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PEOPLE & ARTS Saturday 5 auguSt 2017
Ex-’Prairie Home’ host Garrison Keillor busy as he nears 75

oir about growing up in gets wearisome. Because
Minnesota. He’s also start- it doesn’t really add up to
ed writing a weekly syndi- anything. It’s all distrac-
cated newspaper column. tion.”
While Donald Trump has Keillor has survived heart
given the avowed Demo- surgery, a minor stroke and
crat some material — a seizures, and recently had
recent column opened by surgery on his left eye for
referring to Trump as “a cataracts and glaucoma.
vulgar, unstable yo-yo with A former chain-smoker, he
an attention-deficit prob- gave up cigarettes and
lem,” the humorist said writ- alcohol years ago, and
ing about the new presi- muses about how modern
dent “keeps going along medicine has given him a
in the same road, and it second chance.q

In this July 26, 2017 photo, Garrison Keillor, creator and former host of, “A Prairie Home Compan-
ion,” talks at his St. Paul, Minn., office.
Associated Press

By JEFF BAENEN town of Lake Wobegon projects, which include fin-
Associated Press — “where all the women ishing a screenplay about
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Gar- are strong, all the men are Lake Wobegon. The plot
rison Keillor is not spending good-looking, and all the involves a New York weath-
his time in retirement bak- children are above aver- erman coming back to
ing Powdermilk Biscuits or age” — in 1974. He went town for his father’s funeral.
drinking coffee down at out with a final show at the It’s based on a character
the Chatterbox Cafe now Hollywood Bowl in July 2016 from Keillor’s 1997 novel,
that he’s hung up his micro- and turned the show over “Wobegon Boy.”
phone as host of his popu- to mandolinist extraordi- Keillor hopes the movie will
lar public radio show, “A naire Chris Thile, who starts be filmed in Minnesota.
Prairie Home Companion.” his second season as “Prai- Keillor’s radio show char-
He turns 75 on Aug. 7 and rie Home” host on Oct. 7. acters were the basis of
boards a bus the next day Keillor admits he misses be- director Robert Altman’s
for a 28-city “Prairie Home ing on the air and says he last movie, “A Prairie Home
Love & Comedy Tour — hasn’t listened to “Prairie Companion.”
2017,” which he vows will Home” since Thile took “We just have to find a
be his last. over. “I keep my distance town that can be Lake
“I don’t think you should go because I was given tre- Wobegon, and then I think
out onstage after the age mendous freedom when we should be all set to
of 76,” Keillor told The As- I did the show and it took go,” Keillor said. “And we
sociated Press during a re- a while for me to even get have to teach people to
cent interview at his St. Paul a grasp of what was in- talk, you know, we have to
office. “You don’t want to volved. Made a lot of mis- teach actors to talk, and
fall down out there and takes in the course of all not talk as they did in the
then all of these people, those years. So the new movie ‘Fargo,’ which is not
you know, there’s a sudden people really should be quite right.”
intake of breath. And men given the same freedom Humorist Calvin Trillin, who
in white jackets come in and allowed to make their has appeared on “Prairie
from the wings and put an own mistakes,” he said. Home” about a half-dozen
oxygen mask on you.” “I would miss it too much, times, said the stories Keil-
“You don’t want that to I think. I really would feel a lor told in his weekly mono-
happen. It’s too much en- big loss, I think, if I listened logue, “The News From
tertainment for the dollar,” to it,” he said. “I really have Lake Wobegon,” are time-
he adds. “An entertainer is to turn my back. When the less tales that anyone can
supposed to go away and bishop steps down, the identify with.
have a quiet dotage, and bishop is supposed to leave “I think he’s captured
you know, lose your mar- town. You’re not supposed something there,” Trillin told
bles in private and not do to, you know, keep going the AP. “I always say Gar-
this out where people can back to the church.” rison, I think, is some sort of
see you.” Wearing his signature red genius, and just what sort of
Keillor started his Satur- tennis shoes without socks genius is something we’re
day-evening radio variety and his gray hair freshly cut still working on.”
show featuring tales of his as he prepares to hit the Keillor said he’s about
fictional Minnesota home- road, Keillor talks about his 100,000 words into a mem-