I've been relatively familiar with Prairie Home Companion for quite a while and after getting into podcasts several years ago, it seemed I had discovered an easy way to listen to quality recordings of the entire show on my Ipod... never missing an episode. But it turned out that the only portion of the show that was available on Itunes was the News From Lake Wobegon. As a longtime fan of the show I always thought that the real "meat" was found in the skits, sound effects, and the live music, but not really the News From Lake Wobegon. That was until I listened to the podcasts of only that portion of the show without all of the show's other terrific distractions. The monologue is always a wonderfully woven story that is amazing in its consistency from week to week. The writing and humor is nearly perfect. This, in my opinion, is HIGH DEFINITION radio... and it's free!
My wife, who is a former teacher of AP English, often used these broadcasts when trying to teach students the subtleties and rhythms of writing humor. She used it because the writing was great fun, even for high schoolers, and all the fun was nothing more than a few pages of nicely placed words. It always worked! The link for News From Lake Wobegon is located in the page linked below.
http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2011/03/12/
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