I wonder, Illustrious Host, if your voting for a child to perform at Christmas services comes in part from a memory of your performance one year at Christmas time in Bethlehem, PA? You gave a fine performance there at Lehigh (?) University early in Christmas week. Afterward, I decided to hang around and attend a nighttime Christmas service at the Central Moravian Church. The entire service was beautiful. The highlight for me, however, was when a child soloist sang from the elevated choir loft in the back. It was almost as if it were the voice of an angel! Perhaps you were lucky enough to attend a Moravian Christmas service there in that church, with a child soloist as well.
Speaking of churches, I recall attending a performance of yours in the Washington National Cathedral! What an edifice! What a fine show you broadcast from there! But what I remember most was a comment from a woman in the audience at the audience participation segment afterwards. "For me, when I listen to your shows, I feel as if I'm attending "The Church of the Prairie Home., " she said. There, in that august building, and ever afterwards, I've felt again and again that listening to APHC is very much akin to attending church!
You may make jokes sometimes about your Brethren childhood. During our childhoods, U.S. Church Membership was fairly high. [Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Timehttps:[//news.gallup.com › poll › church-membership-falls-...Mar 29, 2021 — U.S. church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured it in 1937 and remained near 70% for the next six decades]. For those of us in your audience who have graying hair, or perhaps less hair then we had back then, it seems that nearly 3/4 of us had some experience with organized religion. Going with you to Lake Woebegon on the weekends included hearing a parable or two, on a weekly basis! There was a certain source of extra comfort, for many of us, I think, in hearing about Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility on the one hand and Pastor Ingqvist's Lutheran Church on another. The church suppers with Minnesota hot dishes (we called them casseroles) - my goodness! Every time they came up, I could see myself in the upper room in back of our Methodist Church, as clearly as if I were still wearing pig tails and trying to get an extra slice of pie! Your shows were so good at evoking shared memories! Your show has truly been an American Treasure for the multitudes! Thanks without end!
Thanks for the recollection. I didn't hear the child sing and it strikes me as an enormous responsibility to put on a child but I assume Moravians know what they're doing. One of the weaknesses of public radio is its avoidance of religion except as churches engage in political action. Public radio these days strikes me as stultified, calcified, and lacking curiosity about most aspects of human existence. The liberal bent is forgivable, the lack of curiosity is not.
Amen, Amen about "the sense of Public Radio being calcified." Part of the problem, though, I think, is that there are people who seem to think that anyone in a "Public" position is a sitting duck for #MeToo and other denigrating attackers. If I recall, back in the flurry of accusations, Steve Inskeep, of WGBH's Morning Edition, was one of the targets. He came to visit a campus nearby to give a talk. To see and hear him in person, it would make anybody with a brain in their heads wonder what all the fuss was about? It was all a storm in a teacup! If you ask me, those in charge were just super-sensitive, and they lacked the guts to stand up for the program hosts being vilified!
It seems to have settled down a bit now, Thank Goodness! There are really people out there who do take advantage of others. But those who go the "J'accuse" route, it seems to me, might sometimes be more interested in seeing their names in print, than having any legitimate reason to cast aspersions on someone else's good name!
I'm glad to see that the #MeToo fad seems to have settled down a bit. At the same time, it's annoying to realize that some of those who actually do have questionable attitudes, especially one former "Chief of State", seem to be able to shrug complaints off and get off Scot Free! Public Radio certainly could have had more curiosity about that aspect of personality in such a significant political figure, to my way of thinking!
OOPS! Boy did I make a mistake! Please forgive me, Steve Inskeep, for casting aspersions on your good name! The photo posted on the WGBH homepage looked a little like the man whom I heard speaking at Syracuse University.
When I wrote that comment, I was having trouble putting a name on the speaker in my memory. I finally got a concrete "hint" from NPR that set me straight. The WBUR-Boston show was "On Point" and the host was Tom Ashbrook. Wikipedia has his biography, including the "incidents" in question.
After reading Wikipedia's more comprehensive analysis of Tom's situation, it seems as if #MeToo was only part of Tom's predicament. I get the impression that he felt a lot of pressure concerning the show, and passed that sense of urgency on to his coworkers.
It seems to me that this is the sort of thing that is "Hidden Behind the Scenes" and "Swept Under the Rug", probably, not only in shows like On Point, but most media productions that have to deliver new content on a grueling weekly schedule!
In my working days, our "Employees' Club" arranged regular visits to Hollywood sets as "audiences by the busload." Some producers on the set were nightmares that I'd never want to work with. On the other hand, there were also easy-going producers who did their best to make their fellow stars feel comfortable on the set. For example, I was really impressed as we watched Burt Lancaster putting together a pilot for a proposed new series. Perhaps he never lost his temper on set, even as the series evolved and the "Higher-Ups" began interfering with his vision, trying to "tweak" things in response to Neilsen ratings and such.
Those of us who look on from the sidelines probably don't know one tenth of all the aspects of putting on shows, week after week after week! I remember hearing APHC on the radio at the Rhubarb Festival in Lanesboro MN in 2007. It was an open air production, and, as I recall, a storm came up and "rained on the parade!" I bet there are other unexpected events that have challenged our Host's "Cool" from time to time!
Dear Host! Are there any unexpected incidents you'd be willing to share with us in retrospect? Any child's pet goat that ran across the stage? I bet some of those anecdotes made the crew have a good laugh at after-production parties!
