Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The author disembarks almost Aug 12, 2023

Show notes

I am not disheartened by insignificance. I am content to be a bug. Insectitude is no problem at all. I grew up with stories in which God is seen as a person, or three persons, and He speaks to His people directly, but when I look at light that is billions of years old coming from an infinite number of galaxies, it shocks the imagination into gratitude for existence itself, nothing more, nothing less. It also makes my political registration less than interesting.I feel this in church on Sunday morning. Feel myself disappear, my opinions, likes, dislikes, and believe myself loved by the Creator, and in that moment I am joined to others surrounding me, which was the feeling down South recently when we sang, “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds Thy hands have made,” and we were briefly united, all of us equally. I was onstage but still a firefly, singing bass.Garrison KeillorJason Keillor, EngineerJason Keillor, Original Music
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

I missed out on the big storm regretfully Aug 05, 2023

Show notes

In Florida, people live in dormitories for the elderly, watching golf on TV, which turns your mind to lime gelatin. In their working lives, they practiced law, healed the sick, managed money, and now they doze in a perpetual twilight and seem to prefer this life to their former working life, which calls into question the very meaning of our free-enterprise culture. I mean, if Methodists preferred to be mollusks, then why bother going to Bible Study?Senator Scott of Florida had a good point when he suggested cutting back on Social Security and Medicare. Why should our tax dollars go to subsidize inertia?Garrison KeillorJason Keillor, EngineerJason Keillor, Original Music
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

There's money in dystopia but so what? Jul 29, 2023

Show notes

One advantage for us Christians of living in New York is that we’re a small minority just like in early A.D. living among Romans and Turks so we can’t lord it over people. We walk quietly. If schools avoid using the word “Christmas,” we understand. Children walk past, cursing like truckers. We ignore it. In places where Christians form a powerful majority, they can bully and persecute with great enthusiasm, even though our Savior instructed us in kindness and charity.I speak as an old man. Righteous intensity fades with age. We spend too much time wringing our hands over evil. I no longer read stories about What’s-His-Name. There’s nothing more to be learned about narcissism. Fascism is not that fascinating.Garrison KeillorJason Keillor, EngineerJason Keillor, Original Music
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

I am giving up anger, so should you Jul 22, 2023

Show notes

If you’re considering larceny, my dear reader, stop and think this through. Cellphone towers can track your whereabouts and the country is full of surveillance cameras. Twenty-eight grand is poor compensation for three years in prison. You can do much better by setting yourself up as an advocate for the math challenged and bringing a lawsuit against Apple and Microsoft for writing instruction manuals that make you feel unwelcome and marginalized. They are practicing normaphobia and the letttter tt keeps repeattting and it’s causing you menttal disttress and you can’tt fix ittt. Ask for a million and hope for tttttttwo hundred grand.Garrison KeillorJason Keillor, EngineerJason Keillor, Original Music
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

Thou shalt not be dumber than dirt Jul 15, 2023

Show notes

I take Scripture seriously and so I eat beef as it tells us we can in Leviticus, and I also eat salads but not Caesar salads because he was a pagan emperor, but I admit to giving in to wrath, which goes against Scripture. I do it again and again. Like you, I am a bundle of contradictions.Like many of my fellow Episcopalians, I maintain a progressive enlightened exterior while guarding my simple peasant biases such as my loathing of the use of fancy words like “ubiquitous” in simple conversation, it makes me want to give them a knuckle sandwich if it weren’t for the fact that I’m an author and must protect my hands. Or people who kill conversation by delivering extensive synopses of an article about political polarization that they’ve read recently — POW, right in the kisser.Garrison KeillorJason Keillor, EngineerJason Keillor, Original Music
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

