October 9, 2023 • 46 mins
Isaac Mizrahi talks to Roz Chast about what it was like being the only woman on staff at the New Yorker, how she stayed true to herself and her art, the secret to raising kids with a partner and more.
Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Roz Chast on Instagram @rozchast.
(Recorded on September 7, 2023)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
With these boys. They thought they were like really good
cartoonists and stuff, and so I submitted and they rejected me,
and I cried and cried. I think the thing that
I learned from this was that even if nobody likes
my stuff, I'm going to do this. I'm going to
(00:25):
keep drawing. And I don't really care what you think.
I don't care because I don't know what else to
do with my life. I can't not do this beautiful.
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi, and
in this episode I talked to famed New Yorker cartoonist
Ro's Chaste.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Hello Isaac. This is ros Chast and I'm calling to
say hi, and I'll talk to you soon. And it's
very sweaty and hot here.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I don't know about you, but since I'm a little boy,
the New Yorker is like a fixture in the Mizrahi
living room, and it is a worshiped, worshiped, worshiped institution.
I think like a lot of us were taught to
absolutely adore and worship that magazine. And since I am
(01:27):
a young adult, I read it cover to cover almost
every single week, and since then I've been noticing that
always my favorite cartoons are from ros Shast. I would
say that we met about fifteen years ago or something,
or twenty years ago. She was on my show and
we did this crazy, crazy cartoon together about Brooklyn, the
(01:51):
environs where we grew up. We grew up very very
close in proximity to each other. And since I met her,
her work has taken on an even more kind of
crucial and central space in my world. So in this episode,
I'm going to try to plumb the depths of my
(02:12):
friend Ross Chast. I'm going to try to get her
to give up a little of what makes her so
hilariously funny, if there is one specific thing, and what
makes her do what she does. So I'm really excited
about this. Let's get started. Ross Chast, Hi, how are you.
(02:38):
It's been a minute. You look through Your hair looks
really good. Did you just do something to it, like
cut it and color it or something.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I had it done? Oh, this is my natural color.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Not no.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I go to the place down the street and they
just do something to it and it's a really good color.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I have to say, I love it. Are you are
you even close to being a blonde in real life
or is it just.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh yeah, I was. When I was a kid, I
was a blonde. You can my eyebrows are basically invisible.
My mother thought I was born without eyebrows, because that
was you know, just but then you get older and
things kind of go a different direction.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Are you like, are you a stickler for these things?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Like?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Are you like a stickler for hair color? And for
like type font? What's your favorite type font? Darling?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I think it basically the basic one. The sansa is
that whatever you just go yeah, just go with the
basic one. I think because it's just it just is
easier to read or something. But I think probably when
I read books it might be Kaslon or ariol or something.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I would peg you as someone who was absolutely mad
about these little tiny things.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
For writing, for drawing, I see, and I have very
specific but somehow the email thing is just I want
it to be as sort of seamless as possible.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Do you still draw on paper?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Sometimes?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Sometimes no? Mostly still on paper partly because I like
it and I just like all my materials. I like
my pens, I like the inks, I like the brushes,
but I also have an iPad and an apple pencil,
and that works for some things, so I use both.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Do you keep a sketch pad by your bed or
something like? Do you have inspiration all the time? Or
are you a good person at keeping things?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
And then.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I keep paper. I keep paper with me all the time,
paper and pencil. I have a little pad in my
in my purse I keep, you know, for drawing and
or making notes if I have a cartoon idea or
something like that. And I do have a pad by
my bed because of the dreams, you know, and if
something is really good, I want to write it down.
(05:00):
But also you know, with dreams, if you don't write
it down right away or tell somebody right away, it will,
you know, evaporate absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So let's start with a little history about you. Okay,
you are from Brooklyn? Am I wrong?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Brooklyn?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
From Narci Brooklyn? Or from where are you from? Darling?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I should know from I think it's called Kensington. Now
do you know Ocean Parkway?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Do I know Ocean park Park?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yes, Ocean Parkway and Coney Island Avenue. I was on
a little street between those two and it was Webster Avenue,
which is a very tiny street, but it's near Newkirk Avenue.
So my stop was Newkirk Avenue, you know, And that
was down on East sixteenth Street, so the other side
(05:44):
of Coney Island Avenue on.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The D train on the D line on this street, Darling,
I was Avenue J. So I would take the M
train from Avenue J to Newkirk Avenue and switch to
the express train, the D train, which took me to it.
It's funny because those of us from Brooklyn have a
kind of a complex about being New Yorkers, right. We
(06:07):
want to say, like I was in Brooklyn, but I
was on the train every day from like the age
of thirteen going to high school, you know, right right
New York City person. I hate that I wasn't born
like in Greenwich Village, but I wasn't, you know, no
same here.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
And I used to feel very embarrassed about it, you know,
because remember the whole bridge and tunnel.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yes, uh I do, and you know, and.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I always felt like, deep down, I am, you know,
a bridge and tunnel person, and something would like give
it away, either the accent or like you know that
I never felt like I got anything right as far
as like the sort of attitude or the clothes or
anything like some there was this eight million tells, you know,
the ones that I was aware of and the ones
(06:51):
that I wasn't. That like New Kirky Avenue. Yeah, I
know you knew you.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well, Now tell me something. Did you go to school
in Brooklyn just go to high school college? What happened?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah? I went to a public school in Brooklyn all
the way high school. I went to Midward High School
all of that. My parents were teachers in the school system.
