Austin’s home to a million-selling recording artist heretofore unknown to me, but not to the world of modern Christian music. When I found some brief samples of music by Chris Tomlin, I recognized some of it, much to my surprise. It must be because, in this non-cable household, beyond the three “major networks,” there are just PBS, Univision, the jewelry channel, and, not least, Trinity Broadcasting for those times when a tired person just wants to stare mindlessly at something moving on a screen and emitting sound. Time magazine devotes two full columns to him and his work this week (November 27 issue, page 70; “Hip Hymns Are Him“). Chris Tomlin is reported to be one of the participants in the Gibson Austin GuitarTown project.

This is no doubt syndicated in many places and I’m late running across it, but I learned from the December Funny Times that Garrison Keillor has a soft spot in his heart for Austin. He has kind things to report about his experience with security screening at Bergstrom, saying “that woman’s Sunshine shone on me for the rest of the day, and a week later I still remember it.” The piece is called “Everyday Sweetness in America.” Of course, he writes as a man being spoken to by women; one equivalent for a woman being addressed by a man is “little lady.”