Coincidence
by: Billy Collins
Along Came Betty
and
In Walked Bud.
Collins is playing with two separate song titles here--"Along Came Betty" by Art Blakely & the Jazz Messenger and "In Walked Bud" by Thelonious Monk. In case you weren't aware, Collins is a huge jazz fan. So, in essence, this little poem is both tribute and musical joke.
I went to see a performance by Garrison Keillor at a local theater this evening. Billy Collins appeared on A Prairie Home Companion a few times, I believe. Plus Keillor has used some of Collins' poems as part of his daily The Writer's Almanac.
My wife and kids came to the show with me. We had seats in the second row, so close to the stage that I could count the hairs in Keillor's eyebrows, which are prodigious. Yes, I paid extra for some good seats because seeing Garrison Keillor in person has been on my bucket list for a very long time. I've missed a couple opportunities to see him in the past, and the man is 81 years old, soon to be 82. He may stop touring or performing in the future.
As soon as he stepped onstage in his red tie and red sneakers, I felt like a kid, sitting around a campfire on Saturday evening with the radio tuned to our local NPR station, listening to A Prairie Home Companion with my family. Except it was happening right before my eyes. For around two hours, I listened to him joke, tell stories, sing, and interact with the audience.
This was definitely a bucket list thing for me, as I said. Unless I am named Poet Laureate of the United States in the next three months, this show is going to be the highlight of my summer. In fact, the Summer of 2024 is going to henceforth be known as the Summer of Keillor.
And that's the news from Saint Marty and Lake Wobegon tonight.
Bucket List
by: Martin Achatz
Took something off it
tonight. Does that mean
the bucket is empty now,
ready to be kicked?
No comments:
Post a Comment