And it was deep Brooklyn. It was not Brooklyn Heights.
It was not like some neighborhood that's like Manhattan adjacent.
You know, you get to the Gates of Brooklyn and
then you have to travel aways in.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
In the borough Darling into.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The borough another forty five minutes into the.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Borough by the way, though, where we grew up right,
because we grew up in roughly the same area. Luckily
it's not Canarsi, Okay, because we're not going to even
talk about Canarsi. We as Knights will refer to Canarsie
as the farthest place, like it's farther than Spain. Canarsie
is like farther than Holland exactly. Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So I had a friend in the building. Her name
was Gail, and she and her family moved to Canarsi
and I never saw her again. I'm not kidding you.
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It was the funniest thing I've ever heard you ever say, Roz,
that is brilliant.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It was like she had moved to the Yukon. Also
with my parents, father never learned how to drive because
he was too anxious, and my mother did all the driving.
And this was so many centuries before GPS, and one
of my mother's fears was getting lost. And so we
(08:32):
had these well worn tracks in Brooklyn where she knew
how to drive, and then you would never depart, so
we could not go to Knarsi. She did not know
how to get to Canarsi. I mean, some neighborhoods you
really have to go with somebody with a car. Now,
I'm not much of a driver. I can drive like
locally around here, but I didn't learn to drive till
I left the city, and I basically hate it. I
(08:54):
hate cars. I hate driving. You know, it's just like
I'm worried about the steering wheel coming off, you know,
it's just me too, Me too. Yeah, cars are just
totally all agreed. But I'm fine with being a passenger.
So I have done a little bit exploring in a
car of neighborhoods that are very inaccessible by public transportation.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Darling, I want to talk to you about your parents
for a minute, can I Because a lot of your
cartoons kind of center on people that I think are
based probably on your parents, and often they are kind
of labeled this was my mother or this was my father, right,
So tell me about them. Tell me about your childhood
(09:35):
a little bit. Did you get along with them? Were
you a close family?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
No, My parents were very involved with each other. I
think that they saw each other as they really were soulmates,
and I think I was a little bit like a
third wheel or something. I think they really had no idea.
They had me very lately only child. I was an
(10:01):
only child. They had me when they were forty three,
which back then was very unusual. They had had a
baby before me that died, jeez. And I think like
my job was basically, don't die, you know, don't do
not die see well, you know, easy, yeah, whatever, just
don't die, don't don't get into trouble, don't give us
(10:23):
any show. And they both worked. I grew up in
this you know, small apartment, and I think they really
did not know what to do with a child. I mean,
I remember my parents at the beach. Never saw them
go in the water. They wore street clothes to the beach.
They were not in baby, they were like in, like
the same clothes that they would wear, like wall Bounds
(10:43):
or something.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Wald Bounds. Well that was our local supermarket, wall Bounds
hours too. Well wait a minute, now, tell me about
your childhood. Was it lonely? Do you consider yourself a
latch key kind of a thing or what it was?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Lonely? I was not a watch key kid, because again
this is part of you know, do not die. My
parents hired a series of what they called, or I
should say my mother she hired a series of what
she called the maids. And these were young girls who
mostly didn't speak English. They were Norwegian, and some of
(11:19):
them were okay, we're nice, and some of them were
not nice at all, and you know, not good, not good.
So I was alone a lot, and I really do think,
you know, for me drawing and making stuff up, writing, drawing,
making up worlds, making up words, creating in my head
(11:43):
little things that I would draw out. This was a
way of you know, not going crazy, sort of yes,
keep being entertained.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And that's the truth for a lot of artists, you know,
you find this kind of soulas this kind of comfort
in creating your own little world. Yeah, Oz, Like, do
you ever get a sense of ecstasy from it? Do
you ever get an amazing feeling of fulfillment from your work?
Because it was an escape for you, right and it
(12:12):
was made it okay for you? Did it ever make
it like wonderful for you?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I feel so lucky. I cannot even you know, tell you.
I mean, it just sounds so corny, but I do
feel that things have happened that I really did not expect,
you know, one was getting picked up by The New Yorker.
When I was twenty three. I thought like, maybe I
would draw cartoons for the Village Voice. That was my
sort of goal. I submitted to The New Yorker only
(12:41):
because my parents subscribed and I knew they used cartoons,
but I never thought that they would ever take anything.
And I didn't really know what I was doing. I
didn't know who the editor was I didn't know who
the art editor was. I didn't know how to really
do this. I called them up, you know, because that
was back in the day you could actually call and
talk to a person. And they said, if you are
(13:04):
not on staff, you put all of your cartoons in
an envelope and you drop them off and then you
picked them up the next week. And so that's pretty
much what I did, and they they bought one right away,
which is weird and wow, very unusual. Yeah, and then
at the end of that year they put me under contract.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Unbelievable. So what exactly was it that made you think
when you were this kid and looking for this place
of your own, this world of your own, what made
you go, Wow, cartoons, you know, that's what I want
to do. Did you go to school for cartoons? Is
there like a PhD you can get in cartooning? Like, seriously,
(13:45):
there probably is now.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I mean I went to I went to Rhode Island
School of Design. But that was the only time in
my life since I was maybe thirteen, that I didn't
draw cartoons. I think when I was around thirteen that
was when I started to really get pulled in that
direction cartoons into cartooning. But there were so many things
about cartoons that I loved. I loved that it was
(14:08):
drawing and writing, you know, and I didn't have to
choose one over the other. I could do both. And
also it seemed like a very flexible medium. For some reason,
I felt like you could like make up how you
did it, Like you didn't have to draw like one
of those newspaper strips with the big noses, because I
(14:30):
didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do like,
you know, Jimbo and Bimbo and you know, there you
go to the butcher store and then he slips like
you know, and that just goes on, you know, into infinity.
