A Word to the Wise (this week's column)

A lesson for the wise as winter approaches

Here in the northern latitudes, it appears we’ve come to the end of the golden October days and soon gray November will descend and then some snow flurries followed by an arctic air mass. The next morning you awaken to find the driveway drifted in, schools are closed, a Snow Emergency is declared, but your inner Dad says, “You think you’re staying home from work, you got another think coming” and you climb in your car and head for Amalgamated Federated. Abandoned cars in the ditches of the Interstate, which is glare ice, but you make it downtown and find a parking spot and ignore the “No Parking” sign — a man makes his own rules in a blizzard — and you arrive at Amalgamated and go to your tiny cubicle on the sixth floor.

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Do you subscribe to our Substack page? It’s free and delivers an extra GK column weekly plus “Post to the Host.” If you opt in to the paid Subscription page, The Back Room, you will unlock a full archive of published goodies from the past year. Three thousand-plus subscribers have been treated to a weekly monologue from the early years (the 1980s), poems and lyrics from the archive, articles, photos, and show videos. We have recently uncovered a few recordings from our “Rhubarb” and “Night Out” shows, “Literary Friendships,” and “Comedy College.” Over the next few months, we will be posting these to The Back Room as well. The subscription dollars help pay for the production of the newsletters and the support of the archive.

Classic A Prairie Home Companion

This week on the classic A Prairie Home Companion program, we welcome Canadian singer-songwriters The Wailin’ Jennys, the vocal ensemble Mila, and the mad musical talents of Bill Hinkley & Judy Larson, Prudence Johnson, and John Niemann. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Tom Keith), and the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band.
Highlights include Garrison’s original tune “Winter is Long” and “In St. Paul,” some “Nashville Pickin’” with the Guy’s All Star Shoe Band, “Blues for Home Sweet Home” by Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson, the Mila Vocal Ensemble’s take on “OJ, Ninochka,” and “Beautiful Dawn” from the Wailin’ Jennys, plus The Lives of the Cowboys, a Bush script, talk about St. Paul, and the latest News from Lake Wobegon.
Every Saturday, a classic broadcast from the archives is featured on our Facebook fan page and on the website for your listening pleasure. The link to the show is posted at 5 p.m. CT but can be accessed anytime using the link below.

Listen to this week’s show >>>
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Browse the PHC archive >>>

Featured on this A Prairie Home Companion show:
Garrison Keillor first heard Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson playing in the lobby of a south Minneapolis theater in 1972. The couple’s association with A Prairie Home Companion dated back to July 6, 1974, the first show. Bill played numerous instruments and his friends swore there isn’t a song — any style, any period — he didn’t know. Judy’s vocals and guitar accompaniment are truly irresistible. Together they dabbled in blues, old-time, vintage jazz, Nordic folk, Latin and Irish music, and a jug band tune every now and then. In 1999 Bill was inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, and in 2000 he and Judy received a lifetime achievement award from the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Association.

Listen to “Let’s Have a Party” >>>

When three solo performers with powerful voices joined forces for a one-time gig in 2002, everything changed. The collaboration was a huge success, surprising everyone including themselves. Dubbed The Wailin’ Jennys, the three went on tour and within a few weeks the word was out: people were calling them “a bona fide Canadian sensation.” The group’s members are soprano Ruth Moody, mezzo Nicky Mehta, and alto Annabelle Chvostek.

Listen to “Firecracker” >>>

The Twin Cities-based Mila Vocal Ensemble embraces the traditions of more than 30 countries and a dozen distinct vocal styles. While grounded in the harmonic traditions of Eastern Europe, their repertoire also includes music from Central and Western Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The group’s members all hail from unique musical backgrounds and have studied with renowned vocalists from Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia, Spain, and Ukraine. Among them, the singers of Mila speak nearly a dozen languages.

Listen to “Apshelava’s Alilo” >>>

Here are the lyrics to “The Winter Is Long” from this week’s feature show. It’s a song where Garrison has rewritten the lyrics to an old song to create a new one. Enjoy this tune about the upcoming joys of the winter season.
(To the tune of “The Water Is Wide”)
The winter is long, it lasts till April
And sometimes into early May
I know that by late February
I will need to get away.
Hawaii’s nice and Tampa and Tucson
Santa Fe I’m sure I’d enjoy
Now that I’ve seen our last bank statement
I’m thinking southern Illinois.
In Carbondale, we can find us a motel
With a swimming pool and color TV
With a queen-sized bed with Magic Fingers
And a breakfast buffet that is free.
Someday I’ll take you to the South of France
We’ll go to Provence and the valley Loire
But for now it’s the valley of Des Moines
We do what we can and we are who we are.

The Anthem in Washington D.C.

A Year in Lake Wobegon

One might think not a lot happens during a course of a year in a small town, but one would be wrong! This collection gathers 12 “above-average” stories representing all the goings-on in Lake Wobegon during one calendar year. Family get-togethers, holiday celebrations, the predictable, the unexpected — it all happens in “the little town that time forgot and decades could not improve.” Each monologue is culled from episodes of A Prairie Home Companion that aired between 2014 and 2016.
As an added bonus, liner notes contain a poem for each month written by Garrison Keillor. Plus, between monologues you will hear music by Peter Ostroushko.

Get the CD set >>>

Friendship Sonnet Cards - Set of 8

Petrarch to Shakespeare, John Milton to John Berryman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning to
Longfellow to Langston Hughes — poets across centuries have found the sonnet to be a compelling form of poetic expression.
Garrison Keillor has too. Now eight of his uplifting sonnets — echoing aspects of friendship or
kindness — are printed on quality card stock, each poem paired with a handsome photographic
illustration.

Friendships are important so why not send your pals a card!

Four different poems paired with four different photographs. 2 cards of each, 8 envelopes.
Themes: “Walking,” “Summer’s Bounty,” “Quietude,” “Friends — the most valuable acquisition.”
Here is the sonnet featured on the “Quietude” card:
QUIETUDE

In a world of crunching and grinding and humming
And the confusion of people going and coming
TVs, cellphones, Muzak, hysteria
It’s a blessing to locate a peaceful area
And escape the tumult and travail
And leave a message on your voice mail:
“Just me. Nothing of great import to say,
Except that time is slipping away
And so I wanted to say hello
And hope you are well and all your brood
And that you can sometimes let go
And find something like serenity and quietude.
A quiet day: so much happiness depends upon it,
And that is why I sent you this quiet sonnet.

Get the cards >>>