 |
Kid
Saturday, May 8, 2004
Listen
(Greetings... )
I didn't take part in talent shows when I was a teenager because we had no money for lessons. (HEARTS AND FLOWERS PIANO), I grew up in a sod hut on the prairie, the son of Swedish sharecroppers (TR GLOOMY SWEDISH) in North Dakota and I had to harvest wheat (SCYTHE) by hand so that the younger children in our family could learn to play the piano. (CHOPIN PIANO PIECE) The younger children took part in talent contests and won them (SS (GIRL): Somewhere over the Rainbow.) and used the prize money to purchase lovely clothes and jewelry for themselves and also put themselves through finishing school, so they had lots of friends and I had none until I was kidnapped by Catholics. It happened one day when I was looking through the window of school where my brother was playing the trombone (TROMBONE) in a talent contest. And I felt a hand on my shoulder----
TR (IRISH): What are you looking at, me boy? Eh?
GK: It was a nun and a priest.
SS: Here. Take this rosary.
TR (IRISH): Put it to your lips, me boy. And say it fast.
GK: No, no----
TR (IRISH): Now I'm going to puff a little incense on you…….
GK: No, not the incense……..
SS: And kiss the statue-----
GK: No, don't make me do it. (BRIDGE) Well, they made me do it and I ate fish on Fridays, knelt when they said to kneel, learned to genuflect, I said the rosary though it was hard to keep up with them they went so fast. (MURMURING FAST, CLICKING OF BEADS). One day in the confessional, I said: Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, I have lusted after musical talent.
TR (IRISH): You lusted after talent? You filthy animal.
GK: I'm sorry Father.
TR (IRISH): For an act of contrition, I want you to learn to play the bagpipe. (BRIDGE)
GK: So I did. (BLOW, WEAK SOUND). I had to play ten Our Fathers and then I kept lusting for talent and I had to play more. (PIPE) The bagpipe is good for a person. Whenever I have wished that I could be talented and admired by people, I just pick up the pipes and play (PIPES) and pretty soon the urge to make music gradually goes away.
| | | |
Sign up here for our weekly e-pistle about what's happening at A Prairie Home Companion! Heck, while you're there, sign up for the daily e-mail from The Writer's Almanac too
A national holiday in Lake Wobegon is always gaudy and joyful. But what is going on between Clint Bunsen and Miss Liberty?
Everyone is here—Pastor Ingqvist, the Sons of Knute, Sister Arvonne of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility and her ocarina band, the Norwegian bachelor farmers, Dorothy and the Chatterbox Café, Wally in the Sidetrack Tap—as crowds converge on the little town to celebrate American independence, even as the chairman of the event broods on the great question of the day: Shall we struggle on valiantly here or shall we burst the bonds and find beautiful life in the golden west?
|
Scripts and bits from A Prairie Home Companion celebrate the secret society of men and women who possess excellent spelling and punctuation skills. (You know who you are.)
Selections include "The Six-Minute Hamlet," a tribute to Emily Dickinson, a Guy Noir adventure that exposes an MFA scam, a riveting "Professional Organization of English Majors" drama, and guests Billy Collins, Robert Bly, Roy Blount Jr., and Calvin Trillin.
|
| |
