Open letter to Garrison Keillor - 30 years!
Garrison -
I have been your devoted follower for more than 20 of your 30 years on the radio. Prairie Home Companion is my chore companion every weekend. I put on my headset, charge out to the garden and pull weeds to your stories. I wash the kitchen floor to Pat Donahue (or just dance around the kitchen). I hoot raucously and inappropriately to the rhubarb pie skit (my favorite) as I wheel my cart down the supermarket aisle.
It was therefore something of a shock to see you & Co. on TV last night. It was like looking at myself in the mirror after a couple of years without one. We have gotten older. We no longer look like my mental image of us.
I also found myself wanting to shut the doors of my TV cabinet so I could continue to hang out with my imaginary friends, Guy Noir, Barb and Jim, Lefty and Dusty, Carson Wyler and his creepy brother Larry, all of whom are ever so much more vivid in my mind than they could be on TV.
On the positive side, when you sat back on your stool to weave perhaps your thousandth Lake Wobegon tale, I witnessed how it is you create these vivid worlds for us. As you got into the story you closed your eyes and it was obvious that behind your eyelids, the entire scenario was laying itself out - and all you had to do was report the details of what you were seeing. Amazing to watch and hear.
Thank you for so much pleasure, so much silliness, so much great music, so much exultation of the common man/woman. My one regret: that you laid off the Republican bashing.
Stay well. The world needs you now more than ever.
I have been your devoted follower for more than 20 of your 30 years on the radio. Prairie Home Companion is my chore companion every weekend. I put on my headset, charge out to the garden and pull weeds to your stories. I wash the kitchen floor to Pat Donahue (or just dance around the kitchen). I hoot raucously and inappropriately to the rhubarb pie skit (my favorite) as I wheel my cart down the supermarket aisle.
It was therefore something of a shock to see you & Co. on TV last night. It was like looking at myself in the mirror after a couple of years without one. We have gotten older. We no longer look like my mental image of us.
I also found myself wanting to shut the doors of my TV cabinet so I could continue to hang out with my imaginary friends, Guy Noir, Barb and Jim, Lefty and Dusty, Carson Wyler and his creepy brother Larry, all of whom are ever so much more vivid in my mind than they could be on TV.
On the positive side, when you sat back on your stool to weave perhaps your thousandth Lake Wobegon tale, I witnessed how it is you create these vivid worlds for us. As you got into the story you closed your eyes and it was obvious that behind your eyelids, the entire scenario was laying itself out - and all you had to do was report the details of what you were seeing. Amazing to watch and hear.
Thank you for so much pleasure, so much silliness, so much great music, so much exultation of the common man/woman. My one regret: that you laid off the Republican bashing.
Stay well. The world needs you now more than ever.
posted by JoieDe at 9:29 AM
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