And that was like definitely not me. And the underground comics,
which I guess I started seeing when I was about
(14:50):
thirteen or fourteen, I liked them a lot. I thought
they were amazing.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Like that you're talking about all that.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Kind of stuff, zap comics. I thought it was hilarious, wonderful.
I didn't have words for it back then, but I
think they were like extremely male, right, and like the
women were like sort of these side characters. They were
just really basically there to be fucked.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Can I say that, yes, please absolutely, especially our crumb
I mean boy that Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
It was really basically like the women were there to
either be skulds or to be.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Bitches, or to be.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Fucked or like to be touched or you know, they
were never yes, three dimensional people, So there was something
about that. And also like in some way I sort
of knew like the hippie thing, Like this is gonna
sound horrible, but remember this thing where there were like
these like cloth belts and like they would hold these
(15:47):
like dirty bell bottoms, and it was like there was
something so repulsive to me about that look. And I
don't know, and like the women with like the headband,
and I just the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Was like it I didn't didn't tell you seventies was
not hippy. Look.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I didn't like it, No, it didn't. Did not like it.
There was something about it that like creeped me out,
that looked like dirty or something.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I love the disco look, listen. I love a disco look.
I love a roller skate with a side pony and
a frizz. I love that. But the dirty thing, I
never liked it. I'm not into that.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I never liked it. Never liked a little little creepy Yeah,
the disco thing I like. Also, I knew that wasn't
really gonna you know, I mean the side ponytail. I
have enough troubles, you know, I don't need to add
to look like possibly not insane like for me is
(16:44):
a lot, you know, like, look, I'm my T shirt
has it has an ostrich on it. It's like, I
don't need to add to my problems at a side
ponytail to this just adds to like, Okay, this is
like a very eccentric and horrible person.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So back to this idea. You were drawn into cartooning by, yes,
I think by stuff by Witch who, Mad Magazine.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Mad Magazine, Charles Adams, Gay and Wilson. There were a
lot of New Yorker people actually whose work I really like.
And also I liked funny, you know, I liked making
jokes and not like jokes like those newspaper jokes.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
But political cartooning did were you turned on by that?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Not really political cartooning. I wasn't that interested in that.
I liked like the way Mad Magazine made fun of
the culture, you know, because these were guys that looked
at those ads on TV and they just sort of
saw right through them, and they made fun of pop
culture in a way that nobody else at the time
was doing. But I just loved that stuff made me
(17:54):
laugh and laugh those fake ads that they had in
Mad Magazine.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Mad Magazine was the most fabulous thing. I have to say. Oh,
one of my dear old friends is this person called
Liz Kurtzman, and her dad was the fabulous her Carvey Kurtzman. Yeah.
I I never met Harvey, but I met his wife,
and I was very dear friends with Liz. She's still
in my life a little bit. But so you got
this breakout job. You sent some cartoons to the New Yorker,
(18:22):
and you got accepted. They bought one. Which one was it?
Can you? Can you remember it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Of course? It was probably the most personal of all
of them. I would never have predicted it. It was
something called Little Things, and it was the kind of
thing that like when I'm sitting at my desk and
I just am amusing myself and like making up these
little shapes and like giving them very serious like names,
(18:51):
like you know, this little thing, this is a chint. Really,
you know. I'll tell you about this if you're curious
about what a chint is you know, I'll make something I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Making draw at the end of the star and get
a piece of paper ready because you're gonna draw a
chen and hold it up to the camera. But go on, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, all right, and still I still love to, you know,
just make up nonsense kind of stuff. And so that's
that's the one they took. And in fact, when they
ran it, people got really upset really because it was
so different. There were people who canceled their subscription to
The New Yorker because they hated it so much. And
Lee Lorenz, who is the cartoon editor, told me years
(19:28):
later that one of the older cartoonists asked Lee whether
he owed my family money.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Wo wow, that is beautiful. Ras what a story.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, some of those old guys really didn't like me.
But then the good thing is that in years to come,
a few of them told me that when my first
stuff first started running, they really did not like my stuff,
like bordering on hating it, and then it was like
they started to kind of get it, and then they
start to love it, so they had to like do
(20:03):
a little adjusting.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Old story, Darling, the old story, right, they hate you,
and then they tolerate you, and then they love you.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, then they love you. They get worn.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Down exactly exactly. They catch up. They catch up. You know.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I've been asked, like, what was it weird being you know,
the only woman on staff at the New Yorker, And
it was like that was only one of like a
constellation of problems, you know. It was like that. It
was that I was ten years younger than everybody else,
probably most of all. I loved these older guys stuff,
(20:45):
but I didn't want to do that. I had my
own ideas of what I wanted to do, and it
wasn't drawing in their style, an imitation of that style
and an imitation of their gag. I had my own
sense of humor, you know, and I do right, And
that's what I wanted to do. That's the reason why
I became a cartoonist, not to like learn how to
(21:06):
draw you know, somebody else's type of cartoon, but to
my own right, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And it's very very specific, and it keeps going back
to the same thing. And I know you don't think so,
because I know you probably think every damn cartoon you
make is a breakthrough. Because that's what I think. And
then I go back in a month. Is it a
pink dress again? Is it a joke about your mother again?
