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Survival Kit

Sunday, June 29, 2003
  • Studs Terkel

    Studs Terkel has been called the voice of Chicago; for over five decades he had a popular radio show in that city, and his bestselling oral histories, including Division Street: America, Hard Times, Working, Race, and The Good War have examined our national experience from the Depression, through World War II, to the lives of contemporary Americans, and their thoughts on a wide range of subjects. Now I’ve asked him to leave behind the two things he loves most - the city of Chicago and people - at least in imagination, for a long stay in a remote place, and to figure out what he would need to get him through the ordeal.

Studs Terkel's Survival Kit:

1. As much George Bernard Shaw as traffic will bear
2. Ditto Mark Twain
3. Schubert’s Die Winterreise sung by Hans Hotter or Fischer Dieskau
4. Big Bill Broonzy/ Mahalia Jackson
5. Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe
6. Bombay Gin
7. H. Upmann Cigars
8. Toscanini’s Beethoven’s 9th (oh, and the presence of Michelle Pfeiffer)