A tale about close neighbors

I do not understand the neighbors, actually, such as why their summer house has LANDSCAPING and LAWN ORNAMENTS. A summer house is for relaxation, it isn’t to demonstrate craftmanship. You are supposed to sit on the porch and read Proust, you are not supposed to create a home that Proust would’ve envied.And I don’t understand why a copy of Foreign Affairs sits on their kitchen counter. In the den, out of sight, yes. In the kitchen? People are eating in the kitchen. Foreign Affairs is the diplomatic version of the prophet Jeremiah. He said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Foreign Affairs says pretty much the same thing except for real. Ukraine and Gaza are sort of covered in the newspapers but terrible things are happening everywhere, so much so that you don’t want to know about it. Let Antony Blinken know about it. This is why foreign policy is a minor footnote in our presidential elections, somewhat less important than bike lanes or prayer in public schools — can students in English be assigned books in which prayer occurs even if the book is clearly labeled Fiction.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I swear I never thought the day would come when
I would arrive for a summer weekend at a rural
paradise and suddenly be in a panic that I may
have left the charger for my hearing age at home
in the city. I never thought I would see that day,

(00:38):
but now I have. I once was young and gay,
I mean not gay and today since but what we
meant back in nineteen sixty two. I once was, and
I could hear a pin drop, And now I couldn't
hear a bowling pin if it dropped on my head.

(01:00):
I suffered this plague for you, my beloved listeners, because
in your service, I turned the headphones up too high,
Because being young and gay, I felt that music needed
to be loud to be a full emotional experience, that

(01:25):
the body itself needed to vibrate vigorously. I was wrong.
I know that now, and now is much too late.
At any rate, I did not leave the charger at home.
It was simply in a secret compartment of my briefcase,

(01:48):
the sort of place one might keep nuclear secrets, if
there were such a thing. So I wore my hearing
age to dinner at the neighbors, and so I could
understand them to the extent that language is part of understanding.

(02:10):
Otherwise it would have been like an evening among the
Sanskrit fluent, and I would have had to maintain a
facial expression of comprehension and curiosity. And this is no
easy matter. My facial muscle memory is a scowl I

(02:30):
learned in my fundamentalist youth. It's hard to overcome the
influence of Jeremiah at the age of eighty two. I
do not understand the neighbors actually, such as why their
summer house has landscaping and lawn ornaments. A summer house

(02:56):
is for relaxation. It isn't for demonstrating craftsmanship. You're supposed
to sit on the porch and read Proost. You're not
supposed to create a home that Proust would have envied.
And I don't understand why a copy of Foreign Affairs

(03:17):
magazine sits on their kitchen counter in the den, out
of sight. Yes, in the kitchen, people are eating in
the kitchen. Foreign Affairs is the diplomatic version of the
prophet Jeremiah, who said the heart is deceitful above all

(03:41):
things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Foreign Affairs
says pretty much the same thing, except for real. Ukraine
and Gozm are sort of covered in the newspapers, but
terrible things are happening everywhere, so much so that you

(04:05):
don't want to know about it. Let Anthony Blincoln know
about it. This is why foreign policy is a minor
footnote in our presidential elections, somewhat less important than bike
lanes or prayer in public schools. Can students in English

(04:27):
classes be assigned books in which prayer occurs, even if
the book is clearly labeled fiction. The reason the candidates
don't discuss foreign policy is that they don't want to
scare you. And what would really scare you is how

(04:47):
little some of them are even curious about foreign policy,
and the very good chance that some of them might
be elected to my office. If you knew, you would
want to form your own nation, just as the Danes

(05:08):
and Finns have done. So. I made the mistake of
asking the Woman of the House why the Foreign Affairs magazine,
expecting her to say, oh, that's his michigos. She's Catholic,
but we all love yet Asha really brightens up her sentence,

(05:29):
but now she means it. She's in the investment business.
I thought women were more noble than that busy curing
cancer and starvation, that hiding income in offshore shelters. So
she starts telling me what she's recently read in foreign affairs,

(05:53):
and in twenty minutes she cast a dark shadow over
the entire evening, which had been all gaiety right up
to that exact point. There were humorous hosts, excellent pasta
fine wine, a lovely salad, a beautiful one year old

(06:18):
boy who really pays attention to people, and I swear
he is grasping the emotional richness of language, and he's
eager and ambitious to talk the child's proud parents, my
own dear wife and daughter, plus me a published author.

(06:40):
And yet in twenty minutes of international trouble spots, he
did not leave out many areas maybe Monaco, maybe Liechtenstein.
The effect was to put us all in a blue funk.
I tried to lighten the mood with a harmless joke,

(07:03):
and it wasn't harmless. It made fun of third grade teachers,
most of whom are probably female, an oppressed lot. So
we went home. Don't listen to anything about foreign affairs.
If someone tries to tell you just take off your

(07:26):
hearing aids. A Prairie Own Companion's fiftieth anniversary two CD
set is packed with music, favorite sketches, and of course,
the news from Lake Wobegon. The Rollicking celebration was recorded
live at the Fitzgerald Theater. More info at Garrison Keeler
dot com