You know what I mean? And you feel like you're
breaking through, but in fact you're doing like the same.
(21:34):
It really is like this world of Ra's chast.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
You're in your own world, whether you want to be
or not. I mean, and mostly not for me, but
that's sort of where you know where we are.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
So you were accepted by the New Yorker, right, and
then things started to pick up. Did you find yourself
like overwhelmed with stuff?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I do sometimes still every once in a while, like
you know, you feel like you're over committed and like
why did I say yes to this? But mostly mostly
I just feel so lucky that I got to make
a living doing pretty much the only thing I know
how to do. I mean, I can't do other things.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Did you ever have a job as a waitress or
a I don't know, ballet dancer, I don't know. Did
you ever do anything else? No?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I've never I have never done another job.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Wow, So noble, it's incredible.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I thought like you were going to say, that's just
you are so spoiled.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
No, I think it's amazing that you kind of followed
the star, Darling, you followed the star. Now tell me,
because I think the world knows you as this really
successful character, like this really successful artist. Was there a
setback in your career that taught you a lesson?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
I think that one of the worst things that ever
happened to me as far as confidence went, was going
to Rizzdy was going to art school, and it was
it was bad. I mean when I was there, this
(23:30):
was the seventies and cartooning was not a thing. And
I think for a lot of reasons. It was like,
you know, minimalism was very big, like Donald Judd or somebody.
You would do something like have like a wooden board
and lean it up against the wall and then write
like ten pages about in or I remember things where
(23:51):
like somebody would set up to like video monitors and
they'd be static or installation art or conceptual art. And
you know, traditional painting was bad enough, but cartooning was
not only you know, some sort of retrograde reactionary saying
of you know, using actual imagery, but you know it
(24:18):
was like pathetic because you were like wanting to make
people laugh. I mean, what could be more like tacky
and bad, and I just felt like at Rizzy this
was just not seen as something. It was just embarrassing
you were.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
You were socially kind of unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
If you were a cartoon was unacceptable and it was weird.
I stopped drawing cartoons. Then I became a painting major
and I got good grades and stuff, but I always
felt like, oh, I can't wait to stop doing this,
And by my last year I went back to drawing cartoons,
but secretly because the reactions that the cartoons got were
everything from disinterest to actual like negativity. I had a
(25:01):
teacher tell me, you know, ros, I don't think you'll
ever be happy, and it was like, well, honey, tell.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Me something I don't wow.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
I mean that goes back to childhood, and like what
can I do about that? You're not telling me something
I don't know already, and other just weird comments, you know,
who are you really as bored as all out? You know,
just all this stuff, and then the worst of all,
at risdie. There was actually this cartoon magazine that was
started by these boys and it was called.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Fred Fred What a hard name.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
I love the name, and it was these boys and
they thought they were like really good cartoonists and stuff,
and so I submitted and they rejected me right and
I cried and cried. I mean like I cried like
a little girl because I was broken. It was broken
(25:58):
in a million pieces. The thing that I learned from
this was that even if nobody likes my stuff, I'm
gonna do this. I'm going to keep drawing. And I
don't really care, you know what you think. I don't
care because I don't know what else to do with
(26:18):
my life. I can't not do this beautiful No.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah, that is such a great thing for our listeners
to hear. That's what I was kind of hoping I
would hear from you. You know. I remember I went
to Parsons and it was very confusing. Like my first
year at Parsons, I also felt like completely like an outsider,
and I adapted by the second year. I remember the
ones who didn't adapt and who kept failing, you know,
(26:45):
and I always used to look at their work and
think that's better than anything of these stars in the class,
you know what I mean? Yea, so fucked up and
so wrong and so like bad that it's good. You know.
There was something incredibly like I don't know what inspiring
about the shitty things that they were doing, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, yeah, well, you know, art school is a very
weird thing.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yes, I do, I do, I do, I do. And
one of my best friends in school, like we would
take figure drawing and the teacher would come up and
say to him like, oh, you know, you're not looking
and say, excuse me, I'm not looking, You're not looking.
And he failed everything, but he was so fabulous, this guy,
you know, and I was so inspired. Oh yes, oh yes.
And he became a huge success. He made more money
(27:31):
than everybody else in the class. No, I mean he's
a huge success, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I mean none of these guys in this friend magazine
ever became ever and none of them ever became cartoonists, right,
you know, I don't want any of them, And like,
if you think that, that doesn't make me happy, and
you don't know me.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
The little things, it's the little things lovely.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Now all right, wait a minute, now, could I bring
you back for a minute, because you live in your
own little world. It's the ras chast world that we
all love to look inside of sometimes. Right, do you
like the real world? Do you like living in the
actual world.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
I only know what it is from my point of view.
