October 2011
30 posts
September 2011
37 posts
Hangover
If I were crowned emperor this morning,
every child who is playing Marco Polo
in the swimming pool of this motel,
shouting the name Marco Polo back and forth
Marco PoloMarco Polo
would be required to read a biography
of Marco Polo-a long one with fine print-
as well as a history of China and of Venice,
the birthplace of the venerated explorer
Marco PoloMarco Polo
after which each child would be quizzed
by me then executed by drowning
regardless how much they managed
to retain about the glorious life and times of
Marco PoloMarco Polo
“Hangover” by Billy Collins, from Video Poems
© Applezaba, 1980 (out of print)http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2009/08/15/scripts/collins.shtml
What if there
what if there were people who listened to prairie home companion on tumblr other than just me
i would be fine with that
There are plenty of APHC fans on Tumblr!
“Over the last decade I lived and traveled a great deal, spending most of my youth in Beijing and Burma, New York and Narita, Haiti and Hungary, some places for weeks, some for years. And the one constant was Garrison’s voice. My expat friends got excited over packages of VHS recordings of Friends and ER; my secret glee was bootleg Prairie Home Companion recordings from my brother.”
—From a 2009 essay about the show, by Abe Sauer at The Awl
“Phil Zimmermann created the first version of PGP encryption in 1991. The name, “Pretty Good Privacy”, is humorously ironic and was inspired by the name of a grocery store, “Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery”, featured in radio host Garrison Keillor’s fictional town, Lake Wobegon.”
—From the Wikipedia entry for the “Pretty Good Privacy” data encryption software
“No matter what people have told you in commencement speeches over the years, maybe we’re not building anything - maybe we’re just living, just watching and learning.”
—
Garrison Keillor, The News From Lake Wobegon, 10/9/2011 (via panickyintheuk)
Listen to that week’s NFLW segment—originally performed on the January 21, 2006 broadcast—here.
Job Creators - Guy Noir - Prairie Home Companion
- Narrator: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions...Guy Noir, Private Eye.
- Guy Noir: It was the middle of September, and I was doing security at a golf tournament for business executive.
- (SWING, HIT, FLIGHT OF BALL)
- Business Executive: (JOWLY) Great shot, J.T. You really impacted it there.
- Guy Noir: Being around business executives always makes me wonder how it is that they earn buckets of money and I earn spoonfuls. They just don't strike me as terribly bright.
- Business Executive: (POMPOUS, JOWLY) I think we're going to have to ramp up our whole campaign here and roll out a total paradigm shift and take it to the next level and make it seamless because at the end of the day it's the score that counts ---- that's what you bring to the table ---- that's what closes the loop.
- (JOWLY GIBBERISH)
- Guy Noir: They were hearty fellows who laughed at each other's jokes (CHORTLING), ----- and they were bad golfers. (SWING, HIT, FLIGHT OF BALL, GLASS BREAKAGE). And that was my job as a security guy, to cover for them. (RUNNING FOOTSTEPS) You okay, ma'am?
- Golf Course Neighbor: Your golf ball busted my windshield.
- Guy Noir: You're okay though?
- Gulf Course Neighbor: Well, who's going to pay for this? I want money to replace my windshield!
- Guy Noir: Ma'am, those men on the golf course are job creators. You hit them with a bill like that, they're likely to move their factories to Thailand. Here's a hundred bucks. Have a nice day.
Listen
Nick Lowe | Cruel to be Kind
Our guest this week: Nick Lowe! Check out this interview to hear a few selections from his new album The Old Magic and learn his advice for musicians who want to cover a Nick Lowe song.
Garrison Keillor is cooler & more impressive than 98% of the people you will ever know.
Dude and his band (with Sara Watkins- so great!) performed from 7:30 to 10:45, with only a 15 minute intermission, in which Garrison & Sara got in the audience and everyone just had a sing along.
More tomorrow- for now, let’s just say it was so good and so worth my time and money to get down here and spring for the best ticket I could get in the house (3rd row, yep).
…and they did that almost every night for a month! Take a look back at the Summer Love Tour over at our collection of notes, photos and videos from the road.
Happy 100th Birthday, Bill Monroe!
Happy 100th birthday Bill Monroe! Listen to “Live and Let Live” from the 2006 Smithsonian Folkways box set, “Friends of Old Time Music”. http://goo.gl/3uSo1
Monroe, known as the “Father of Bluegrass”, helped create a genre that would become synonymous with his band, the Blue Grass Boys. Read more about his history and the three day centennial celebration in Kentucky: http://billmonroe100birthday.com/
We’re pretty excited about this particular anniversary because our live broadcast from Murray, KY on November 5th will be a special celebration of Bill Monroe and his music! Special guests will include musicians who performed with Monroe at various times through his career: Roland White, mandolin; Blake Williams and Bob Black, banjo; Bobby Hicks and Richard Greene, fiddle; Tom Ewing [PDF] and Peter Rowan, guitar; and Mark Hembree, bass. Joining the Blue Grass Boys will be noted session musicians Stuart Duncan and Kathy Chiavola.
“Hawkon: I think she said she likes “A Prairie Home Companion.”
Garrison: I doubt that very much.” —
Garrison: I doubt that very much.” —
Garrison and guest Hawkon Vaadeland attempt to interpret chicken-speak during last weekend’s show at the Minnesota State Fair. Listen to the whole show — with The Jayhawks, Sara Watkins, dueling sound effects men Tom Keith and Fred Newman, the latest News from Lake Wobegon and more — here:
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, out there on the edge of the prairie.
Just discovered this beautiful link where you can listen to every performance of A Prairie Home Companion since the fall of 1996. Perfect for a lonely homesick night without a radio.
“You have to live, you know, in order to understand the Gospel. You have to live. Jesus did; he hung out with sinners and Republicans, and so … so can you.”
—Garrison Keillor, Prairie Home Companion (September 3, 2011 - show #1305)
“The difficult thing is to convince them of the beauty of flatness… because that’s the really magnificent thing in Minnesota… It’s really the prairie you have to interest them in… Get on a bicycle and ride a bike at sunset across the prairie. And that’s pretty amazing. And the Northern Lights in winter.”
—
Garrison Keillor, answering my question today on MPR about how to get people to come visit me in Minnesota.
(Also, I have more of a Minnesotan accent than I thought. Not that it’s a bad thing—I’m proud of where I’m from—but wow, my R’s are something special…)
“I think that acoustic music has a tremendous visceral appeal to people. It is not music that depends on post-production or powerful amplification. It is not meant to stun you into submission,” said Keillor, who presents a wide range of country, folk and pop artists on his radio program. “It has its roots in music ordinary people can make for their own pleasure.”
—Garrison discusses the music featured on the show, his three favorite elements of the Summer Love Tour and more in an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com. The tour will visit Fort Worth’s Bass Hall on September 6th.
