Garrison Keillor in Person

Mom and Dad arrived on Saturday and on Sunday we all went to see Garrison Keillor speak. Keillor is more famously known for his radio show A Prairie Home Companion. So we were expecting something like that, but more comtemporary, hear about his personal life, perhaps, being a parent at a late age (as the commericials for WUSF advertised) or even some political commentary.

No. We didn't get that. I guess I would have been happy with a well-thought out performance, but Keillor seemed to be resting on his laurels. Content to chat about Lake Woebegone, he meandered around what seemed to be a theme of coming from dark, dark people, but really, he was just wandering. Wandering, it turns out, aimlessly. He started out great: funny, cogent, entertaining with some songs mixed in with his musings. But then he lost his way. I got the impression that he thought the sold-out crowd at Mahaffey would be happy with whatever he threw our way, but we, at least, had higher expectations. When his wandering turned into rambling and then just ended abruptly, followed by an odd song that seemed like three or four songs all jumbled together, I guess we should have taken his point at the beginning of the talk that he really can't write sonnets.....unfortunately for us, it turned out we paid for him to write the bad sonnets and sing them to us.