I assume we all live in our own little worlds,
right I do?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Is there you know what, like you are not someone
who takes kindly to you know, a restaurant, a new
restaurant where you know, everything is built in and there's
loud music and there that's the real world. And there
are people wearing designer clothes and crazy hairdooes and designer
bags and men and shirts and you know what I mean, right,
(28:43):
it's like the world, only the world. It's the world.
Tell me what you think about the world?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Sary.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's scary. It's so fucking scary. Raw's scary, and it's it's.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You have to stop making me laugh because I'm not
supposed to laugh like this. But it's really.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You know, I love New York so much, so I
don't know. I mean, the New York is the world
now for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
But like you see what I'm talking about. For every
one of our favorite restaurants that we used to go to,
or our favorite movie theaters or our favorite now you
can't find those. There are no more diners. There are
no more diners.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
For West Side as diners, and I love that. I
love the Upper West Side because I see people who
are older than me, which is kind of nice, you know,
and they're still like curmudgeonously walking along thinking their own
like curmudgeons th thoughts and like doing their errands. And
(29:50):
I think, you know, that's all right. I could I
could live with that, you know, being like eighty if
I am eighty something years old and walking around thinking like, yes,
fucking driving, by.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
The way, we're going to be eighty tomorrow. Roz. You
realize that, right, you do do? So I want to
get a little personal now I helpe, you don't mind.
Do you have more than one kid? Do you have
two kids?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
I have two kids. I have a boy who is
thirty six and he has two kids, So I am
I know.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Can we talk about this for a minute, because I
think this is a really worth talking about with you.
I've been a mother for many, many years. What was
that like being a mother and an artist?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It's hard. It's hard because, especially when my kids were little,
I felt like I was doing a really half assed
job at both of those things. But I'm so driven
to do this. It never occurred to me to stop drawing.
You know, I mean that it just was not really
(31:03):
an option. So yeah, I just kind of kept doing
it even if I didn't have the energy or the
time to you know, do as good a job as
I wanted to do. It was just like, let's just
keep going and it will get better, and it did.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Did you ever feel like you compromised your work sometimes?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah? Yeah, sometimes it was necessary. You know, you're working
on something and you have a deadline, and then something
happens and you have to deal with your kids, and
you know, suddenly like you know, you're you had budgeted, like,
you know, eight hours for this job, and now you've
got to do it in full right right, and you
have these choices. You call them up and you say
(31:43):
I can't do the job, or you okay, I will
just sit down and do it. And I look back
and sometimes I see things and I think if I
had had more time or like more brain cells or something,
you know, I could have done a better job. But
I didn't, And you know, I hate myself for it,
but those were the.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Choices, right And on the other side of it, do
you look back with any kind of regret of having children, know,
of having children and living the life you did. Where
do you live, by the way, you don't live in
New York anymore? Where did they grow up?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Suburban Connecticut? I'm about an hour and fifteen minutes north
of the city, and yeah, it's it's not my natural habitat.
I mean, for one thing, you have to drive. I
luckily we live in town because when we moved up here,
I didn't know how to drive, and I thought, there
is no way in hell am I moving to a
(32:38):
place where I can't walk to the library or you know,
walked at a quart of milk or something like that.
I'm not doing that. And I don't care about yards.
I don't care about land. I don't care about any
of that. But we moved here because, you know, it's
boring to say, but the schools are good, so and
we could afford it.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
So I just thought of this thing. Did you read
that book, the biography about Mary Rogers Cold Shy by Jesse.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
No, I haven't. I wanted them.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Well, you know, speaking of women who really tried to work.
She tried to be this songwriter, you know, and there's
a story in the book about how one of her
kids passed on. And it's not because of her negligence.
But anybody who has a kid who dies and who
is an artist is going to say that it's probably
because I was a negligent mother and that's why the
(33:24):
kid died. But that is not the truth. God knows
what the truth is. But I think it's the thing
you tell yourself, right as an artist, you blame everything
that didn't go right in your life with your kids
on your work, and I think you probably do the
converse as well, right, Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
It's hard to do. It's not the easiest thing to
do both.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Would you recommend it to somebody, I.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Think yeah, if you really want to have kids and
you want to have a creative life, yeah, I would
say if you can, you know, it's best to marry
somebody who is going to help you. Because my husband's
a writer and he's home a lot, and you know,
he didn't have to go to some super high powered,
(34:17):
you know, lawyer job, and that I think would have
completely capsized our little ship. You know, having a person
who could help in an emergency was more than helpful.
It was invaluable, you know, and necessary. So if you're
going to try to do this, I have children and
(34:38):
you're a woman and you want to have a career,
and or you're a creative person and you want to
have children, marry somebody who's going to help you some.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's a good piece of advice.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
You know, because otherwise it's it's hard enough with both kids.
But my kids are so they are both so great
and so important to me.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I'm gonna bring up this word, which is future right?
