Hasta La Ideas

Ahead of a performance tonight at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center, 71-year-old public radio dean Garrison Keillor chatted with City Paper arts editor Elizabeth Pandolfi.

Keillor describes his Upper West Side apartment as his reverse version of a “lake cabin.” He also recalls the critical boost he got from a New York publication:

“Getting published in The New Yorker back in 1969 was a huge influence on my career. The New Yorker was idolized in the Midwest and, having been published there, I got enormous credit in public radio and was given more license than I deserved.”

“In 1974, having written about the Grand Ole Opry for the magazine, I was allowed to do a live variety show on Saturday evenings. A great boon and I’ve clung to it. A Prairie Home Companion has guided my life for 41 years, it’s given me a host of friends. It’s made me happy on many occasions.”

Keillor also talked to Pandolfi about the bittersweet feeling of living in a town where the daily newspaper is dying a slow print death. Read the full convo here.