Post to the Host (corrected)

Comments from the week of 10.16.22

Hey, Mr. Keillor.

I was in your audience last night and was struck by how easily you can sing harmony with others. Do you read sheet music, or do you just have a good ear for doing that? How long do you rehearse with everyone to be able to sound that good?

Elisabeth

I don’t read music and I don’t have the patience to rehearse much so I just find a part a third below the woman’s part and stick with that. The real secret is to find a lead singer whose twice as good as I am, which makes me sound better, I think. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

I am glad to know that you choose to be cheerful, but nobody is perfect. What things make you grouchy or angry?

Randall Peters

People in politics who say things they know perfectly well are not true but insist on them. We’ve come to accept a stunning lack of integrity as ordinary business, and it is bewildering. GK

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Sir: I was very sorry to hear that you will not be streaming your Washington, D.C., event, seeing how my Lear is in the shop — and who wants to fly commercial with all the commoners? 

Couldn’t you at least consider streaming the audio — even after the fact, if the live aspect is the hitch? Your stage show is after all supposed to be a revival of a radio show, is it not?

Thanks for your kind consideration,

Cory

It was a terrific show, October 21. A poet, an opera soprano, piano four-hands, a string quartet, it had everything. The soprano Ellie Dehn and Heather Masse and I sang the Grateful Dead’s “Attics of My Life” with the string quartet and Rich at the piano. It was amazing. Two hours, forty-five. Great audience. As for streaming, it was the venue’s choice, not ours, and they nixed it. So it goes. On we go to Town Hall for Thanksgiving weekend. GK

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Please consider this a chaste but sincere love note to GK’s copy editor, whose perspective on style vs. precision warmed my heart. My wife tends to nudge me on my overuse of semicolons, which I blame on Joseph Addison & Charles Dickens, but in any case, there’s a certain way to use comma splices that has to be acceptable in polite society.

And I hope all of you have as glorious an autumn morning as we are here in central Ohio.

Pax,
Jeff Gill

I was astonished that my copy editor Ms. Beck stood up for me in regard to punctuation. She is a stickler. She does not socialize with people who misuse “lay” and “lie.” I find that I’ve forgotten most of what I ever knew about grammar. I grew up in a home with well-spoken parents so I learned by ear and then I absorbed more by reading educated writers, but I never took a course in grammar. Alas, alas. But we get along on what we have. It was a fine autumn in Minnesota as well. I like to lie myself under a tree and lay there for hours. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I’m a twenty-six-year-old writer and I’m curious about the most embryonic moments of A Prairie Home Companion and Lake Wobegon back in 1974. I’m eager to learn more about how you began unpacking the concept. What came first? It wasn’t a totally conscious creation if I recall correctly, and it was something that revealed itself to you over time, but certainly, the machinations were developing subconsciously for years prior. An influence had to have come from Tarkington and Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, as well as your own life experiences growing up in Minnesota. Do you remember the first things that you wrote about Lake Wobegon? Do you recall the primal ideas? Do those initial writings exist somewhere?

Best,
Gardiner Hallowell

I read a little Tarkington, no Faulkner, but I had an Uncle Lew who told long stories about his grandfather who migrated west in the 1850s with a wife and eight children, and those stories about ancestors stuck with me. Stories without a moral. I got into radio because I had nothing else to do and it was easy work. I saw the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville in 1973 and that planted the idea of a live variety show. That summer I wrote a story about Lake Wobegon and lost it in the men’s room of the Portland, OR, train station, and the misery of that fixed the town in my mind. I couldn’t recall the story, only that I thought it was good, so I kept writing, hoping to recover it. The weekly show launched in July1974, and the weekly deadline was the stimulus. I had to learn how to be a performer, not just an emcee, and that struggle continues. At 80, I feel I’m hitting my stride. I have a Lake Wobegon novel in the works and want it to be good. All writing is rewriting, and so I’ll get back to work. Good luck with your calling. GK

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Garrison,

I was rather shocked to read your response to the writer who asked if you are still a progressive Democrat. You said you voted for a Republican! I’m curious to know who that was if you’re willing to share. Republicans of today seem to go against everything I thought you believed. I’m disappointed and feel you need to explain your disloyalty to the basic tenets of democracy you’ve supported most of your life. Maybe it’s dementia.

Jane M.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

I voted for one Republican because I disliked her opponent but I know perfectly well that the Democrat will win 2-1 so my vote was sort of meaningless. I’m assuming your line about “disloyalty to the basic tenets of democracy” is a failed joke. And “most of my life”? I don’t recall tenets being in my awareness much at all. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

I got to see The Music Man on Broadway several weeks ago and thought it was fabulous. I seem to remember that this is (was?) your favorite musical. Is that true? And living in New York, do you attend many Broadway shows?

Barbara

I haven’t been to see this production but I did love the musical and there was a time when I could do “Ya Got Trouble” all the way through. People did get tired of hearing it though. I saw a great production of Fiddler on the Roof done entirely in Yiddish. But we’ve been cautious about theater in this pandemic era. And I hate going anywhere near Times Square. GK

EDITOR’S NOTE: We will be in Time Square at The Town Hall on Saturday, November 26th for our fourth “A Prairie Home Companion American Revival” performance with Christine DiGiallonardo, Heather Masse, Ross Lekites, Rich Dworsky, Rob Fisher and the Coffee Club Orchestra, Sue Scott, Tim Russell and Fred Newman. If you would like on of the few tickets that remain, CLICK HERE.

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Time for a joke:
A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender says, “I’m so glad you’re here. We’ve been talking about the deep things of life. So, when do you think life begins? The priest answers, “We say it begins at conception.” The minister says, “We think life begins at the moment of birth.” The rabbi replies, “For us, life begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies.”

Best wishes!

Richard W. Hingst

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Dear Garrison Keillor, 
Would you share with us readers the video where you lead hymns for 20 to 30 minutes with some of the audience at the Ryman Auditorium?

I am a hymn singer and really liked that segment.

Nick Royal