, television and film “like a dessert.”

“I love meat but vegetables are very important to your health,” he said. “And I think other people should eat those.”

Making something with your own hands, instead of ordering it through an app, can let you feel “like a superhero,” he said.

And making mistakes, he added, is part of that process.

“You can’t get it right.” Offerman said, with his trademark giggle. “The older we get, with any luck, the more we figure out how to prevent our mistakes. But in life, you give yourself permission to make mistakes. You’re never going to achieve mastery unless you give yourself permission to screw up.”

Offerman entertained with a short animated video and with some original songs while Buchanan crafted one of the projects found in the book: a slapstick, perfect for making noise and pantomime paddling.

“Lee is going to do some work, and I’m going to sing a song about Lee doing some work,” he said.

In less than an hour (aside from letting the glue dry), Buchanan had a fully finished slapstick.

“You could say Lee and I made this together. Look what me and Lee did,” Offerman said, brandishing her slapstick. “You can pretend to give [family members] a spanking, and it’s really funny. Most of the time.”

But the actor wasn’t shy about giving credit to Buchanan, including a full song with slideshow thanking her for maintaining the woodshop while he performs.

“If you can imagine how grateful I’ve been to Lee: you may have somebody in your family who gets a lot of attention, and then you may have somebody who is actually doing a lot of work and holding things together,” he said.

Offerman often poked fun at his own work – such as when starting a song with a few chords on his guitar, then grumbling “Now I gotta do that and do words.”

When the audience clapped at his own hand-made ukulele, he cautioned them, “maybe hold your applause until you hear what it sounds like.”

But as one his song’s lyrics said, “Remember: it don’t have to be perfect to be good.”

And this came back once more to the theme of the evening: resisting the human urge to do things the easy way, to allow technology or corporations to guide our creativity or sell us solutions, and instead to make our own.

“We think, ‘oh great, I don’t have to write something, AI will write it for me,’” Offerman said. “And I would rather eat a bowlful of glass than let a robot write anything for me. The whole point of making a book is to say: I’ve got a collection of words, I’m going to put some of them in order. And one of them is ‘hammer.’”

Between songs, Offerman noted that “we didn’t need any software or any corporations’ permission to do what we’re doing here tonight.”

And what he was doing also included occasionally shaking his butt for those seated in the left section of the bleachers, whose view was obstructed by his music stand.

“You guys have been missing the money this whole time,” he said. “Just to make it up to you: a little bit of sugar.”

If someone enjoys working with wood, he said, they might someday go on to even make their own canoe, like Offerman did (and then wrote a book about it).

But their gift might also be in accounting, or making lasagna, or singing, or any number of other talents.

“Your job is to figure out what your gift is, and then how you can use your gift to be in service of others,” he said. “Imagine, if things go bad and our civilization falls apart, I can get us across a river. Hopefully you can make a pizza, and then we can have a town.”

The evening was perhaps best encapsulated by a song that called everyone to set technology aside for more human connection

“Less clickin’ and more lickin’ that’s what you need!” Offerman sang, then hastily added, “talking about lollipops.”

After taking some audience questions and sending a child home with a brand new autographed slapstick, Offerman and Buchanan posed for a phot with the crowd.

“Every one hold up your books, or your children,” Offerman said, then checked his watch. “And it’s 8:35, you may also hold up your brassieres.”