Garrison Keillor must be one of the few people in the world whodoesn't sound different over the telephone.
His phone voice is the same rumpled, hickory-smoked baritone thatemanates from the radio week after week on his long-runningbroadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion."
It's not shrunk in the transmission from his office in St. Paul,Minn., or harried by the impersonal nature of a phone call with astranger .
Keillor leaves no doubt that you're talking not just to a richand famous entertainer, but to someone for whom language - spokenand written - is sacrosanct.
He's prolific in both forms. He pens his radio show, is workingon a book, and also writes a syndicated column published onsalon.com, in which he muses on anything from the "Current Occupant"(aka George W. Bush) to seeing Rene Fleming perform with theMetropolitan Opera (of whom he gushed: "Miss Fleming's bare leftshoulder is more erotic than Madonna naked and when she puts herhand to her bodice, she makes my nostrils twitch.")
Simultaneously, he keeps up a brisk schedule of personalappearances, like his performance at Cannon Center on Sunday.
Q: It's amazing how busy you are these days.
A: No, I give the illusion of being industrious. It's all a ruse.
Q: Your long-time friends in music, Robin and Linda Williams, andyour bandleader, Rich Dworsky, join you in this appearance. Whatkind of show is it?
A: It's a work in progress. I've done this show solo before, butI wanted to add music to it.
It's a single, complicated story - a Lake Wobegon story - aboutthe death of my aunt, her memorial service, a wedding, and a visitof 24 Lutheran pastors to Lake Wobegon, all in one day.
Q: Are you writing lyrics as well?
A: I may, but so far we've come up with little combinations ofthings. A little gospel, a little Bob Marley, an Iris DeMent song,an Alfred Lord Tennyson poem set to music.
Q: For Broadway, maybe?
A: I think maybe eventually it gets to television.
Q: What do you want the audience to get out of it that might bedifferent from "PHC"?
A: I want them to laugh until they choke. I want to see thembending over, grabbing for their handkerchiefs because stuff hascome out of their noses.
Q: Is writer's block ever a problem for someone involved in somany projects at once?
A: No, no! Writer's block, I think, comes from overreaching. Itcomes from trying to write something that you wish you could writebut it isn't there; your brain just won't do it.
People have an idea that writing is something they could do ifthey just had the time. It's like athletics. You really have totrain for it. You have to write small, insignificant things in orderto warm up and then write larger, ambitious things.
Many people, God bless their hearts, really think you can justput on your running shoes and run a marathon. They fetch up shortafter a quarter-mile. That's writer's block.
Q: Being constantly on the move makes it easier for you.
A: I'm sort of charmed by the fact that I still like to do this.It's really quite astonishing to me that I have the same feelingsitting down with a laptop computer that I used to have with a No. 2pencil and a big, red Indian Chief tablet when I was 10.
When I got a typewriter I was fascinated that thoughts can takethe form of regularly spaced letters and lines, marching down asheet of paper.
I think kids working on the computer these days have the samefeeling. The Internet is an enormous stimulus to children's love oflanguage. It's a literary medium; it's not a visual medium. The samething that moved me, moves kids today.
Q: You still return to the old typewriter?
A: Not the typewriter, but I do go to the legal pad often. Penand paper give you some tactile connection to the words.
Q: Isn't performance more gratifying than writing, though, sinceyou know right away if an audience liked it or not?
A: It isn't always. In performance I don't read stuff off paper,so when you walk out onstage it can all go to pieces in your head.Something that was all prepared and lovely turns into scrap metal.The audience sits there in sort of polite wonder.
With a book, I love the galley proofs because it's there inprint, but you can still change it. It comes back and you can writeadditions and corrections in the margins. My publisher is used toit. Then the finished book arrives, you look at it, you weigh it inyour hands, but you don't dare open it. You have a feeling you'llopen it to the one typo and it'll ruin your day.
Q: You've been working on a new book...
A: Yes, it's a Lake Wobegon novel. It's a shorter novel - I haveto be careful not to push this too far: I'm a novella-ist.
Q: Over the last 30 years, many people (including me) have grownup with "A Prairie Home Companion." Do your characters age with you?
A: Some of them have aged slightly. I think three or four peoplehave died who were developed characters. But people have not agedevenly. I guess older people have stayed where they were.
Q: Do you feel personally connected to your characters?
A: I do, especially the ones I'm related to. I've taken some ofmy relatives and put them into the stories. They develop veryslowly, probably because "News from Lake Wobegon" tends to waverback and forth between what I call stories and essays.
Q: In the late Robert Altman's final film, "A Prairie HomeCompanion," you (as screenwriter) explored the death of the show.How will it end in real life?
A: Well, we ended once back in 1987 and that was a big deal. Itwas much too big of a deal. Then I brought it back a few yearslater, and that makes a person feel sheepish about "retirement."
I had my retirement already. I don't need to do it again. Theproper way to end the show is to have it get smaller and smaller.We'll probably stop touring, bring it back to St. Paul and have itsit here. Sort of gradually fade away. That's the graceful thing todo.
Q: You seem to have a love-hate relationship with politics inyour columns, but you stay mostly neutral on the radio. Is it hardto hold back at times?
A: The great advantage of the newspaper is that it gives peoplethe freedom of not reading things. The reader can scan it in twominutes and put it down. I do it all the time. With a radio show,people let you come into their space. I don't like the idea ofoffending them.
Q: Is there any news about Garrison Keillor to share?
A: I got a letter from my health insurance company the other daysaying that this is the year I will be eligible for Medicare. That'sa big moment. You know, you go along feeling inside that some daysyou're 17, some days you're 25. But I never feel 64.
When it happens, you start thinking about mortality and theendgame.
I guess I always thought that I'd be smarter by the time I got tothis age. I don't know why it didn't happen. I feel as though I mustget smarter really quickly.
Q: What makes a person smarter? Books? School?
A: Experience, you should think. But I've had a lot of experienceand I don't think it's done me the good it should have.
Q: So what can you do?
A: You make your life smaller. I live more and more withinMinnesota. I'm heading for a smaller life, which is the best thingthat can happen to you as you get into your 70s . To be a pedestrianagain. You don't learn much driving around in a car. You miss out.Most of what you learn is standing on your own two feet, walkingaround.
- Christopher Blank: 529-2305
--------------------
PREVIEW
Garrison Keillor with guests Robin and Linda Williams and RichDworsky perform 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Cannon Center. Tickets rangefrom $38.75 to $68.75. Call Ticketmaster at 525-1515.
--------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment