This isn't the only long - term show to end - Whad'ya Know (notmuch.com) wrapped up a 30+ year run the last weekend in June though it was ended due to declining numbers and being expensive to produce (live audience, traveling shows, etc.).
Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
11–20 of 53 posts
Re: Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
#12I grew up listening to Garrison Keillor and stories from Lake Wobegon. Listening to it as an adult, I have to say, it's not very good quality. I guess it's impossible to keep up a high level of quality week after week for so many years. But when I listen to it I hear a man rambling almost incoherently. There's not even a reasonable arc most weeks, he just babbles until time is up and Garrison abruptly says ".. and that's the news from Lake Wobegon".
Re: Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
#13My friends and I all grew up listening to Garrison Keillor, raised by parents who themselves grew up listening to Garrison Keillor. Keillor's retirement has very much felt like abruptly losing contact with many old friends at once. I just hope Lake Wobegon is doing alright without us.
I grew up the same way :) ... except he rubs me the wrong way, I think he's not at all interesting or clever, a completely banal failed ironic, with a deep streak of hate inside.
Hate?
Re: Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
#14The News From Lake Wobegon is available in a podcast, with a very long archive: http://prairiehome.org/listen/podcast/ - and really it's better as a podcast
Re: Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
#15It's long saddened me that you can't get Prairie Home Companion as a podcast: there's too many songs from too many authors so they don't even try to acquire the rights. Our copyright regime still needs to adapt to the modern world.
I came here to say this. For years I thought of setting up something to automatically record and catalog the shows, and sadly it's too late now.
Has anyone found an online source for full archived shows?
Surely someone somewhere has them saved...
Re: Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
#16It's long saddened me that you can't get Prairie Home Companion as a podcast: there's too many songs from too many authors so they don't even try to acquire the rights. Our copyright regime still needs to adapt to the modern world.
I don't think GK hates anyone or anything but I remember the day I completely lost interest in PHC: it was the day an interview ran and the intro explained Garrison lives in NYC.
The thing is sometimes there's not much distance between an homage and a satire. Fred Armisen's Portlandia is a good example of a show that wobbles between gently poking fun and outright mean-spirited mockery.
Once I learned all the Prarie Home Companion episodes were written from New York City it became much easier to see some of those skits as GK laughing at Lake Woebegone residents rather than with them.
Re: Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
#17I grew up listening to Garrison Keillor and stories from Lake Wobegon. Listening to it as an adult, I have to say, it's not very good quality. I guess it's impossible to keep up a high level of quality week after week for so many years. But when I listen to it I hear a man rambling almost incoherently. There's not even a reasonable arc most weeks, he just babbles until time is up and Garrison abruptly says ".. and th…
For me, that's almost part of the charm. Each show doesn't itself need to be a masterpiece in order to play a part in the overall narrative of Lake Wobegon and Keillor's psyche. The show gained narrative force through its many years of accrual.
EDIT: Spelling
Re: Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
#18I found PHC style humor completely insufferable and unlistenable, but members of my family (who grew up in the Midwest in the 50s and 60s) just love it, and there's no accounting for taste of course.
I always thought the show stood as sort of the perfect archetype for what you'd call "white" American culture. Which I'm pretty sure is what David Simon was trying to say in this classic clip from The Wire:
Re: Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
#19It's long saddened me that you can't get Prairie Home Companion as a podcast: there's too many songs from too many authors so they don't even try to acquire the rights. Our copyright regime still needs to adapt to the modern world.
I don't think GK hates anyone or anything but I remember the day I completely lost interest in PHC: it was the day an interview ran and the intro explained Garrison lives in NYC. The thing is sometimes there's not much distance between an homage and a satire. Fred Armisen's Portlandia is a good example of a show that wobbles between gently poking fun and outright mean-spirited mockery. Once I learned all the Prarie H…
GK was 45 years old when he first did a show in New York. He moved back to St. Paul five years later. The show is typically touring around the country and the world. He has split his time since 1987 living in New York and Minnesota. How does the fact that he decided, in his middle age, to live in New York at various times. suddenly change his work into mean-spirited mockery?
I don't think you understand his work. You don't have to like it, but that doesn't mean you know what he's trying to say.
Re: Garrison Keillor Turns Out the Lights on Lake Wobegon
#20I'll never forget when he brought his show to my hometown. I got one of the last seats in the house, literally way back against the wall. Good times.