On Demand
Survival Kit Archive
December 2002
Peter Shickele
Sunday, December 29, 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.
Al Franken
Sunday, December 22, 2002
Al Franken strikes me as something of a split personality; there is the incisive political satirist, author of Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiotand Other Observations and Why Not Me: The Making and Unmaking of the Franken Presidency, writer and performer on 15 seasons of Saturday night Live, star of the sitcom Lateline, commentator for Comedy Central’selection coverage and guest on Politically Incorrect. But there is also the softer, touchy-feely side: his alter-ego Stuart Smalley, unlicensed therapist, author of I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough and Doggone It, People Like Me and, of course, Dr. Al Franken and his book Oh, The Things I Know! : A Guide to Success, or Failing That, Happiness. Let’s see if he’s packed politics or advice in his Survival Kit.
Garth Fagan
Sunday, December 15, 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.
P.J. O'Rourke
Sunday, December 08, 2002
P.J. O’Rourke’s idea of a “solo survival course” is “looking for food, clothes and the TV remote while his wife visits her sister in Atlanta.” He’s toured the world’s trouble spots to report on the lighter side of war, famine, pestilence, natural disasters and the like, for such journals as Atlantic Monthly and Rolling Stone, and written 10 books, including Eat the Rich, Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, and The CEO of the Sofa. But lately, since becoming a father, he’s expressed a preference for working from home. I’ve asked him to take it a step further, and head off to a truly isolated place, and tell me what he’d put in his survival kit.
Rhea Perlman
Sunday, December 01, 2002
Rhea Perlman spent 11 years as the feisty barmaid Carla Tortelli on Cheers, the TV show set in a Boston bar “where everybody knows your name.” She won four Emmys for that role, and she’s appeared in dozens of films (including Canadian Bacon, Carpool, Matilda) and other TV shows, including her own sitcom, Pearl. Now I’ve asked her to go to a place where no one will know her name, since there won’t be anyone else there. Let’s see what she wants to bring along in her survival kit.