The future right? As an artist, do you ever sit
down and go like, I don't know what the fuck
to say about tomorrow? Are you ever stumped by the
future by like thinking about what to do next or
what is the next thing to come out of your mouth? Oh?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Constant? I mean yes, it's but it's again, it's kind
of like you know, walking, Like when you're walking and
then you concentrate too much on your walking or you're
breathing or something like that, and then you just feel like,
what is walking right? What is walking? And said you're
walking like, I don't even you ever have a walk,
you know, but a lot of I'm luckily, you know,
(35:47):
knock on a million pieces of wood. I don't look
super far ahead because it's just too fucking scary really
with everything, it's just too scary, but I think, Okay,
you know, I have these projects coming up, and you know,
I'm going to do a book tour for the Dreams book,
and you know, I think I look a little bit ahead,
(36:08):
but not like way, way way ahead, because there's just
so many variables, you really, you know, I mean, an
asteroid could come and like crash, we'd be dead.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Well, I mean, because my next question was going to
be darling, like what if you were someone's mother today
who wasn't an adult looking at the future. Do you
feel like as a mother you made your kids feel
safe about the future.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I hope. So I feel like there's a lot that
I couldn't lie to them about, you know, like, do
I have an extremely strong like religious you know set.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Do you believe in God? Do you believe in God?
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I am an agnostic, you know. I do believe that
there's stuff that we don't know, you know, and that
maybe when we were dead will know more or maybe not.
I mean, it's funny because Patty, I think, is absolutely
an atheist.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Patti Marki is a mutual friend of ours who writes
for The New Yorker for instance. She's also hilariously funny,
and you you women have a crazy ukulele thing going
on where you play the ukulelean do this amazing act,
which is one of the great things. But but what
were you going to say about Patty?
Speaker 1 (37:27):
I think she's a staunch atheist. I mean, the conversations
that I've had with her, you know, she really thinks
that like death is completely the end and that you're really,
you know, kidding yourself if you But I don't feel
that way, you know, I'm really it's a question mark
to me. And that's partly because of dreams. You know, dreaming,
(37:47):
which I think is just such an interesting state of consciousness,
which is sort of one of the things you know, that.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Motivates your work I think throughout from the beginning. Really,
I mean, you just had a boo about it. But
I feel like your work is really very very surreal
or something.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
It's about dreams, you know, it's about dreams and it's
about like that stuff like I don't know, you know,
people say like, and I'm sure you get this too,
like where do you get your idea?
Speaker 2 (38:15):
I hate that question, but it's a good question, I think, you.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Know, yeah, it's a very basic question. But like I
never know how to answer it. I have no idea
how to even talk about certain things like this in
actual words. It's just like more of a feeling. You know.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
When I look at your work, I think of it
as a form of poetry, you know, your work, your work,
because it's so hard to kind of categorize it. And
what I love the most about it is that I
do see a kind of silver lining in it. You know,
no matter how depressing and sad it is and how
(38:54):
low the expectations of the characters are in the work,
there's always this kind of like a full end note
and always hilarious, always hilarious.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Well, thanks, thanks. I mean I think, do you try
to tell or to communicate in some ways to my
kids that like, yeah, it's gonna be pretty much of
a ship show, but like somehow it's gonna be okay,
Or you can't always make it okay, but we're going
to try as much as we can make it okay.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yes, that's a good thought. Okay, tell me about Are
you obsessed with obits the way I am? Because I
wake up every single morning and I read the obits
the first thing I do. Oh yeah, yeah, Can you
talk about your own a bit like when you go,
what do you want the headline to be and what
do you want the article to be about?
Speaker 1 (39:45):
She drew funny pictures. I like that told funny stories.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, that's nice. I have to say, I didn't expect
you to be so kind of like hell bent or
obsessed with something about funny stuff. You know, I didn't
think it was that that you were really that kind
of tied to making people laugh, even though I can't
(40:12):
even look at you without laughing. I mean, like, you
just make me laugh when you open your mouth or
when I usually when I read one of your cartoons.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
But you're just picturing me with a side ponytail.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Exactly exactly, exactly exactly like.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Grown up women with like pigtails.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
That's about what it is.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
I have sent looked up sometimes like older woman with pigtails,
and the pictures just make me laugh and laugh.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Why would you look that up? By the way, I
love that you use the phrase look up as opposed
to google. Could please let you never use the word
google again and only say look up because you look
I do know what you mean by look up, darling.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
It's not yes, it is googling, but it's looking up
because it's like, you know, if you saw the list
of things that I You know, sometimes it does make.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Me laugh, but like look up like older women with pigtails.
It will crack you up, it will just I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
I'm still obsessed with what a chint is. Do you
have a piece of paper there and a pencil? Seriously
draw a chint for me. Okay, literally draw a chint.
Thank you so much, because I have to see what
that is.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
But well, I can't remember whether this is a chent
or a hack eb but.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I will well, whatever it is, draw it quickly. I
don't want to tax you too much. Okay, intends I'm
buying one of your books and you're signing it. Dear Isaac,
I love you. Here as a chin or a hackab?
What is that? Hold it up? It's a little Oh
look at that. It's like almost an ostrich with a
corkscrew tail. No, what is that? It's like a potato
(41:47):
with a flag.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
It's a chint. Well, darlings, this is a chant and
you can get a chant when you buy the chantz.
You can get ones with a little flag, or you
can get ones without the flag. The ones with the
flag are a little more expensive, but they're better.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Well, obviously, obviously, obviously, obviously, I'm so excited. I will
sleep so well tonight knowing what you just showed me. Okay,
so good.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
This was in your dreams.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
That is going to be in my dreams. Seriously. So.
