A hike to Times Square and back The enemy is clutter and I am late to the battle, not wanting to be prim and proper, but I have bags and boxes stuffed with stuff, drawers, shelves, closets, and this must be addressed, otherwise you’ll be reading about me in the paper, Elderly Author Starves in Home, Unable to Climb Over Piles to Reach Kitchen. I exaggerate but the trend is clear and trends that are not interrupted become landslides. Meaningless memorabilia, clothes we’ve outgrown, mysterious tools, ugly art. So I start tossing and then I come across a note from my daughter: “I love you, Show Boy” and of course I can’t throw that away, and so it goes to a pile of saves, along with a sheet of paper with one-liners ( “She was only a stableman’s daughter but all the horsemen knew her.”). And a picture of my classmates standing on my lawn for our 60th reunion, which prompted me to call up Billy Pedersen who’s in the picture, and because my wife was asleep, I slipped out of the apartment and so there I was, walking down Columbus Avenue and reminiscing about our friend Corinne and the toboggan hill behind her house and thus housekeeping was put off for another day. Read the rest of the column >>> |
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This week on A Prairie Home Companio
This week on A Prairie Home Companion, a look back with a slurry of memorable clips from 2011. Young and inspiring harpist Charles Overton plays Debussy, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch reads Shakespeare, and Gillian Welch sings Jefferson Airplane. Emmylou Harris joins The Royal Academy of Radio Actors as a waitress in The Lives of the Cowboys, singer-songwriter Tom Rush plays his only children’s song, and Guy Noir is on bedbug detail. Plus, Rich Dworsky’s “Other Carnival of the Animals,” Nick Lowe’s “Stoplight Roses,” and the springtime return of the tundra swans to Lake Wobegon. The “best of” compilation shows almost feel like a brand-new LIVE show. Join us Saturday for a 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:
In the early 1990s, Gillian Welch met Dave Rawlings at the Berklee College of Music in Boston while the two were students waiting to audition for the country-band class. Since then, they have carved out a highly successful career, with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association and recordings that include Welch’s Grammy-nominated The Harrow & The Harvest and the Dave Rawlings Machine release Nashville Obsolete.
When Emmylou Harris was child, she wrote a letter to Pete Seeger, concerned that if she was living a sheltered life at her parents’ house and hadn’t suffered enough, she couldn’t be a folksinger. Pete wrote back, saying: “Don’t worry. Life will catch up with you. You’ll suffer. Don’t go hop a freight.” It worked out. With dozens of acclaimed recordings and countless awards, including more than a dozen Grammys, Emmylou maintains a widespread and loyal following, whether she’s singing folk, country, pop, or traditional tunes.
“Making Believe” >>>Read our guest interview >>>
James Taylor once told a reporter that Tom Rush “was not only one of my early heroes, but also one of my main influences.” Lots of artists could say the same. Rush has had a profound impact on American music ever since his early days on the 1960s Boston/Cambridge coffeehouse scene, where he began performing while he was an English lit student at Harvard. He made his first record, Tom Rush at the Unicorn, in 1962. He has since released dozens of albums, including 2018’s Voices.
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Billy Collins
How many of you love Billy Collins? Billy has said that if it weren’t for The Writer’s Almanac and its mission to celebrate poetry, he would be doing readings in church basements (we doubt that very much). He is a good friend of the program, and we look forward to bringing you some of his new poetry this year! If you’d like to subscribe to The Writer’s Almanac and receive outstanding poetry every morning, scroll down to the bottom of this email and click “update your preferences.”
Billy Collins on Writing:
TWA: Do you have a certain place you write, a favorite desk? Does it face a window or wall? What time of day do you like to write? Do you prefer silence or some sort of ambient noise as you concentrate?
BC: I write anywhere. I don’t require a scented candle or a favorite cardigan. I can write on a train or in Yankee stadium. When it comes, it comes. Of course, I can enjoy a long train ride and extra innings in the Bronx without writing a thing. Read the full poet interview >>>Purchase Billy Collins’s books >>> Billy Collins on GK’s collection Living with Limericks:
“Leave it to Garrison Keillor, America’s favorite storyteller, to smuggle into a seemingly innocent collection of limericks the story of his life. Mixed in with his fascination with one of the oldest (yet least respected) poetic forms is a straightforward, unabashed autobiography. Lift the mask off the man from Nantucket, and there’s the author himself ... from Minnesota! The result is an inventive pastiche, which entertains, charms, reveals, then entertains some more.” |
Get Living with Limericks >>> |
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| The 30th Anniversary of The Writer's Almanac
It was on January 1, 1993, that the first episode of The Writer’s Almanac debuted on public radio stations across the country. The Writer’s Almanac was created by Garrison Keillor to bring poetry to a larger audience, with each five-minute episode featuring history notes on the given day plus a poem.
The program was first offered to stations that carried A Prairie Home Companion, but it built its own following over these past 30 years. Anniversary episodes are featured daily on our website, social media, and via a daily Substack page. You can support this ongoing celebration of poetry with a contribution to offset our expenses. Sign up for the newsletter >>>
Support The Writer's Almanac >>> |
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“Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.” A simple truth from Garrison Keillor, beautifully etched in glass and gift-boxed. Buy now >>> |
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A Notecard for 2023 A New Year's Resolution: send more handwritten notes to your family and friends. You will get 5 greeting cards with envelopes featuring photos chosen by Garrison with a special limericks composed for the New Year. Cards measure 4.5" by 6.5". New Years: The year passes and the old man with the scythe
Is mowing closer. He hasn’t been subtle, has he.
Every day a few more people say goodbye,
Which makes me want to be lighthearted, jazzy,
Put out the hors d’oeuvres and the champagne,
Sing God Bless America, You Are My Sunshine,
In My Life, Amazing Grace, Purple Rain,
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, and Auld Lang Syne.
We’ve mourned for our dead and been sorry a
Long enough time. Now I take your hand, your
Eyes alight, and let us sing an aria,
To love and beauty and youth and grandeur.
May 2023 bring us before it has flown
What we would have wished for had we only known. Get the cards >>>
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