My future, in case you are curious I turned 78 five days ago and gave a party, a pandemic party, it was on Zoom, 457 guests, nobody I know, they heard about it on Twitter, no gifts, just donations to your favorite charity, nobody sang “Happy Birthday,” thank you, it lasted about 28 minutes, and we played one game — Guess the Age of the Host — and most people guessed in the 40s, nothing over 50. It was also a Republican party in the sense that nothing I’ve told you is true. The pandemic is a beautiful thing for an old guy like me. Young people do all the complaining so I don’t have to, I’m free to be cheerful. I detest physical exercise and now I have an excuse: heavy breathing spreads the virus. I also have a cover for not wanting to travel: Europe doesn’t want us. Even the Canadians don’t want us. As for restaurants, I never liked eating out; I haven’t hung out in bars since I was in college. I’m an introvert and social distancing comes naturally to me. Down deep, I have an aversion to people who subscribe to complicated conspiracy theories or who think the virus is a hoax or who like to use the word “systemic” and now I can block them on my phone. I love to watch baseball without spectators in the stands, no video close-ups of couples kissing, no mascots dancing around in cartoon outfits. And I’ve discovered that if I put one tablespoon of fermented mead in my wife’s Cream of Wheat, she becomes giddy and laughs at everything I say. When I was 77, I could look back at my early seventies and even my late sixties and brood about the decline of civilization, but 78 means I’m looking at 80 and having to decide what sort of octogenarian I plan to be, an active youthful one who serves as an inspiration to others or a comfy old coot in a rocking chair with a quilt over his lap. I’m familiar with the inspirational geezers — the kind who can do handstands and golf under par and bench-press a bureau dresser — you read about them in the paper on a slow news day, 80-year-old mathematicians still out on the frontiers of algorithms — and it never was my ambition to be an example to others. I am the least ambitious person I know. My ambition is to be content. I am grateful to have achieved that. Read the rest of the column >>> |
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Saturdays with A Prairie Home Companion Every week, we will debut a link to a classic A Prairie Home Companion episode on our Facebook page. Listen with us at 5:00 p.m. each Saturday––the same time the show used to be on the radio! Or, go to the home page of GarrisonKeillor.com anytime to find that week's featured episode.
This week on A Prairie Home Companion, it's a poetry compilation show with a remembrance of Hayden Carruth, a poem by, and song for, Kenneth Rexroth and more Poets Laureate past and present than you can shake a stick at, including: Billy Collins (U.S.), Robert Bly (Minnesota) and Maxine Kumin (U.S./New Hampshire). Also included are songwriter/poets Elvis Costello, Brad Paisley, Nellie McKay, and Nick Lowe. Plus the National Champion of Poetry Out Loud (2009). In Lake Wobegon, Judy Inqvist volunteers to chaperone the sophomore class to the zoo in order to gather material for a poem she's writing.
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We Are Still Married With the release of The Lake Wobegon Virus on September 8th, we are looking back on several of Garrison's earlier books. Today we are featuring We Are Still Married, a collection of short stories and poems. Here's how the New York Times described the book when it was released in 1989:
"The other poems, opinions, stories, letters and whatnots in this collection ponder the meaning and nuance of yard sales, sneezes, Woodlawn Cemetery, the last surviving cigarette smokers, the solo sock, the old shower stall, the perils of celebrity, being nearsighted, growing up fundamentalist and traveling with teen-age children. And in these 'ordinary things,' the grace of Garrison Keillor shines through." –New York Times Book Review
Behold, Garrison's poem "The Solo Sock":
THE SOLO SOCK Of life’s many troubles, I’ve known quite a few:
Bad plumbing and earaches and troubles with you,
But the saddest of all, when it’s all said and done,
Is to look for your socks and find only one.
Here’s a series of single socks stacked in a row.
Where in the world did their fellow socks go?
About missing socks, we have very few facts.
Some say cats steal them to use for backpacks,
Or desperate Norwegians willing to risk
Prison to steal socks to make lutefisk.
But the robbery theories just don’t hold water:
Why would they take one and not take the odder?
Socks are independent, studies have shown,
And most feel a need for some time alone.
Some socks are bitter from contact with feet;
Some, seeking holiness, go on retreat;
Some need adventure and cannot stay put;
Some socks feel useless and just underfoot.
But whatever the reason these socks lose control,
Each sock has feelings down deep in its sole.
If you wake in the night and hear creaking and scraping,
It’s the sound of a sock, bent on escaping.
The socks on the floor that you think the kids dropped?
They’re socks that went halfway, got tired, and stopped.
It might help if, every day,
As you don your socks, you take time to say:
“Thank you, dear socks, for a job that is thankless.
You comfort my feet from tiptoes to ankles,
Working in concert, a cotton duet,
Keeping them snug and absorbing the sweat,
And yet you smell springlike, a regular balm,
As in Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps,
And so I bless you with all of my heart
And pray that the two of you never shall part.
I love you, dear socks, you are socko to me,
The most perfect pair that I ever did see.”
This may help, but you must accept
That half of all socks are too proud to be kept,
And, as with children, their leaving is ritual.
Half of all socks need to be individual. Get the book >>> |
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| For over 40 years, Garrison Keillor has held our attention with tales of "the little town that time forgot and decades could not improve." Go home to Lake Wobegon once more with these 18 never-before-available stories including tales about ordinary days, about a young woman and her bridal shower, about the correct time to drive out on the lake ice, about the advantages of dynamite when you're digging a grave in winter, and more. All will hold your attention on the road home. Over 2 1/2 hours on 2 CDs. Get the CDs >>>
Listen to a sample >>> |
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| This album of duets from Garrison Keillor and Heather Masse includes standards and fan favorites performed over the years during hundreds of concerts across the country. Garrison's understated harmonies give Heather's vocals center stage, while Richard Dworsky and our fine house band provide backup. LISTEN to "Wild Horses" >>>
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