On Demand
WNYC's Coverage of the Democratic National Convention
Live performances in Soundcheck's studios
Studio 360: How Animals Communicate with Each Other
Selected Shorts featuring "The Trouble of Marcie Flint," by John Cheever
Radio Rookies: Brooklyn Broadcast Workshop
On the Media: Challenging Convention
Street Shots Challenge
Survival Kit Archive
June 2002
Peter Mayle
Sunday, June 30, 2002
In the mid-1980's, Peter Mayle did decide to drop out of the rat race; he fled the confines of his life as a London advertising executive, and moved to the south of France. In best-selling books, including A Year in Provence, Toujours Provence, French Lessons, and Hotel Pastis, he celebrated the relaxed way of life in his chosen home. Unfortunately, an unintended consequence of his success was that it attracted unprecedented numbers of tourists to his new-found paradise, forcing him to escape, at least temporarily, to the United States. We’ve generously offered to put him up in a place where even his most ardent fans can’t find him; let’s hear what he’s packing for the trip.
Wendy Wasserstein
Sunday, June 23, 2002
Wasserstein is such a die-hard city dweller that her idea of a retreat is to move from her Manhattan apartment to a luxury hotel across town in order to write without distraction. In plays like The Heidi Chronicles (which won both a Pulitzer and a Tony Award), The Sisters Rosensweig and An American Daughter, and her essay collection Shiksa Goddess, she examines the lives of urban professional women and their struggles to balance career and family. And although our retreat does not offer room service, she has gamely agreed to pack up her survival kit for the adventure.
PETER SCHICKELE
Sunday, June 16, 2002
Peter Schickele has so many personae that I’m almost afraid to ask which one composed his survival kit list. There’s the composer Peter Schickele, who has written serious classical music, folk music arrangements, and film scores; Professor Peter Schickele, head of the Department of Musical Pathology of the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, discoverer and champion of the work of PDQ Bach, “history’s most justifiably neglected composer; and, of course, the host of public radio’s Schickele Mix, who has tried to to broaden our understanding of all types of music. Well, lets find out what’s in his cultural survival kit, and maybe even figure out which Peter Schickele put it together.
GARTH FAGAN
Sunday, June 09, 2002
Garth Fagan has always been seen as something of a recluse in the dance world. He and his company have won all of the major dance awards and have toured the world, but they are based in the relatively out-of-the-way city of Rochester, New York. Now I’ve asked him to take his isolation a step further, and spend some time in a remote cabin in the mountains, or perhaps a desert island, and to decide what he would put in his cultural survival kit.
Dr. Oliver Sacks
Sunday, June 02, 2002
Dr. Oliver Sacks has travelled to remote islands to study the unusual neurological conditions that can be found in isolated populations, and he has said that the patients he sees in his practice seem like travellers to unimaginable lands. In books like Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, and An Anthropologist on Mars, he has provided us with glimpses into the outer boundaries of human experience. Now I’ve asked him to imagine a trip to an uninhabited island, or a remote cabin in the woods, and the 8 items he would not want to be without.