The old man's lecture about manners Jul 08, 2023

Show notes

Six a.m. at the MSP airport, a February morning, long lines of sleepy travelers snaking their way toward Security, and I approach the scanner and a TSA lady sees that I haven’t removed my shoes and says, “You’re not over 75, are you?” and I say, “Darling, you’ve made an old man very happy,” and she smiles and says, “My pleasure.” I go through the scanner and a TSA guy pats down my back and underarms and I say, “Are we having fun yet?” and he says, “It’s a laugh a minute.” Two simple exchanges, two moments of fellowship.Garrison Keillor Jason Keillor, Engineer Jason Keillor, Original Music
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

Music as a means of detecting a Heart Jul 01, 2023

Show notes

It’s not often a person gets to experience euphoria. For years I imagined alcohol could do the job if I could just find the right brand but eventually I gave up on that. Sometimes in church I’ve felt it. When I was 11 I got to go to the top of the Empire State Building. I sang the Dead’s “Attics of My Life” once with two women and got a little high from it. And one night before the Philharmonic I experienced it at the Bowery Ballroom on Delancey Street listening to Aoife O’Donovan and Hawktail and the phenom fiddler Brittany Haas and it made the big crowd go wild to see artists overcome gravity and simply float.Aoife and Messiaen, two transcendent tours on successive nights: it makes living in Manhattan worth the trouble and expense. You can eat expensive mediocre food in loud restaurants, almost get run over by e-scooters, deal with surly salesclerks, cabs stuck in dense traffic, extortionate rents, impenetrable bureaucracy, but the museums and trains and tulips in spring and the occasional transcendental experiences make up for it. Two nights of mind-blown beauty make me want to start my career all over again.Garrison Keillor Jason Keillor, Engineer Jason Keillor, Original Music
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

A pound and a half? Really? Why? Jun 24, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to Garrison Keillor’s Podcast. We plan to release one podcast per week (sometimes more). Feel free to comment and share with friends.“I’m not opposed to legalization; I think it’s crazy to lock people up for wanting to be stupid, and if your doctor prescribes marijuana, goody-gumdrops for you, but when I smell marijuana smoke, I get away from it as quickly as possible before some pothead on a skateboard and wearing headphones comes crashing into me. Getting high lowers alertness.Go back and read Beat poetry written in dim smoke-filled rooms and most of it is less interesting than the average computer manual.”Garrison Keillor Jason Keillor, Engineer Jason Keillor, Original Music
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

That cold day I was naked in Utah Jun 21, 2023

Show notes

We are going to produce a weekly Garrison Keillor’s Podcast soon, kicking off in short order. At the start, the majority of these will be audio recordings of columns previously published in the newsletter, but we are giving Garrison the freedom to do as he pleases. We are working out a few glitches, so consider this a TEST version.“Everyone has their story and mine is that fall. I was walking into a recording studio in Midtown and didn’t see a step and stumbled and crashed. My own fault. Banged up the left knee but a man doesn’t write with his knee and the pain of putting weight on it only highlights the great good luck of my life starting with this long marriage to my friend and lover who, thank God, is back in Minnesota, rehearsing for an opera, and not here worrying about an old man with a bad limp.Plus which, I didn’t bang my head so I can still recite Shakespeare’s sonnet about getting old, ending with the lines, “This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong: to love that well which thou must leave ere long.”
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

The News from April 18, 1981 Apr 09, 2023

Show notes

04.18.81Holy Week in Lake Wobegon was especially quiet as people pondered their shortcomings. Most everyone in Lake Wobegon believes in the existence of sin. In Lake Wobegon, many things are called Sin. And in the larger cities, the same things are called Problems. Tomorrow is Easter as well as first Communion for some young ones. These children have been asking many questions about heaven — many questions we all have. Both Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility and First Lutheran churches will be packed. The services almost bring you to a place of immortality. But just like that, it's over and you are back outside. It is so interesting how the mystical feeling of it all dissipates and we go back in our daily lives.
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

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Garrison Keillor’s Podcast

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Garrison Keillor’s Podcast

Related Podcasts

1

2

3

4

5

6