A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

The reality of life, prom, hollywood, and spring under the budding trees in Lake Wobegon

May Day, 2004. Thoughts of spring and... walleye abound in Lake Wobegon

The perfect peach danish -- plus drinks and an unlikely aphrodisiac in Lake Wobegon.

Youth and the handicaps inherent in remembering too much.

Garrison Keillor recounts the terrible gifts of spring, and this past Easter in Lake Wobegon.

Coming up this week on A Prairie Home Companion, we'll revisit the bits of 2007 that we remember fondly, and possibly one or two we'd like to forget. There were plenty of memorable firsts this past year, including: public radio host Terry Gross in an episode of Guy Noir, Martin Sheen singing a Quaker folk hymn, and James Taylor with Something In The Way She Moves. Also on the highlight reel, windy city rockers Wilco, piano man Randy Newman, and legendary singer-songwriter Carole King.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, live from the Fitzgerald Theater, we've got the inimitable singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and percussive dancer Kristin Andreassen. Also with us, The Royal Academy of Radio Actors; Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Tom Keith, The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band with maestro Richard Dworsky, and much more.

Norah Vincent has lived as a man. She didn't undergo a sex change or radical hormone treatments. She simply went undercover. In an extraordinary feat of acting, disguise and guts, Vincent lived among men -- as a man -- for 18 months to see what life was like on the other side of the gender divide. "This wasn't just a stunt. This was about learning. This is a human project. It was about finding

With many video clips floating around the Web, like the 12 one-minute episodes of Borat, the mobile video is becoming increasingly popular among the consumers. However, advertisers seem too prudent, giving the film studios problems with monetization. Another example of the successful mobile video is Warner Brothers' six-episode series based on the popular Superman television show "Smallville."

Where to begin, where to begin... My dinner last night with my old friend "The Soon to be Famous Playwright" (SFP) was lovely as all dinners with him can be. SFP is one of these people who is positively scandinavian in his own moroseness at times, but who is also a chipper bit of sunshine about other people. He convinced me over spicy asian noodles and fabulously icy bevies that I would indeed

Achtung: I'm on a tear. Woke up on the wrong side of the broomstick, apparently... Just doing some catching up with the excellent Arts and Letters Daily site (it somehow got bumped off my link list, likely for Homestar Runner, which embarrasses me a lot). Earlier, I had gotten an email from a student from the spring semester, demanding to know why she got a B in Shakespeare and explaining to me

He looks as though he forgot to take off the goggles when he changed out of his super hero costume. Maybe X-Ray vision is how he learned about the Committee to Re-Elect. Or has the Red Baron just stepped out of his bi-plane to greet the crowds? And whose poor hand is that? Look at the guy in the trench looking askance at their handclasp!