By the way, if you want to see a picture
of the chant that she just drew, look at our Instagram.
So tell me what you want to promote on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I have a book coming out, a new book coming out.
It's called I Must Be Dreaming. It comes out October
twenty fourth, and it is about dreams and dreaming and
it has a lot of illustrated dreams that are sort
of like turned into cartoons in a way. And it's
about my relationship with dreams in my life. And also
(42:47):
it has some very interesting theories about dreams and what
they are. And I have to say, the jury is
still out. Nobody really knows for sure why we dream.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Well, I have to tell you I have the book.
You sent me an advance copy of the book with
a fantastic eye mask, et cetera. Really smart. Yes, I
love an eye mask, darling. But you know too, When
I saw that book, I thought, like, do you call
roz Chast an illustrator or do you call her a cartoonist?
(43:16):
What do you call yourself a cartoonists? Okay, yeah, good answer.
You are the best. Thank you so much. I love you.
I mean it.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I'm well me too, I love it.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, all right, well love you, love you. Well it
happened again, you know, Like I looked at roz Chast
and I just lost my shit and I just couldn't
stop laughing for you know whatever. It was the full
hour that we were talking. She literally makes me laugh
(43:47):
more than most people I know. And I'm not exactly
sure what it's about. Still, there's still this big mystery,
but I do think we got a glimpse into some
of it, you know. And what I have to say
is that I admire so much women who are artists
(44:08):
and who have children, you know. And I would say that,
like I didn't expect us to be talking about that,
but because I know her, I couldn't help asking her
that question. And I couldn't help sort of relating motherhood
to being an artist and being a poet in her case,
(44:30):
and also to think that one of our greatest national treasures,
as in Roschast and the work that she produced was
a product of her insisting that it was the only
thing she could do. She didn't plan, she didn't think,
she didn't really even study to be ros chast. She
(44:51):
just was and that's all that she could be in
her life. And I think that is such an incredible
lesson for us, all darlings. If you enjoyed this episode,
do me a favorite and tell someone, tell a friend,
tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell everyone you know. Okay,
(45:11):
and be sure to rate the show. I love rating stuff.
Go on and rate and review the show on Apple
Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes
such a gigantic difference, and like it takes a second,
so go on and do it. And if you want
more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow
(45:33):
the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast
And by the way, check me out on Instagram and
TikTok at. I am Isaac Msrahi. This is Isaac Mizrahi.
Thank you, I love you, and I never thought i'd
say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by
(45:56):
Imagine Audio awfully nice and I am entertain Hayman for iHeartMedia.
The series is hosted by me Isaac Musrahi Hello Isaac.
Is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse
Burton and John Assanti, and is executive produced by Ron Howard,
Brian Grazerkara Welker, and Nathan Cloke at Imagine, Audio production
(46:20):
management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson.
Original music composed by Ben Waltzer. A special thanks to
Neil Phelps and Sarah Katanak at i AM Entertainment
With these boys. They thought they were like really good
cartoonists and stuff, and so I submitted and they rejected me,
and I cried and cried. I think the thing that
I learned from this was that even if nobody likes
my stuff, I'm going to do this. I'm going to
(00:25):
keep drawing. And I don't really care what you think.
I don't care because I don't know what else to
do with my life. I can't not do this beautiful.
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi, and
in this episode I talked to famed New Yorker cartoonist
Ro's Chaste.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Hello Isaac. This is ros Chast and I'm calling to
say hi, and I'll talk to you soon. And it's
very sweaty and hot here.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I don't know about you, but since I'm a little boy,
the New Yorker is like a fixture in the Mizrahi
living room, and it is a worshiped, worshiped, worshiped institution.
I think like a lot of us were taught to
absolutely adore and worship that magazine. And since I am
(01:27):
a young adult, I read it cover to cover almost
every single week, and since then I've been noticing that
always my favorite cartoons are from ros Shast. I would
say that we met about fifteen years ago or something,
or twenty years ago. She was on my show and
we did this crazy, crazy cartoon together about Brooklyn, the
(01:51):
environs where we grew up. We grew up very very
close in proximity to each other. And since I met her,
her work has taken on an even more kind of
crucial and central space in my world. So in this episode,
I'm going to try to plumb the depths of my
(02:12):
friend Ross Chast. I'm going to try to get her
to give up a little of what makes her so
hilariously funny, if there is one specific thing, and what
makes her do what she does. So I'm really excited
about this. Let's get started. Ross Chast, Hi, how are you.
(02:38):
It's been a minute. You look through Your hair looks
really good. Did you just do something to it, like
cut it and color it or something.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I had it done? Oh, this is my natural color.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Not no.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I go to the place down the street and they
just do something to it and it's a really good color.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I have to say, I love it. Are you are
you even close to being a blonde in real life
or is it just.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh yeah, I was. When I was a kid, I
was a blonde. You can my eyebrows are basically invisible.
