|
|
 |
|
|
Post to the Host:
I teach 8th grade literature and attempt to cover as many genres as possible. I've now added "Story Telling" as a genre of American Literature, and we listen to some of your monologues as part of this. "Chicken" and "Tomato-Butt" are their favorites.
Nancy O.
Fort Wayne, IN
You did right, Nancy, though I'm not sure 8th graders are ready to tell stories about themselves — I remember it as a time of horrible self-consciousness, and though kids today are way much cooler and savvier than back then, I don't favor making vulnerable people expose themselves to classmates. There was a vogue toward journal-writing in comp classes long ago that I had doubts about too. I favor letting kids enjoy the cocoon awhile longer. But I'm all in favor of them listening to other people —such as me, for example—tell stories about our sufferings and comeuppances. My sister, by the way, argues with the details of "Tomato Butt" and doesn't remember it the same way I do, but it's all quite vivid in my mind, the young man who yielded happily and quickly to temptation out of plain curiosity— what does it feel like to do the wrong thing?—and I've been yielding ever since. Chickens—a painful subject: I was so self-conscious about the fact that my father liked to get a few crates of chickens and butcher them in our garage and backyard, which nobody else in our neighborhood did. (We lived in the country as it was rapidly getting suburbanized.) All that clucking when we got up on a Saturday morning, and then the slaughtering, the blood, the terrible smell of the boiling water they were dipped in, and of course it was all to save money—we were a family of eight—but to me it seemed like such a poor-person thing to do, and I was all for subterfuge and my father was not. He was a country person; I am not. (In fact, I think I was in the 8th grade before he consented to store-bought chicken.) Chicken slaughtering and the home haircut and the handmedown clothes and belonging to a tiny fundamentalist sect, the Sanctified Brethren—that was the suffering of my rather happy childhood and I still talk about it, if invited to, which is not nearly often enough. Telling stories is the poor man's therapy.
Permalink | Comments
Why have there been no reference to the Ojibwe people who lived, and always have, in the land where Lake Wobegon is set—mythically as well as geophysically? And why are no native voices captured in the multifarious cast of characters in Lake Wobegon? We have many excellent native musical groups too, some from Minnesota and nearby Wisconsin who have won NAMIES, who would make good listening for the folks across the country who enjoy the show.
Mi-iew Miigwech—many thanks—
Autumn's Mother
Carol Lee S.
The short answer is: the show is entertainment and native music is religious, the show is comedy and white people cannot do comedy about native people. We've had a few native musical groups on and they did not seem comfortable about performing as part of a variety show and the time constraints were rather brutal. The place to hear native music in all its glory is at a powwow which operates on a whole other sense of time.
For better or worse, the show reflects the taste of the founder and that is far from all-inclusive.
Permalink | Comments
Post to the Host:
I am a college student and I write a lot because my mind stores up things. So I write about everything. But I still don't know if I like how I write. I have no real critiques except from the dog, but he never goes into details. How do you know if something is good or not?
Nathaniel C.
Carrollton, TX
You don't know, Nathaniel, but you can guess and one good way to measure your work is to read it aloud. Read it to yourself. You'll be able to hear the awkward or pretentious parts and detect gaps in the narrative and problems of logic. And then, after you rewrite it, try reading it to somebody else. Somebody other than the dog. They probably won't even have to say a word—you can hear what's wrong yourself. The basis of writing is one person telling another person a story, and it's always good to go back to basics.
Permalink | Comments
Hello,
Just a general question about the Rhubarb Tour. How does the show differ from the "Prairie Home Companion" show? I want to take my kids and they love Guy Noir and Dusty and the rest. Just wondering if the Tour is pretty much the same as Home Companion.
Thanks,
Chris C.
The tour show that will go around in August and early September is a concert version of the radio show. There is some Guy Noir, but no Dusty & Lefty. There is Fred Newman and his sound effects, and the Guy's All Star Shoe Band and singer Suzy Bogguss and me—some duets, the news from Lake Wobegon, and of course commercials for rhubarb.
Permalink | Comments
Garrison Keillor:
I recently had the great fortune to hear you in Dayton, Ohio. You ended with a sonnet, filled with skepticism, as well as longing about God. Is that available anywhere? Also, I had wanted to ask you in the Q/A session that followed whether the talk you gave at the White House Correspondent's Dinner during the Clinton administration was available anywhere as well. I just remember it was right in the midst of all the news that wasn't fit to print and both President Clinton and Hillary were in attendance,the material for the "roast" was so painfully obvious that I wasn't going to watch until I heard you were the guest speaker. You managed to not mention any of it, but gave a talk about compassion and cajoling us to avoid self righteousness. To this day, I think it was one of the most graceful marriages of content and events I've ever witnessed. So, I hope I spelled everything correctly because I know misspelling drives you nuts. Thanks.
