An old man's winter night
About this episode
Garrison Keillor reflects on the impact of the internet on writing and personal experiences of boredom in a pre-digital age.
A Times story reporting that college students in a writing course do better when they go offline for a month makes perfect sense to me, same as if you say a writer does better at a laptop in the public library than shnockered on a sailboat in a storm, but the idea of persuading students to go offline strikes me as quixotic, like Amish evangelism or banning the use of chairs. The internet is here and we’re all caught up in it.l was in my 50s when the World Wide Web came in. Its advent was not a big event to me; I was still working on a manual Underwood typewriter. I have a clearer memory of seeing Albert Woolson, the last living Civil War veteran, in a parade in downtown Minneapolis. I remember my uncle Jim farming with horses and Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio. And I remember boredom, which has mostly disappeared in America except perhaps among lighthouse keepers or attendants in parking ramps or felons in solitary confinement. And maybe imprisonment offline would be considered cruel and inhumane in a court of law.Growing up pre-Google in a small Midwestern town among taciturn people, I experienced boredom intensely and it led to reading and in due course to writing. I took…
People in this episode
Host: Garrison Keillor
Topics covered
- boredom
- writing
- internet
- offline experience
- personal anecdotes
Keywords
- boredom
- writing
- internet
- offline
- personal anecdotes
- haiku
- Midwest
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Fibber McGee and Molly
Places: Minneapolis, Midwestern town
More episodes of Garrison Keillor's Podcast
- The one-armed man at the concert
- Gearing up to go on the road
- Remembering you but not the rest
- What we learn from air travel
- My weekly walk to church and back
- The sweet day draws near
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Garrison Keillor's Podcast podcast page.