Garrison Keillor

If somebody asks me, how will you remember March of 2010, the answer would be Garrison Keillor and his radio show Prairie home companion.

Off the few readers of this blog, a few know that i maintain another blog - http://mister-naman-ki-duniya.blogspot.com/. But i have not been regular at it and infact the last post was done like 6 months ago. But i had an idea in mind, that blog was supposed to be a painting of a place, of a man and of a time. That painting, which was so clear in my head, so vivid in mind but whenever i have tried to put it into words, it was not what i had imagined and thus i never posted it. There are about 15 draft strories that i had tried to write but never managed to . Why am i writing about that here?

Because i have found the guy who understood that concept and he had a similar idea and he has been able to execute on it for the past 25 yrs. His name is Garrison Keillor and his radio show is called Prairie home companion. Lets start with links -
Webpage - http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/
wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrison_Keillor
Amazon page - http://www.amazon.com/Garrison-Keillor/e/B000APVNWY/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1


I was introduced to the show prairie home companion on NPR at KQED fm Sunday 11am to 1 am by chance while sitting in my car. I loved it. The first that i heard was a skit on Guy Noir and then some odd bits. Coincidentally, i was also in the car the next week and it was an episode about jokes. I was hooked after this one. Researched this show, guy and then wen to my local library and get bunch of audio books. I had no idea what is Prairie home companion by this time, i had no idea who were Lutherans and what this whole fassad was. But after listening to the audio cd - Stories from Lake Wolbegon, i was a big big fan. One must check him out.

His stories are about a small town called Lake Wolbegon and people who live there are called Lutherans - where the women are strong, men good looking and children above average. And his depiction is exactly how i would have liked to depict Ugar, Lutheranism is what Naman represents in my world but my stories, my exaggerations are nothing when compared to him. He understands this genre, he knows how people think and everything about it and what makes it special is that he can make a radio show out of it and his voice can communicate all those emotions. Yes, you read it right, it is a radio show. In the age of television and internet, there is one guy who believes in the power of radio talk shows and has a cult following.

I am onto the second disc collection now. I have ordered his book Good poems from amazon, i have ordered the 25th anniversary collection and i have ordered joke books.

His description of Lake wolbegon and its people is about how life was 30 yrs ago, calm and slow, people knowing each other, a proper small town suburb culture, family values, traditions, religion, a hate for cities :) and an unwillingness to change. The story comes from the day to day lives, common happenings, idiosyncrasies of people, school children pets, exaggerations of daily tasks, how we as humans think. It reminds me so much of growing up in small towns, reminds me of India that used to exist but now is lost. Americans also have a similar feeling and this man is able to paint that picture, that time and he does so beautifully ke kya batoon aapko :)