November 13, 2012
Leon Leonwood Bean and Robert Louis Stevenson share a birthday, Australia and New Zealand experience a complete solar eclipse, and Minnesota meat-packing workers stage the first large sit-down strike in the United States. Keillor reads”Sadness” by Michael Blumenthal, from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012.
August 28, 2014
Earth has its first two solar storms, and the first paid ad for radio is broadcast. Keillor reads
“Be Kind” by Michael Blumenthal, from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012.
October 13, 2014
Lenny Bruce, Conrad Richter, and Margaret Thatcher all share a birthday, and Keillor explains the history of The White House. He reads “For My Son, Reading Harry Potter” by Michael Blumenthal from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012.
October 17, 2014
The last supernova in the Milky Way is witnessed on this day in 1604 and the Loma Prieta earthquake has its 25th anniversary. Nathanael West, Jimmy Breslin, and Arthur Miller have birthdays. The daily poem is “Six Cheerful Couplets on Death” by Michael Blumenthal, from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012.
October 21, 2014
Ursula K. Le Guin and Samuel Taylor Cooleridge share a birthday, Magellan first enters the strait to be named after him, and For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway is published. The daily poem is “I Think Constantly of Those Who Were Truly Great” by Michael Blumenthal, from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012.
November 13, 2014
Keillor says happy birthday to Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, and reads “Desire” by Michael Blumenthal from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012.
April 12, 2017
Keillor says happy birthday to authors Tom Clancy, Alan Ayckbourn, and Beverly Cleary, and reads “Be Kind” by Michael Blumenthal from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012.
December 4, 2006
The birthdays of Michael Cunningham and Harold Ross, along with Abraham Lincoln’s first election to presidency. Keillor reads “The Hour” by Michael Lind, from Parallel Lives.
November 9, 2007
Carl Sagan and Anne Sexton share a birthday with the anniversary of Kristallnacht, and Teddy Roosevelt becomes the first United States President to leave the country while in office in over a century. The daily poem is “The Minor Prophets” by Michael Lind from Parallel Lives.
December 4, 2007
Samuel Butler and Rainer Maria Rilke share a birthday, and Keillor reads “The Ballad of Woodrow Wilson” by Michael Lind, from Parallel Lives.
May 15, 2011
Wizard of Oz author Lyman Frank Baum shares a birthday with Utah Phillips and Katherine Anne Porter. Keillor tells the story of the first mental health hospital in the United States, and reads “Jamaica” by Michael Lind, from Parallel Lives.