Life on the red carpet (or next to it)

The Sunday New York Times has a nice piece by David Carr about the surrealness of the red carpet. At one New York awards event he encountered Garrison Keillor:

Garrison Keillor, hardly a usual suspect, was there too, to honor Robert Altman, the recently departed director of A Prairie Home Companion. Spotting a familiar face — we are both from Minnesota — I buttonholed him.

“There seems to be a rope between us,” Mr. Keillor said dolefully, pointing down to the velvet barrier. “What is the purpose of that?”