A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

English majors script
Saturday, October 23, 2004
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...after a word from the Professional Organization of English Majors.

GK: When you major in English and you read Chaucer and Milton and Shakespeare, you put majestic things into your head.

SS: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.

GK: Your head is full of majesty and this is a rare thing. Other people are arguing about the election and you're thinking—

TR: What must the king do now? Must he submit?
The king shall do it. Must he be deposed?
The king shall be contented. Must he lose
The name of king? In God's name, let it go.
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads;
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage.

GK: A useful thing, poetry. You take a menial job at McDonald's but in your own mind, you're not menial, you're classical—

SS (DRAMATICALLY): Is this a spatula which I see before me?
The handle toward my hand? And on thy blade
Brute flesh and dudgeon and gouts of blood.
(DING)
Behold a car approacheth to the window.
Now I must do the work fate sends me. And better it were done quickly.

GK: Majesty and elegance and depth of feeling. (PIANO CHORDS) Other majors offer you superficial skills—(COMPUTER BEEPS) but an English major opens up the landscape of the human heart. (SWORD FIGHTING, SHOUTS, HORSES WHINNY, GALLOPING, TRUMPET CALL)

TR: Karen— where are you going?

SS: I'm going where I always wanted to go, Rick.

TR: I thought we were going to a movie.

SS: We were. But now I'm going with him—

TR: Who? The gimpy guy with the glasses and the bad hair?

SS: I don't care what he looks like. I've looked into his soul. He's an English major.

TR: An English major!!!???? You're giving up a cardiologist for an English major????

SS: Goodbye, Rick. Have a good life. Here's a book of poems.

(HISS OF STEAM)

TR: Can't I come with you?

(STEAM ENGING STARTS CHUGGING)

SS: I honestly don't think so. Goodbye!!!

TR: But what about our plans for Thanksgiving??

SS: I can't live without beauty and meaning. Goodbye. (TRAIN WHISTLE)

GK: You left your husband? For me?

SS: I followed you and I never looked back.

GK: But I'm not sure I can give you what a woman needs.

SS: Of course you can. You're an English Major.

TR: A message from the Professional Organization of English Majors.

(HORSE WHINNY, GALLOP, SHOUTS, TRUMPETS)