A Prairie Home Companion evening

For the fourth year, Jim and I will be enjoying concerts with some friends. Here's some background on the first: a live "cinecast" of A Prairie Home Companion at a movie theater near you on Thursday, October 2 at 8:00 p.m. EDT.
Garrison Keillor began hosting the two hour radio show in 1974. In 1980 Jim and I learned of the show. When we lived in Columbus, Indiana we were regular listeners to WFIU, Indiana University's public radio station. We didn't own a TV, so WFIU was our window on the world and APHC was an important part of our Saturday evenings.
It offers a variety of music, especially folk, and humorous advertisements for fictional products like Powdermilk Biscuits, which "give shy people the strength to get up and do what needs to be done", and Be-Bop-A-Re-Bop Rhubarb Pie: "one little thing can revive a guy...maybe things aren't as bad as you thought..." More recently there have been messages from the Catchup Advisory Board (a compromise between ketchup and catsup) about the mid-life crises of Jim and Barb, who benefit from the "natural mellowing agents" of catchup. We relate to them in a way we couldn't back in the early 80s when we were newly-weds.
The highlight of each week is Garrison's report on the news from Lake Wobegon, a little Minnesota town that was left off the map when the cartographer accidently folded the map in the middle, covering Lake Wobegon. We still talk about stories we've heard. The small town people come alive for those few minutes: the Norwegian bachelor farmers, the young driver who becomes so captivated by a flock of birds flying down the middle of the road that he follows, imagining himself in flight with them, until he drives off the road, much to the entertainment of the older men in town. Lutheran Paster Inqvist looks forward to a winter conference in Florida, which his congregation disapproves of as an extravagance. A shy man escapes a party by sitting in a spare bedroom, reading old National Geographics. Garrison occasionally inserts himself into the town life. One evening he told of being left on a doorstep as a baby by his mother, a tightrope performer. She pinned a note to his blanket and left the pencil in his basket. His best work is written with that pencil, which he uses sparingly, since it is now a small nub. His telling of Lake Wobegon life is vivid, lovingly humorous, and sometimes poignant.
I look forward to watching the show live. I'm curious about how the sound effects man creates so many realistic sounds to accompany the stories. I want to see Garrison's face as he tells about Lake Wobegon and sings along with a guest. As my son, Peter, wrote: "I saw the theatercast in February, and it was amazing".