<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not every book festival that includes an event at a baseball field. <\/p>\n
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\u2019s Harrisburg Book Festival.<\/a> The festival runs through Oct. 19, and features appearances by several authors.<\/p>\n The \u201cParks and Recreation\u201d and \u201cThe Last of Us\u201d actor was joined by co-author and carpentry collaborator Lee Buchanan for a special event at FNB Field on City Island on Oct. 15. <\/p>\n Together, the two promoted their new book, \u201cLittle Woodchucks,\u201d<\/a> with an evening of friendly chatting and a few tools, demonstrating one of the hands-on woodworking projects found in the book.<\/p>\n \u201cHello! Welcome!\u201d Offerman said on his entrance. \u201cThank you all for coming out. This is my first baseball field.\u201d<\/p>\n The actor joked that he would show off his slurve while he jogged out to the pitcher\u2019s mound, and that Phillies player Bryce Harper was running the sound board for the show, since he was no longer busy with the postseason.<\/p>\n \u201cNext year, buddy,\u201d he said to Harper.<\/p>\n Offerman mentioned that \u201cwe love Pennsylvania,\u201d particularly for our state\u2019s beautiful deciduous hardwood forests, and that he once spent a year living outside of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we lived right next to a Pepperidge Farm, where you could for a dollar get a really old box of cookies.\u201d<\/p>\n The show, like the duo\u2019s new book, extolled the virtues of working with your hands and making things together as a family.<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents gave me my first set of hand tools around 7 or 8 for Christmas,\u201d Buchanan said, noting that she once made her own walkie-talkies out of wood and bottle caps. \u201cSome of the toys I made for myself, my kids still play with.\u201d<\/p>\n As an ostensibly family-friendly presentation, Offerman promised to \u201cdo my God damndest\u201d not to use profanity. <\/p>\n \u201cFor every bad word I say, I will throw 100 dollars tied to a brick through a window at Mid Penn Bank,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n 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 \u201clike a dessert.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI love meat but vegetables are very important to your health,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think other people should eat those.\u201d<\/p>\n Making something with your own hands, instead of ordering it through an app, can let you feel \u201clike a superhero,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And making mistakes, he added, is part of that process. <\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t<\/i> get it right.\u201d Offerman said, with his trademark giggle. \u201cThe 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\u2019re never going to achieve mastery unless you give yourself permission to screw up.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cLee is going to do some work, and I\u2019m going to sing a song about Lee doing some work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In less than an hour (aside from letting the glue dry), Buchanan had a fully finished slapstick.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could say Lee and I made this together. Look what me and Lee did,\u201d Offerman said, brandishing her slapstick. \u201cYou can pretend to give [family members] a spanking, and it\u2019s really funny. Most of the time.\u201d <\/p>\n But the actor wasn\u2019t shy about giving credit to Buchanan, including a full song with slideshow thanking her for maintaining the woodshop while he performs. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you can imagine how grateful I\u2019ve 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,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Offerman often poked fun at his own work – such as when starting a song with a few chords on his guitar, then grumbling \u201cNow I gotta do that and do words.\u201d<\/p>\n When the audience clapped at his own hand-made ukulele, he cautioned them, \u201cmaybe hold your applause until you hear what it sounds like.\u201d<\/p>\n But as one his song\u2019s lyrics said, \u201cRemember: it don\u2019t have to be perfect to be good.\u201d<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n \u201cWe think, \u2018oh great, I don\u2019t have to write something, AI will write it for me,\u2019\u201d Offerman said. \u201cAnd 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\u2019ve got a collection of words, I\u2019m going to put some of them in order. And one of them is \u2018hammer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Between songs, Offerman noted that \u201cwe didn\u2019t need any software or any corporations\u2019 permission to do what we\u2019re doing here tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cYou guys have been missing the money this whole time,\u201d he said. \u201cJust to make it up to you: a little bit of sugar.\u201d <\/p>\n 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)<\/a>.<\/p>\n But their gift might also be in accounting, or making lasagna, or singing, or any number of other talents.<\/p>\n \u201cYour job is to figure out what your gift is, and then how you can use your gift to be in service of others,\u201d he said. \u201cImagine, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The evening was perhaps best encapsulated by a song that called everyone to set technology aside for more human connection<\/p>\n \u201cLess clickin\u2019 and more lickin\u2019 that\u2019s what you need!\u201d Offerman sang, then hastily added, \u201ctalking about lollipops.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery one hold up your books, or your children,\u201d Offerman said, then checked his watch. \u201cAnd it\u2019s 8:35, you may also hold up your brassieres.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.pennlive.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s 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\u2019s Harrisburg Book Festival. The festival runs through Oct. 19, and features appearances by several authors. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[395375],"class_list":["post-2094504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-nick-offerman-in-harrisburg"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2094504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2094505,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094504\/revisions\/2094505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2094504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2094504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2094504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}