March 29, 2008
This week on A Prairie Home Companion, while packing our giant steamer trunks for the trip to New York, we cobbled together a special Manhattan matinee to get you in the mood for spring. Featuring great American soprano Renée Fleming, the Queen of American folk music Odetta, legendary classical pianist André Watts, and the ambassadors of Scottish traditional music, Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors:
Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman, The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, and in Lake Wobegon the high school play is cancelled under student protest.
It is time for another poetry contest on A Prairie Home Companion
and we've decided to make it a sonnet contest and to hold it on April 12, read the best entrants on our live broadcast from New York, and invite our audience — at home and at the theater — to vote a winner.
We'll accept rhymed or unrhymed fourteen-line sonnets. We think they should be love poems, but love of what, who's to say. Absolutely must be original. Must be submitted by Friday, April 11, at midnight CST.
The first prize — from Select Comfort — will be a Sleep Number queen-size bed along with three dozen roses — a bed of roses delivered to your door — a source
of untold joy, not to mention untold sleep.
Submit your Sonnet >>
Submission Guidelines and Rules >>
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Dear Mr. Keillor:
We are excited to see the show in Milwaukee on May 10 at the Milwaukee Theater. Did you know you will be performing in the same venue where Theodore Roosevelt gave an 80-minute speech moments after he was shot in the chest, in October of 1912? You're familiar with the story, of course, that the
manuscript of his speech was stowed in his breast pocket and slowed the bullet enough to save his life. There's a plaque in front of the Hyatt, where the shooting took place a couple of blocks away. It was the Gilpatrick Hotel back then. The Milwaukee Theater was the Milwaukee Auditorium at the
time. It's since been beautifully redone.
John T.
Milwaukee
There is a nice symmetry to the story, John. The length of the speech made for a thick manuscript which saved his life and in gratitude he gave the entire thing, unabridged, and no doubt enjoyed the tremendous fuss and anxiety in the wings. It's hard to imagine a time when
presidents travelled about with only a couple of plainclothesmen to protect them and a few city cops. But when the show was in Iceland a couple years ago, I was invited to dine with the president of Iceland, Olafur Grimsson, and drove out to the presidential mansion, which sits at the end of a long
straight driveway with no visible security. I walked to the front door and knocked and the president opened it. There was a uniformed naval attache with him but very little other security that I could see. The Scandinavian countries are rather proud of their low security, even after the
assassination of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme who was attending a movie with his wife, no bodyguards. The ability of a leader to walk freely among the people is, I suppose, a test of the national civility. But the shock and horror of an assassination is too much for a country to bear.
Anyway, we're looking forward to Milwaukee and I hope to get over to the Pfister Hotel and sit in the lounge in the lobby and listen to that terrific piano player. If there is a song about Theodore Roosevelt, I'll bet he knows it.
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If you would like to see A Prairie Home Companion live, here is your chance!
Lots of chances to get in on Prairie Home fun this season. On the first three Saturdays of April — 5, 12 and 19 — look for us at The Town Hall in New York. On April 26, we head south to Hot Springs, Arkansas, then turn right around and go north to Bangor, Maine, for a show on May 3. By
May 10, we're back in the Midwest — this time in Milwaukee. Stay tuned.
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Did you hear about the insomniac who was hauled off to the police station for resisting arrest?
This joke was sent in by Joe K., of Saint Charles, MO. Thanks Joe!
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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.
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March 24, 2008
Listened to the show Saturday and it was not bad. I'd spent the better part of the day at the grocery store and was I ever glad to get home and unpack groceries with the radio on loud as it can go. The kids were on an egg hunt over at the neighbor's and Mr. Sundberg was at a mall down in St.
Paul, where he and a few motivational-speaker colleagues were dressed as Easter bunnies, handing out candy. It was his idea. "Something good for no real reason," he said...
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March 18, 2008
There was a small epiphany in church last week when we sang the recessional "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," a German chorale in which we basses must jump around more limberly than we may be used to. A tough part compared to "When the Roll Is Called up Yonder" and I stood in the rear and struggled
with it and then as the choir recessed down the main aisle and came up and stood in the side aisles, three basses wound up standing near me, like border collies alongside the lost sheep, and I got myself in their draft and we sang our way to the barn. (Moral: get with the group — just make
sure it's the right one.)
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Listener-submitted short stories or poems about their homes or lives or whatever they fancy. Here are the latest:
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Program Sponsors
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Pretty Good Jokes |
 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.
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English Majors |
 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.
Order now! >> |
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Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon |
 In Lake Wobegon lives a good Lutheran lady who is quite prepared
to die and wishes to be cremated and her ashes placed inside a bowling ball and dropped into the lake, no prayers, no hymns, thank you very much. Meanwhile, the Detmer girl returns from California where she has made a killing in veterinary aromatherapy to marry her boyfriend Brent aboard Wally's
pontoon boat, presided over by her minister, Misty Naylor of the Sisterhood of the Sacred Spirit. Brent arrives on Thursday. On Saturday, a delegation of renegade Lutheran pastors from Denmark come to town on their tour of America, their punishment for having denied the divinity of Jesus. And
Barbara Peterson, whose mother, Evelyn, left the startling note about cremation and the bowling ball, is in love with a lovely fat man who slips around town in the dim light and reconnoiters with her at the Romeo Motel.
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A Prairie Home Companion: the DVD |
 Legendary director Robert Altman's take on Garrison Keillor's show
boasts a dream cast, terrific music, and a story that tugs at the heartstrings. Keillor, Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, and Tommy Lee Jones star in a film about the final broadcast of America's most celebrated radio show.
(Don't worry; it's only a movie.)
"What a lovely film this is, so gentle and whimsical, so simple and profound" —Roger Ebert.
"A great gang of stars having a great time, brilliantly directed by Robert Altman" —Larry King.
1 hour 45 min.
Order now! >> |
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When I Get Home: Songs |
Prairie Home Companion listeners are frequently treated to a song. Sometimes to a familiar tune, sometimes to original music—with words by Garrison Keillor. In them, he sings of home, love, friendship, family, faith, or just plain fun. These sixteen songs, specially recorded for this
collection, are some of his best.
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A Prairie Home DVD Collection |
 This 3 DVD set features classic A Prairie Home Companion broadcasts includes
special guests Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Leo Kottke, Doc Watson, Bobby McFerrin, The Everly Brothers, Taj Mahal, and Robin and Linda Williams. Music abounds, as do jokes, skits, and "The News from Lake Wobegon."
Order now! >> |
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