Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Prairie Home Productions
  • 4.8 (33)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED DAILY
Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Funny, poignant, sentimental, and sometimes controversial thoughts of the day. garrisonkeillor.substack.com

  1. A love note to Texas, Sweetheart

    4 DAYS AGO

    A love note to Texas, Sweetheart

    I loved my five days there. I encountered keen politeness. The truck stop guy who said, “I appreciate your business” when I paid for my two Butterfingers. The hotel clerk. I walked a long hall to my room and three cleaning ladies looked up and said, “Good morning.” When I left Austin on Monday, a man walked up to me in the airport and said quietly, “I want to thank you for all the pleasure you’ve given people over the years.”Nobody ever said that to me before in just that graceful way. I was touched. At my age, you should’ve given some pleasure to people and he was thanking me for it, not as a fan but on behalf of people in general. Now I wish I had thrown my arms around him. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min
  2. Losing my mind in New York and then finding it

    16 NOV

    Losing my mind in New York and then finding it

    And then around midnight a woman walked in, a civilian, no blue on her except her eyes. She was a Unitarian minister, making rounds, saw my name and remembered a column I wrote back in the Bush era saying what a terrible mistake the Iraq War was. My one good protest column and she remembered it all these years later. I told her I’m Episcopalian and that I’ve read Emerson and decided not to come forward. “We never give up hope,” she said. “This building, the George F. Baker Pavilion — he went to my church, so you’re one of us,” She was very funny. She said, “We think of Episcopalians as people who write thank-you notes after orgies.”“That’s high church; I’m low church.” This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min
  3. The bag may not inflate but oxygen is flowing

    9 NOV

    The bag may not inflate but oxygen is flowing

    I’m a historic guy. They could put me in a museum. I went to college when tuition was $71/quarter so we didn’t have to ask our parents for money so we got to go into the arts. There were no laptops, no iPhones, no Airplane Mode. I regaled the Lovelanders with stories about the Fifties, back when Minnesota winters were ferocious. I lived through the bitter winter of 1948 when the temp got down to minus 70 and many of us Minnesotans became comatose, our metabolism stopped, there was no neurological response, and a month later I awoke in a narrow wooden box wearing makeup, which I’d never worn before. It was interesting. I should’ve dressed more warmly but as someone said, “Good judgment comes from experience and much experience comes from bad judgment.” And thanks to my mistake I have experienced the afterlife and I told them about it in Loveland. Someday I’ll come to your town and tell you. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min
  4. A round table in St. Paul

    2 NOV

    A round table in St. Paul

    It’s an amazing feat, turning the party of rectitude and personal liberty into a unified body of citizens totally devoted to one man, obedient to his self-absorption. He is down on the country, has never praised his wife or intentionally said anything funny, has never hugged a small child in public. But it was so good of these young people to give their old great-uncle a big burst of faith in America’s future. I can’t wait to see them again. If we lowered the voting age to 12 and required voters over 60 to pass a history exam, I believe it’d be a big step forward. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min
  5. Don't name a library after me, please, I'm still writing

    30 OCT

    Don't name a library after me, please, I'm still writing

    George Latimer, the chatty New York lawyer who moved to St. Paul in the 1960s and went on to rejuvenate and transform the capital city in 13-1/2 years as its charismatic and visionary mayor. Latimer died on Aug. 18 at 89. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min
  6. Open the doors, let the young mingle among the treasures

    26 OCT

    Open the doors, let the young mingle among the treasures

    Some of these kids at the Met will wind up in law school and get a serious education in civil procedure and come away with due respect for our system of justice: trial by a jury of one’s peers, the rules of evidence, witnesses testifying under oath aware of the penalty for perjury. The lawyers defending the Famous Man were so taught and they stand silently by his side as he bellows his contempt to the TV cameras……Teen Night at the Met was a holiday from all that. The young people there wouldn’t have elected the Scowler to be a municipal sewage inspector. There are dark days ahead but eventually the young and curious and lighthearted are going to inherit the country and make it great and an artist will make a sculpture of Trump naked with a sword, his bare butt and belly hanging out, and that will be that. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min
  7. How I survived the solar flares

    19 OCT

    How I survived the solar flares

    We live in an Age of Disgruntlement and when I dine with grumpy people, I listen to their gripes and when they stop to take a breath I talk about the great progress made in my lifetime, which of course irks them no end. For one thing, the cash card. We used to go into the bank and hand a check for cash to Mildred the teller with her pert hairstyle and starched blouse, her specs hanging on a chain around her neck, and she’d wrinkle her mouth and peruse the check, questioning the wisdom of handing you money, and eventually she’d count out your thirty dollars and say, “Now don’t go spending it all in one place.” And now there are ATMs everywhere you look and you slide in the card and get $300, no look of disapproval. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min
  8. The beautiful winding road

    12 OCT

    The beautiful winding road

    This is one of the happiest summers of my very long life. My wife installed WhatsApp on my phone and it dings and I pick up and she talks to me from the wine country of Portugal where she’s hiking with her brother and his wife, on their way to a baptism and pig roast. Sometimes my daughter comes on and says, “Make me laugh,” so I tell her about the woman at Yellowstone Park who was chased by a bear and the park rangers arrested her for running with a bear behind. She laughs.I’m an old man, I have no ambition whatsoever but I love my work. I do 90 minutes of stand-up, I go back to the hotel and work on my novel, and in the morning I repeat it. The audience laughs a lot and then I have hours of pure silence occasionally interrupted by the voice of the woman I love lying in her hotel room in a heat wave in Portugal and recounting her days’ adventures. Or my little girl needing a joke. So a woman was hit by a car and lay in the street bleeding and someone yelled, “Call a priest!” The woman said, “No, I’m Unitarian.” Someone yelled, “Then call a math teacher.” This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min
See All (115)

Hosts & Guests

4.8
out of 5
33 Ratings

About

Funny, poignant, sentimental, and sometimes controversial thoughts of the day. garrisonkeillor.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Prairie Home Productions
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2024
  • Episodes
    115
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Prairie Home Productions
  • Show Website
    Garrison Keillor's Podcast

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