Waiting for Christmas, wishing for snow I flew from St. Louis to New York City last Friday, had a cup of black coffee before takeoff, which put me right to sleep, and awoke on the descent through heavy overcast, no visible lights below even as our wheels were lowered, and down, down, down we came as the ride got bumpy and then sort of turbulent, lights appearing a few hundred feet below, a river of headlights on a freeway, the plane shaking as the ground came up to meet us, red lights on the tarmac, and the wheels hit and the nose came down and he reversed the engines and braked hard and brought us around to the terminal at LaGuardia.
Go to Garrison Keillor and Friends on Substack to read the rest of THE COLUMN >>>
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This week on "A Prairie Home Companion" Spread the Christmas cheer — this classic PHC is a joyful Christmas broadcast from The Town Hall in New York City from 2005. With special guests: the legendary blues singer Odetta and brilliant voices from the Metropolitan and New York City Operas — Janez Lotric and Jennifer Rivera. Also featuring Czech father-and-daughter duo Stanislav and Kristina Kotza. And from Ukraine, the Paulishyn Sisters — ages eleven and thirteen — accompanied by Alla Kutsevych on the bandura (the national instrument of Ukraine). All of this, plus the Royal Academy of Radio Actors, the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band with Andy Stein, and the News from Lake Wobegon. Join us Saturday for some delightful festivity! Listen via our Facebook page at 5 p.m. CT (or click the link below). Listen to the Show >>>Like our Facebook page >>>
More about this week’s featured guests:
Odetta was one of the most celebrated figures in music — a recipient of the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities, the National Visionary Award from the Kennedy Center, the first Duke Ellington Fellowship Award from Yale University, Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Library of Congress, the International Folk Alliance, the World Folk Music Association, and Presidente d’Honeurs from the Cognac (France) Blues Festival, as well as Grammy and W.C. Handy Award nominations and numerous honorary degrees from various universities. Time magazine noted that “Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music.” Baby I’m in the Mood for You >>>
Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera has sung leading roles in opera companies worldwide. The two-time Grammy nominee won Australia’s Helpmann Award. In 2001, she was named Debut Artist of Year at New York City Opera, where she began her career and performed over 70 performances during eight seasons. Career highlights include Rosina in The Barber of Seville at Berlin Staatsoper, Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito at Teatro Regio di Torino, and Faramondo in Faramondo with Brisbane Baroque. A California native, she makes her home in New York.
“Crude furie degli orridi abissi” >>>
Here are the lyrics to a jingle from this week’s show called “Wintertime.”
Wintertime
And there’s snow in Bemidji
Snow in Fargo
Duluth and Green Bay
Oh your mama’s strong
Your daddy’s good-looking
And you’re above average
So they say.
On Christmas morning
You’re going to get up early
Then you’ll come downstairs
And look at the tree
And there’s a package
That you hope is an iPod
But it’s not, exactly
Just a CD.
Christmas Day
All your aunts and your uncles
Come for hours
Before they disperse
Oh your mama’s strong
And your daddy’s good-looking
So hush, little baby,
It could be worse. |
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LIVING with LIMERICKS
The book is a hybrid memoir/poetry collection chronicling Garrison Keillor’s lifelong love for the humble limerick. Since childhood, Garrison has journaled in limerick form about the people, places, and things he has encountered. Here, for example, he explains why he hates golf:
I regret golf. What was I thinking? Lawyers and bankers play golf and when you think of the damage they would do if they were at the job instead, you realize why golf courses are a wise investment for any municipality.
I have just wrapped my old No. 3
Iron around a pine tree
Where I shanked the drive
But I shall survive
And go write a brief elegy.
Farewell to life on the links!
The game is over! It stinks!
The great plaid butts
Bending over the putts,
The hike to the clubhouse for drinks.
Instead I will write at my desk
Limericks, cool, humoresque,
And if I need dough
I’ll go do a show,
Either radio or strip burlesque. Get the book >>>Buy the Kindle version >>> |
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How beautiful and dazzling bright,
One candle on a winter's night.
How beautiful these harmonies
That echo through the centuries.
And in this singing we shall find
The blessing given to mankind
A blessing without price or end,
A blessing on your house, my friend. |
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The Lake Wobegon Virus Softcover
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Now in paperback. Bestselling author and humorist Garrison Keillor returns to one of America’s most beloved mythical towns — a town beset by a contagion of alarming candor.
A mysterious virus has infiltrated the good people of Lake Wobegon, transmitted via unpasteurized cheese made by a Norwegian bachelor farmer, the effect of which is episodic loss of social inhibition. Mayor Alice, Father Wilmer, Pastor Liz, the Bunsens and Krebsbachs, formerly taciturn elders, burst into political rants, inappropriate confessions, and rhapsodic proclamations, while their teenagers watch in amazement. Meanwhile, a wealthy outsider is buying up farmland for a Keep America Truckin’ motorway and amusement park, estimated to draw 2.2 million visitors a year. Clint Bunsen and Elena the hometown epidemiologist to the rescue, with a Fourth of July Living Flag and sweet corn feast for a finale. |
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Get the book >>> |
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| A Prairie Home Companion RED SOCKS |
| Peter Rosen once produced a documentary about Garrison Keillor titled The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes. What the title failed to realize is that Garrison not only wore red shoes onstage for the APHC shows, but he also wore a red tie and red socks to match. Now, you can wear a pair of Prairie Home socks and keep your feet warm on those cool winter nights. Knit jacquard socks are made with a woven imprint combining both the original logo and the microphone from the more recent logo. One size fits all. |
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| A Year in Lake Wobegon “What I quickly came to appreciate was the universal truth in Garrison Keillor’s rich vein of stories. That they are set in Lake Wobegon is not incidental, neither is it absolutely necessary. Those truths, after all, are played out in the Lake Wobegons of our own experience wherever they may occur — whether in prairie hamlets, Sun Belt suburbs, or big-city neighborhoods.” —Tom Brokaw
Family gatherings, holiday celebrations, the predictable, the unexpected — a lot goes on over the course of a year, even in a small town. This collection gathers together 12 “above average” Lake Wobegon stories from live A Prairie Home Companion broadcasts to demonstrate that much can happen in “the little town that time forgot and the decades could not improve.” Get the CDs >>> |
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