Garrison Keillor interview 2-8-22

Garrison Keillor interview 2-8-22
Jeff Gill

Songs, stories, and gratitude on stage
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What Garrison Keillor wanted to talk about was gratitude.

"With aging, when your life comes into much clearer perspective," Keillor mused. "I think back to the decades of my so-called career and it was so hectic, so busy. I remember certain events, but I recall my adolescence and childhood more clearly, more than what I was doing in the years with the radio program, and the tours, and the travel. I was consumed with ambition, and the next thing, and the thing after that…"

But now, encountering aging and limits: "You just feel gratitude for everything. What's left is really beautiful. My wife and I play Scrabble every day. When I was so ambitious, I didn't have time for that, but now I do."

I was asking the noted author, performer, and soon third time guest on the Midland Theatre stage about preaching and sermons and storytelling. It was an interview as a long-time fan I'd imagined many times before, and like Lake Wobegon it didn't quite seem real, except there was no mistaking the voice on the other end of the phone advising me on the tension between preparation and delivery in speaking to an audience.

"If you sit down and write out what you're going to say, you find out that when you get up and go out to deliver that manuscript by heart, you will remember what you need to," said Garrison Keillor.

"Memory is a wonderful editor."

A fixture on public radio for many years with his "Prairie Home Companion" Saturday night program, a year after he chose to end his weekly appearances on the air and turn things over to a new host, a former coworker accused Keillor of inappropriate behavior in the workplace. His public radio employers quickly cut all ties with him, and a settlement was reached.

In his now weekly Substack dialogue with fans he said about the incident recently "it's an interesting story but I'm not going to tell it. The old friend who accused me asked for anonymity and I see no reason to disrupt her life. I'm looking at 80 in a few months and so what's the point?"

His recent writing has addressed his age and aging, and I've found myself freshly interested in this new theme of his, just as I dove into his work decades back to understand the gift and grace of public speaking, if not of preaching itself.

Keillor was the very presence on the phone of grace and welcome. He also is persistently very much who he's been through the years, an inquisitive, quizzical, and insightful student of human nature without an excess of optimism about our foibles, but with a strong emphasis on hope. After all, he was the bass anchor for the Hopeful Gospel Quartet.

"We just had a show in Holland, Michigan where we had a singing intermission," Keillor explained. Each "Keillor & Company" program is different; he brings a pianist and vocalist to accompany him, but his goal is clearly to find out if the audience is willing to sing a cappella together — "it's not me, it's not my singing, it's giving people the opportunity to do this, and they almost always rise to the occasion." In Michigan, those assembled responded in four part harmony, a challenge to which I assured him Ohio could rise. Our opportunity to respond in Newark comes on March 3 at the Midland Theatre, with tickets available online for his 7:30 pm show (see the Midland website for details).

"In Easton, Maryland last Sunday, in the monologue I found myself using pieces from my recent novel which had stuck with me, bits from columns I'd written not long ago, stories from my family: I was stealing from myself," Keillor chuckled. "Then we started out with 'My Country 'Tis Of Thee,' and went on to 'It Is Well With My Soul' and 'How Great Thou Art' all a cappella, and since we were near Baltimore, we sang the 'Star-Spangled Banner' and people just responded."

He was very open and candid about his childhood background in a very conservative religious tradition, and the kinds of social limits that were taken for granted by his parents, but also how out of their marriage "doctrine had to give way to love." Keillor's parents took differing views on Christmas observances and musical preferences, but found their way together towards harmonious resolutions as their family story was lived out.

"There's no doubt about it, stories have a certain power," Keillor noted. As we talked our conversation kept coming back to that question of how a community, how a diverse group of people can find in story and song a common purpose, a unifying thread.

"People are wary of a story that carries too clever a moral," he pointed out. "Through stories, we learn about our own culture." And songs, I added. "I worry about how little song some of our younger people know, what songs they have in common." Keillor observed "everyone knows 'Amazing Grace'" and that "Softly and Tenderly" brings everyone together pretty quickly, but what he's trying to keep alive "is the sheer joy you can feel in a room when everyone is singing out and singing together and even in harmony sometimes."

In a career which has ranged from short stories in "The New Yorker" to appearing as a version of himself in a Hollywood movie based on his radio show, his latest turn is online through Substack, with "Garrison Keillor and Friends," where his most recent columns and reader response "Post to the Host" entries have become regular reading.

I pointed out to him that his regular writing has made me think of where he lives as a friendly, compact, small town, even though he makes it clear he's living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He laughed at the idea, and explained "since COVID, I've been living a very small life. And a small life, perhaps, is perfect for a writer." His wife runs in Central Park, they have their groceries delivered, he walks to his Episcopal church where he speaks warmly about the ministries they provide, from a rich mix of musical styles and offerings to healing services and sermons to which he's clearly happy to just listen.

As we wrapped up our conversation, he said of his daily routines "It's a very simple life, it happens to take place in a very large city." I assured him that the small city of Newark was looking forward to welcoming him again, and his audience would come grateful for the opportunity to hear him, and for the chance to sing together.