Pat C.
Dayton OH
If misspelling drove me nuts, Pat, I'd be under heavy medication most of the time. Very bright people send me letters every day saying "let's not go their" and I don't babble or screech, I just make a mental note not to hire them. As for the sonnet, here it is:
Here I am O Lord and here is my prayer:
Please be there.
Don't want to ask too much, miracles and such.
Just whisper in the air: please be there.
When I die like other folks,
I don't want to find out You're a hoax.
Not down on my knees asking for world peace
Or that the polar icecap freeze
And save the polar bear
Or even that the poor be fed
Or angels hover o'er my bed
But I will sure be pissed
If I should have been an atheist.
Dear God: please exist.
Not a classic Shakespearean or Spenserian sonnet, but a sonnet nonetheless, or so say I. The recent Bed of Roses Sonnet Contest produced some entries that I picked to read on the show that drew complaints from traditionalists because the sonnets weren't iambic pentameter or were unrhymed, but I am 65 and beyond caring about that. What is freedom if we can't use it?
I remember the White House Correspondents Dinner. I went through the metal detectors, my speech in my vest pocket, and was ushered into a room full of senators and White House people, all of whom seemed to know each other, all of them mingling and making small talk, no partisanship visible at all, which is startling to us neophytes — to see Senator Stevens of Alaska chuckling with Senator Kennedy — but that's the beauty of politics, civility. I sat next to Mrs. Clinton and we talked about the Supreme Court — Justice Blackmun had just resigned and President Clinton was to fill the seat — and I asked her if she ever got to visit the Court and she replied, rather wittily, that she didn't think she should since the Court might be taking up a case involving a member of her family. And then she turned to her right and spent most of the dinner talking to Speaker Dennis Hastert, who was more important for her to talk to. I had agonized about the speech. Traditionally it's a comic turn by a comedian but to do that would've meant plowing through the same Monica material that every comedian had been doing for months, and so I struck out in a different direction and gave a sermon. I was pretty sure that it disappointed most of the crowd and I don't think it made any difference to the Clintons who were sort of prisoners of the occasion. I walked away alone through the lobby of whatever enormous hotel it was held in and a very dapper Sidney Blumenthal came over and told me he thought it was a good speech and I was awfully grateful for that. I went back to my room and crawled into bed and got up early in the morning and flew home. So much for fame. (In New York there would've been a party after the dinner but in Washington a lot of those people had 7 a.m. meetings to attend.) I'd be happy to send you the speech and I thought I would've saved it on my hard drive but I can't find it. One less thing to read.
Permalink | Comments
Garrison:
I've heard you sing "Amazing Grace" to the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. I've searched high and low for how the words go in the song...I know that it is different than the hymn. I'm going to teach this for Bible school this summer. Please help. I did a Google search and couldn't find it. Love your program.....!!!!!
Margo H.
Baltimore
Not sure I should tell you, Margo, since the Disney company can be mean and litigious and sic its hairy-handed lawyers on you for the slightest little thing, but the hymn fits the Mickey Mouse song very nicely.
Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
Amazing Grace! (Amazing Grace)
Amazing Grace! (Amazing Grace)
Forever let us hold our banner high (high, high, high)
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G G-R-A-C-E
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
Permalink | Comments
Dear Garrison,
I've been listening to your show for years now and I've always appreciated the Irish and Scottish folk music, Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain, the Battlefield Band, and Boys of the Lough. And now I've started playing the stuff myself (my flatmates can probably blame you for some of their woes). Anyway, I would love to know if you are planning another tour of the UK and/or Ireland any time in the near future? I've listened to your brilliant 2000 shows from Edinburgh and Dublin in the archives and it would be fantastic if you paid our fair city another visit. After all 2000 was a wee while ago.
Emily
Edinburgh, Scotland
It was a wee while ago, Emily, and I remember that spring very well. We were in Queen's Hall in Edinburgh and in the studios of Irish Radio in Dublin and we had the Boys in Edinburgh and in Dublin we had a number of musicians including a lovely man named Frank Harte, who has since flown from the earth. He was an architect by trade, employed by the city of Dublin, I believe, but his great love was Irish song, and he sang beautifully in that strong but delicately ornamented style that you only hear over there. It was absolutely rivetting to hear him. And now I hear the same style carried on by the astonishing Brendan Begley of the Boys of the Lough. We're delighted to be an American way station for Scottish and Irish musicians travelling in the States, but at the moment there are no plans to go to Edinburgh. I wanted to do the Book Festival this year but couldn't because the show will be touring in August. I still remember August, 1995, in Edinburgh during a heat wave, when 10,000 pipers marched through town to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. Men and women in heavy woollen plaids marching by on Queen Street, sweat pouring down them, and all of that glorious music, one band after another. The show used to be aired in the UK on BBC7 but isn't anymore, nor is it carried by Irish radio, and so we haven't a local sponsor, which makes it awkward and much too much work to organize a trip as complicated as that. But we'll be at the Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul at the end of August, if you want to fly over. Your chance to eat deep-fried cheese curds and corn on the cob and a Pronto-Pup. How can you not?
Permalink | Comments
Mr. Keillor,
I thoroughly enjoy your show but your appearance at Wolf Trap, just down the road from us, falls on the night that my fiancee, Yianna, and I are getting married. Would you consider rescheduling the Wolf Trap appearance to a time that would be more convenient for my wife-to-be and me, when it doesn't conflict with a major life event?
Thanks for considering!
Nick M.
Tysons Corner, VA
Bring Yianna over to Wolf Trap, Nick, after the wedding and we'll bring you out on stage and 6000 people will sing "Can't Help Falling In Love" to the two of you. The show starts at 6 pm EDT. But you have to be wearing your wedding outfits. And bring the wedding party, if you like.
Permalink | Comments
G'day,
my name is Kent, I'm visiting from Australia. I was put onto your show by a lady in Portland, Oregon, we shared an ashtray outside a coffee house and shared a gorgeous conversation. The thing is that I completely failed to ask her out when the time was right and the only way I can think to find her again is via your show.Her name is Alison, she has long blonde curly hair, she is a Jungian therapist. She doesn't believe in umbrellas, is proud of being tight with money, doesn't care much for fancy clothes but knows she looks mighty fine in blue jeans. She is smart, beautiful and charming. Her smile filled me with joy, her eyes saw straight through me without trying. If Alison wants to give me a second chance she can e mail me at kentparkstreet at yahoo.com.au, maybe join me for a coffee at Caffe D'arte one day?
In the name of intercontinental romance I hope you can get this message out to her. I've been kicking myself for a week for not asking her out, I've never met anyone like her.
Thank you, and thanks for the marvelous radio show,
Kent Parkstreet.
Permalink | Comments
Read more Posts to the Host >>
Send your post to Garrison Keillor >>
Have a specific question or suggestion about the show? >>
| |
| |
The Historic
State Theatre
May 17, 2008
This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we'll revisit two shows we did last May at the historic state theatre in Minneapolis. Wilco, the über-cool Chicago-based alt-rock band was on to perform a few songs from their Grammy®-nominated album "Sky Blue Sky". Texas troubadour Carrie Rodriguez was with us, Bluegrass songstress Becky Schlegel sang "Heartaches by the Number", and Cowboy Jack Clement sang an impromptu version of "Old Fashioned Drunk" that lingers in our collective memory like a Bourbon hangover. Also in the singing Cowboy genre, Lefty yodels about Keats and the blooms of spring in the Lives of the Cowboys. Plus, a lesson on wood ticks that can only be learned from an early summer visit to Lake Wobegon. So take the transistor radio with you out into the backyard this Saturday, plant those heirloom tomatoes, and enjoy a freshly cut springtime redux of two shows, with The Royal Academy of Radio Actors: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Tom Keith, The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, and The News from Lake Wobegon.
|
|
|
|
Garrison Keillor's latest book, Pontoon, has been shortlisted for the ninth Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. He joins Alan Bennett, Julian Gough, Will Self, John Walsh and first-time novelist, Joe Dunthorne.
The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction is given to the best comic novel published in the last twelve months.
The winner will be presented with his prize at the Guardian Hay Festival in late May. And will receive a number of prizes, including the honour of a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig named after the triumphant novel. The as-yet-unnamed pig will visit the Festival for the presentation.
Last summer, Garrison wrote of the impetus for the book:
"Pontoon started with a story on the radio show years ago about 26 Lutheran ministers piling onto an 18-foot pontoon boat, which people enjoyed, and so I worked it up into a longer monologue, which I did in the one-man dog-and-pony show. The monologue grew and grew until it got to be 90 minutes long and then it dawned on me that it was all in my head and I had no record of it at all. So I started writing it out as a story and found it satisfying to flesh out the character of Evelyn and her lover Raoul and her daughter Barbara and her son Kyle. I had to rein it in lest it turn into a soapy epic — I love that short comic form, maybe because I was a big fan of Wodehouse back in junior high school. But that, in a nutshell, is how the book came to be."
