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Open script
Saturday, June 28, 2008
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GK: After this message from the Professional Organization of English Majors. Sentence consruction is so important and a badly-constructed sentence can cause confusion for years and years. Like this one.
TR: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
GK: What does this mean? Anybody can have a gun? Or just people who belong to a Militia? Or just people on the fringe?
TR: A well regulated Militia, comma, being necessary to the security of a free State, comma, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, comma, shall not be infringed, period. — That means I can have this gun and if you want to take it away from me, English major— go ahead. Make my day. (GUNSHOT)
GK: The shot went wildly off target as the English major, moving with the swiftness of a puma, kicked the gun out of the non-Militiaman's hand —(
TR: OOOFFF) — and simultaneously pressed his thumb to the gunman's right temporal lobe , directing blood to the syntax cortex.
TR: I no longer feel the urge to bear arms, now that acupressure has made me aware of the power of words. Thanks, English Major.
GK: A message from the Professional Organization of English Majors.
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A national holiday in Lake Wobegon is always gaudy and joyful. But what is going on between Clint Bunsen and Miss Liberty?
Everyone is here—Pastor Ingqvist, the Sons of Knute, Sister Arvonne of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility and her ocarina band, the Norwegian bachelor farmers, Dorothy and the Chatterbox Café, Wally in the Sidetrack Tap—as crowds converge on the little town to celebrate American independence, even as the chairman of the event broods on the great question of the day: Shall we struggle on valiantly here or shall we burst the bonds and find beautiful life in the golden west?
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Scripts and bits from A Prairie Home Companion celebrate the secret society of men and women who possess excellent spelling and punctuation skills. (You know who you are.)
Selections include "The Six-Minute Hamlet," a tribute to Emily Dickinson, a Guy Noir adventure that exposes an MFA scam, a riveting "Professional Organization of English Majors" drama, and guests Billy Collins, Robert Bly, Roy Blount Jr., and Calvin Trillin.
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