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Survival Kit Archive


August 2003

Laurie Anderson

Sunday, August 31, 2003

Laurie Anderson claims to have hitchhiked to the North Pole, and lived to tell about it. She’s a keen observer of the human condition and has a knack for turning her experiences into riveting multi-media performances, combining visual arts, music, storytelling, film, video, and electronic media into an artform uniquely her own. I suspect that this retreat might become fodder for her next work; let’s find out what she’s put into her survival kit for the journey.


Philip Glass

Sunday, August 24, 2003

"Music is a very social activity," Philip Glass says. Because "music doesn't exist by itself; it exists when people play it for other people.” Maybe that’s why he’s collaborated with so many other artists -- filmmakers, dancers, playwrights, poets, novelists, musicians and songwriters to create groundbreaking music for opera, theater, film, dance, and symphony, and probably a few other artforms that have slipped my mind. Let’s see what he’s packed in his survival kit to get him through a period of enforced isolation.


Jane Curtin

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Jane Curtin has spent so much of her career playing extraterrestrials (and the earthlings who love them), that I was tempted to ask her if she’d like to spend her retreat on another planet. Her portrayal of Prymaat, matriarch of the Conehead family, was one of the highlights of her 5 year stint on Saturday Night Live, and later became a feature film; after another 5 years as the very human divorcee Allie Lowell on Kate and Allie, she returned to alien society as Dr. Mary Albright, girlfriend of the “unusual” Dick Solomon, on Third Rock from the Sun. She even played an insect in the animated film Antz. Let’s find out what otherworldly items she’s got in her Survival Kit.


Carl Reiner

Sunday, August 10, 2003

Carl Reiner has written, directed, produced and starred in some of the funniest TV shows and movies of the past half century, including The Dick Van Dyke Show, Your Show of Shows, The Jerk, Where’s Poppa?, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, and Oh, God. He’s performed standup in the Borsch Belt, toured in Broadway shows, entertained the troops overseas, written novels and plays. Let’s find out what this multifaceted comic would need to keep him occupied during a long retreat, by taking a peek in his survival kit.


Russell Simmons

Sunday, August 03, 2003

Russell Simmons has been called “the godfather of hip-hop”, as well as a visionary, mogul and legend. Through his Def Jam Records, Def Pictures, Phat Farm clothing, Def Comedy and Poetry Jams, and One World Magazine, he has popularized hip hop and brought it into the mainstream of American pop culture. In fact, everything he touches has become so popular, I imagine that if we send him to a remote place, it will immediately become the newest hot resort, and the rich and famous will be parachuting in to share it with him. Let’s see what he’s got in his Survival Kit.