|
|
|
|
The Rhubarb Tour is the soul of A Prairie Home Companion — stories from Lake Wobegon, passionate duets, the philosophy of Guy Noir, wild radio dramas starring sound-effects genius Fred Newman, and the incredible Guy's All Star Shoe Band... and it's happening all around the country this August.
|
|
|
|
Prairie Home Reunion: Still Singing After All These Years brings together most of the old crowd whose music inspired the creation of this radio show back in the summer of 1974, including Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson (The Original Powdermilk Muffins) with Cal Hand on dobro, pianist Butch Thompson, cowboy singing idol Pop Wagner, the Powdermilk Biscuit Band of Adam Granger, Bob Douglas, and Mary DuShane, singer Becky Riemer Thompson, pianist and current Prairie Home Music Director, Rich Dworsky, and mandolinist and composer Peter Ostroushko. As a special added attraction, the Brandy Snifters—Minnesota's Oldest Old-Time Band—will offer a few tunes.
|
|
|
|
May 12, 2008
Listened to the show Saturday and it was not bad. The music was particularly good with the BoDeans on the playlist. Oh, gosh, I love that song they sing called, "Good Things." I was singing it on the way out to the bus stop Monday morning. "Sunlight fall down on the fields / Sunlight fall down over me / Work all day, be all that I can be..." I guess I was singing a bit loud and maybe even dancing along the way because the kids shushed me. "Mom, the bus is coming. Knock it off."...
|
|
|
|
May 16, 2008
There's a truckstop just south of Bangor, Maine, called Dysart's (Exit 180, I-95). I made the comment at dinner one night that it was about the best I'd ever seen and someone said what would it take to make a perfect truckstop and I found myself at a loss to put it into words. I finally said something about tone or feel...
|
|
|
|
May 06, 2008
The last time I witnessed a woman becoming a mother, it wasn't anything like the frilly sentiments of Mother's Day. She lay on her back, perspiring heavily and yelling, "Oh my God, why did you do this to me? I'll never forgive you in a hundred years. I hope you hurt like this someday. Give me another epidural, you sadists. And get this thing out of me!" and looking up at me as if she were burning at the stake and I had lit the fire. And when the Infant appeared and was placed on the Madonna's chest, she said, "What in the world am I supposed to do with that?"...
Relive all the glory of past joke shows with our selection of pretty good merchandise. A selection of joke books and CDs containing every morsel of comedy from most of our (in)famous Joke Shows. Hundreds of snickers, howlers, one-liners, and groaners, audience-tested and certified Pretty Good.
|
Scripts and bits from A Prairie Home Companion celebrate the secret society of men and women who possess excellent spelling and punctuation skills. (You know who you are.)
Selections include "The Six-Minute Hamlet," a tribute to Emily Dickinson, a Guy Noir adventure that exposes an MFA scam, a riveting "Professional Organization of English Majors" drama, and guests Billy Collins, Robert Bly, Roy Blount Jr., and Calvin Trillin.
|
If you are an avid A Prairie Home Companion listener, you know what to expect: a delightful mix of music and fun by APHC regulars including the Guy's All Star Shoe Band, Robin & Linda Williams and Jearlyn Steele, among others, plus some amazing music by a diverse slate of guest performers: Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly and Lindsay Lohan.
The deluxe version of the soundtrack also contains a DVD featuring 10 complete musical performances that are cut short in the movie. Watch and listen as Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Lindsay Lohan, Woody Harrelson and all the APHC regulars entertain you.
Was $18.98, On Sale $9.49
|
|
|
Listen to The News from Lake Wobegon wherever and whenever you want. We're pleased to announce GK's signature monologue is now available as a free podcast, updated every Monday.
|
|
|
|
How do you know if an elephant is with you on an elevator?
You can smell the peanuts on his breath.
This joke was sent in by Stephen W. of Garden City, NY. Thanks Stephen!
|
|
|
|
Sign up here for our weekly e-pistle about what's happening at A Prairie Home Companion!
|
|
|
|
Listener-submitted short stories or poems about their homes or lives or whatever they fancy. Here are the latest:
|
|
|
|
If you would like to see A Prairie Home Companion live, here is your chance!
On May 23 and 24, we're on the stage of the Filene Center at Wolf Trap National Park, Vienna, Virginia. We end the month with a May 31st show from the Pan American Center on the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Curious about the origins of the show? Read a brief history. You can find audio, Guy Noir scripts, photos of old shows, and much more in the archives.
Garrison Keillor answers letters from listeners in Post to the Host, and our truck driver Russ Ringsak writes a monthly column that is always interesting.
We also have a ridiculous number of ridiculous jokes in our joke machine. If that weren't enough, we travel a lot, so you can see if we're coming to a town near you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
