An old man’s Sunday morning annotated

An old man's Sunday morning annotated

“Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet!” said the prophet Isaiah, which we read in church on Sunday, but nobody shouted. We are flatlanders, brought up to be still and behave ourselves and listen to instructions, but if the instruction is to shout out and raise your voice, wait to see if other people do it and then, depending on which ones do, maybe do it yourself but quietly. And we are Episcopalian so what would we shout? A poem by Mary Oliver? A recipe for bouillabaisse?

I would shout, “God help us and do it soon.” I was provoked last week to wonder where I would go if Democrats hand over the White House and the Current Occupant remains for sixteen or twenty years until he’s in his mid-thirties and I thought, “Iceland.” England is an obvious choice but I don’t understand Brits when they talk and Icelanders speak beautiful English. I was in Reykjavik once, driving around, lost, and saw a large white home by the sea and walked up and knocked on the door and it was opened by the president of Iceland. It was his home. He told me how to get back to my hotel. He spoke perfect English, of course. Imagine knocking on the door of a white house and it’s opened by the C.O. The thought is depressing, not to mention his English.

But the Sunday service moved on to the confession of sins and I thought of my unfair bias against pop music of the past thirty years and the replacement of melody and harmony with rapping and tapping and my shameful bias against people with tattoos. This is wrong of me to dismiss my fellow creatures just because, on a crazy impulse years ago, they had enormous orange flames inscribed on their left shoulder. Or the young woman I saw in the grocery last week with green leaves tattooed on her neck. Just because she imagined herself as a trellis is no reason to look down on her. Someday I may be in a vegetative state myself and I hope people are no less kind for that.

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This month: Garrison takes the show on the road

Shake off that winter cabin fever and join Garrison as he takes a number of shows on the road this month!
Next week he'll be visiting Madison and Milwaukee with his one-man show, Garrison Keillor: Stories, Songs, Poetry, Humor. In the closest thing Garrison's ever done to standup, he'll tell stories about his childhood, entertain you with wry observational comedy, and lead the audience in memorized poetry and song. Ticket info below:

The Writer's Almanac

Garrison's daily poetry/history program, The Writer's Almanac, is back with all-new poetry! Follow TWA on Facebook and search your favorite podcast app for "The Writer's Almanac." You can also sign up for the daily email newsletter by scrolling to the very bottom of this email and clicking "update your preferences."
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch––and help spread the word by sharing your favorite episodes with friends!

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40th Anniversary Collection

The most comprehensive collection of songs and sketches from the archives of A Prairie Home Companion. It's a who's who of artists who have graced the stage to perform live on Saturday evenings. From early favorites like The Everly Brothers and Chet Atkins to Los Texmaniacs' performance in 2014, we've chosen more than 87 memorable acts. Also includes one CD of highlights from the weekend-long 40th Anniversary Celebration live from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN.

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A Year in Lake Wobegon (3 CDs)

Thanks to all our subscribers and listeners, we sold through the first pressing of CDs for this newest collection of monologues and we had to reprint! With that achievement comes a lot of inventory, so for one week, we are lowering the price of this great collection of News from Lake Wobegon monologues that aired between 2014 and 2016. Each of the twelve stories was taken from a different month of the year to show you how much can happen in a 'Year in Lake Wobegon.' Musical interludes spruce it up, and the liner notes include poems for each month. Here is the poem for the month of February:
FEBRUARY
It is a strange winter, January mixed in with April,
A cold snap and the next day everything thaws.
And you wonder if the buses run and if the morning paper'll
Come this morning––if we can still trust in natural laws.
We worry about our grandchildren and greenhouse gases
And then we get in the car and venture forth
In blind faith that a bad spell eventually passes,
A faith we were brought up with here in the North.
We are taciturn people and we have known dark nights
When ghosts attacked us and recrimination and remorse.
And we got up, put on a bathrobe, turned on a few lights,
Made tea, and said nothing about it to anyone of course.
And when spring comes, and the crocuses and purple gentian,
I'd like to undress you, though it's nothing I would ever mention.

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