I wonder, Illustrious Host, if your voting for a child to perform at Christmas services comes in part from a memory of your performance one year at Christmas time in Bethlehem, PA? You gave a fine performance there at Lehigh (?) University early in Christmas week. Afterward, I decided to hang around and attend a nighttime Christmas service at the Central Moravian Church. The entire service was beautiful. The highlight for me, however, was when a child soloist sang from the elevated choir loft in the back. It was almost as if it were the voice of an angel! Perhaps you were lucky enough to attend a Moravian Christmas service there in that church, with a child soloist as well.
Speaking of churches, I recall attending a performance of yours in the Washington National Cathedral! What an edifice! What a fine show you broadcast from there! But what I remember most was a comment from a woman in the audience at the audience participation segment afterwards. "For me, when I listen to your shows, I feel as if I'm attending "The Church of the Prairie Home., " she said. There, in that august building, and ever afterwards, I've felt again and again that listening to APHC is very much akin to attending church!
You may make jokes sometimes about your Brethren childhood. During our childhoods, U.S. Church Membership was fairly high. [Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Timehttps:[//news.gallup.com › poll › church-membership-falls-...Mar 29, 2021 — U.S. church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured it in 1937 and remained near 70% for the next six decades]. For those of us in your audience who have graying hair, or perhaps less hair then we had back then, it seems that nearly 3/4 of us had some experience with organized religion. Going with you to Lake Woebegon on the weekends included hearing a parable or two, on a weekly basis! There was a certain source of extra comfort, for many of us, I think, in hearing about Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility on the one hand and Pastor Ingqvist's Lutheran Church on another. The church suppers with Minnesota hot dishes (we called them casseroles) - my goodness! Every time they came up, I could see myself in the upper room in back of our Methodist Church, as clearly as if I were still wearing pig tails and trying to get an extra slice of pie! Your shows were so good at evoking shared memories! Your show has truly been an American Treasure for the multitudes! Thanks without end!
Thanks for the recollection. I didn't hear the child sing and it strikes me as an enormous responsibility to put on a child but I assume Moravians know what they're doing. One of the weaknesses of public radio is its avoidance of religion except as churches engage in political action. Public radio these days strikes me as stultified, calcified, and lacking curiosity about most aspects of human existence. The liberal bent is forgivable, the lack of curiosity is not.
Amen, Amen about "the sense of Public Radio being calcified." Part of the problem, though, I think, is that there are people who seem to think that anyone in a "Public" position is a sitting duck for #MeToo and other denigrating attackers. If I recall, back in the flurry of accusations, Steve Inskeep, of WGBH's Morning Edition, was one of the targets. He came to visit a campus nearby to give a talk. To see and hear him in person, it would make anybody with a brain in their heads wonder what all the fuss was about? It was all a storm in a teacup! If you ask me, those in charge were just super-sensitive, and they lacked the guts to stand up for the program hosts being vilified!
It seems to have settled down a bit now, Thank Goodness! There are really people out there who do take advantage of others. But those who go the "J'accuse" route, it seems to me, might sometimes be more interested in seeing their names in print, than having any legitimate reason to cast aspersions on someone else's good name!
I'm glad to see that the #MeToo fad seems to have settled down a bit. At the same time, it's annoying to realize that some of those who actually do have questionable attitudes, especially one former "Chief of State", seem to be able to shrug complaints off and get off Scot Free! Public Radio certainly could have had more curiosity about that aspect of personality in such a significant political figure, to my way of thinking!
OOPS! Boy did I make a mistake! Please forgive me, Steve Inskeep, for casting aspersions on your good name! The photo posted on the WGBH homepage looked a little like the man whom I heard speaking at Syracuse University.
When I wrote that comment, I was having trouble putting a name on the speaker in my memory. I finally got a concrete "hint" from NPR that set me straight. The WBUR-Boston show was "On Point" and the host was Tom Ashbrook. Wikipedia has his biography, including the "incidents" in question.
After reading Wikipedia's more comprehensive analysis of Tom's situation, it seems as if #MeToo was only part of Tom's predicament. I get the impression that he felt a lot of pressure concerning the show, and passed that sense of urgency on to his coworkers.
It seems to me that this is the sort of thing that is "Hidden Behind the Scenes" and "Swept Under the Rug", probably, not only in shows like On Point, but most media productions that have to deliver new content on a grueling weekly schedule!
In my working days, our "Employees' Club" arranged regular visits to Hollywood sets as "audiences by the busload." Some producers on the set were nightmares that I'd never want to work with. On the other hand, there were also easy-going producers who did their best to make their fellow stars feel comfortable on the set. For example, I was really impressed as we watched Burt Lancaster putting together a pilot for a proposed new series. Perhaps he never lost his temper on set, even as the series evolved and the "Higher-Ups" began interfering with his vision, trying to "tweak" things in response to Neilsen ratings and such.
Those of us who look on from the sidelines probably don't know one tenth of all the aspects of putting on shows, week after week after week! I remember hearing APHC on the radio at the Rhubarb Festival in Lanesboro MN in 2007. It was an open air production, and, as I recall, a storm came up and "rained on the parade!" I bet there are other unexpected events that have challenged our Host's "Cool" from time to time!
Dear Host! Are there any unexpected incidents you'd be willing to share with us in retrospect? Any child's pet goat that ran across the stage? I bet some of those anecdotes made the crew have a good laugh at after-production parties!