Survival Kit

Roz Chast

Sunday, July 07, 2002

Roz Chast is this week’s adventurer; for over twenty years she’s explored the foibles of home and family life in her inimitable drawings. In the process she has changed the way we think of the cartoon form. Her work can be found in almost every issue of the New Yorker magazine and several volumes of her cartoons have been published, including Childproof and Cartoons about Parents and Children. Ms. Chast has lived in and around New York City for most of her life, and I really wanted to know what she would put in her cultural Survival Kit for a lengthy exile from her hometown.

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Roz Chast's Survival Kit: 1. Everything by Benny Goodman (specifically 1935-8) 2. Everything by Dennis Potter (e.g., The Singing Detective, video) 3. The complete works of Tolstoy 4. Greatest Hits of The Smiths (British rock band) 5. the Merck Manual (general health guide) 6. Fawlty Towers, all episodes (video) 7. It's a Gift (W.C. Fields movie, video) 8. A book of reproductions of every painting, sculpture and object in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 9. Albums of her parents' old photos from her childhood 10. A subscription to the New Yorker magazine