My mother thought I was born without eyebrows, because that
was you know, just but then you get older and
things kind of go a different direction.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Are you like, are you a stickler for these things?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Like?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Are you like a stickler for hair color? And for
like type font? What's your favorite type font? Darling?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I think it basically the basic one. The sansa is
that whatever you just go yeah, just go with the
basic one. I think because it's just it just is
easier to read or something. But I think probably when
I read books it might be Kaslon or ariol or something.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I would peg you as someone who was absolutely mad
about these little tiny things.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
For writing, for drawing, I see, and I have very
specific but somehow the email thing is just I want
it to be as sort of seamless as possible.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Do you still draw on paper?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Sometimes?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Sometimes no? Mostly still on paper partly because I like
it and I just like all my materials. I like
my pens, I like the inks, I like the brushes,
but I also have an iPad and an apple pencil,
and that works for some things, so I use both.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Do you keep a sketch pad by your bed or
something like? Do you have inspiration all the time? Or
are you a good person at keeping things?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
And then.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I keep paper. I keep paper with me all the time,
paper and pencil. I have a little pad in my
in my purse I keep, you know, for drawing and
or making notes if I have a cartoon idea or
something like that. And I do have a pad by
my bed because of the dreams, you know, and if
something is really good, I want to write it down.
(05:00):
But also you know, with dreams, if you don't write
it down right away or tell somebody right away, it will,
you know, evaporate absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So let's start with a little history about you. Okay,
you are from Brooklyn? Am I wrong?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Brooklyn?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
From Narci Brooklyn? Or from where are you from? Darling?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I should know from I think it's called Kensington. Now
do you know Ocean Parkway?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Do I know Ocean park Park?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yes, Ocean Parkway and Coney Island Avenue. I was on
a little street between those two and it was Webster Avenue,
which is a very tiny street, but it's near Newkirk Avenue.
So my stop was Newkirk Avenue, you know, And that
was down on East sixteenth Street, so the other side
(05:44):
of Coney Island Avenue on.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The D train on the D line on this street, Darling,
I was Avenue J. So I would take the M
train from Avenue J to Newkirk Avenue and switch to
the express train, the D train, which took me to it.
It's funny because those of us from Brooklyn have a
kind of a complex about being New Yorkers, right. We
(06:07):
want to say, like I was in Brooklyn, but I
was on the train every day from like the age
of thirteen going to high school, you know, right right
New York City person. I hate that I wasn't born
like in Greenwich Village, but I wasn't, you know, no
same here.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
And I used to feel very embarrassed about it, you know,
because remember the whole bridge and tunnel.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yes, uh I do, and you know, and.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I always felt like, deep down, I am, you know,
a bridge and tunnel person, and something would like give
it away, either the accent or like you know that
I never felt like I got anything right as far
as like the sort of attitude or the clothes or
anything like some there was this eight million tells, you know,
the ones that I was aware of and the ones
(06:51):
that I wasn't. That like New Kirky Avenue. Yeah, I
know you knew you.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well, Now tell me something. Did you go to school
in Brooklyn just go to high school college? What happened?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah? I went to a public school in Brooklyn all
the way high school. I went to Midward High School
all of that. My parents were teachers in the school system.
And it was deep Brooklyn. It was not Brooklyn Heights.
It was not like some neighborhood that's like Manhattan adjacent.
You know, you get to the Gates of Brooklyn and
then you have to travel aways in.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
In the borough Darling into.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The borough another forty five minutes into the.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Borough by the way, though, where we grew up right,
because we grew up in roughly the same area. Luckily
it's not Canarsi, Okay, because we're not going to even
talk about Canarsi. We as Knights will refer to Canarsie
as the farthest place, like it's farther than Spain. Canarsie
is like farther than Holland exactly. Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So I had a friend in the building. Her name
was Gail, and she and her family moved to Canarsi
and I never saw her again. I'm not kidding you.
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It was the funniest thing I've ever heard you ever say, Roz,
that is brilliant.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It was like she had moved to the Yukon. Also
with my parents, father never learned how to drive because
he was too anxious, and my mother did all the driving.
And this was so many centuries before GPS, and one
of my mother's fears was getting lost. And so we
(08:32):
had these well worn tracks in Brooklyn where she knew
how to drive, and then you would never depart, so
we could not go to Knarsi. She did not know
how to get to Canarsi. I mean, some neighborhoods you
really have to go with somebody with a car. Now,
I'm not much of a driver. I can drive like
locally around here, but I didn't learn to drive till
I left the city, and I basically hate it. I
(08:54):
hate cars. I hate driving. You know, it's just like
I'm worried about the steering wheel coming off, you know,
it's just me too, Me too. Yeah, cars are just
totally all agreed. But I'm fine with being a passenger.
So I have done a little bit exploring in a
car of neighborhoods that are very inaccessible by public transportation.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Darling, I want to talk to you about your parents
for a minute, can I Because a lot of your
cartoons kind of center on people that I think are
based probably on your parents, and often they are kind
of labeled this was my mother or this was my father, right,
So tell me about them. Tell me about your childhood
(09:35):
a little bit. Did you get along with them? Were
you a close family?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
No, My parents were very involved with each other. I
think that they saw each other as they really were soulmates,
and I think I was a little bit like a
third wheel or something. I think they really had no idea.
They had me very lately only child. I was an
(10:01):
only child. They had me when they were forty three,
which back then was very unusual. They had had a
baby before me that died, jeez. And I think like
my job was basically, don't die, you know, don't do
not die see well, you know, easy, yeah, whatever, just
don't die, don't don't get into trouble, don't give us
(10:23):
any show. And they both worked. I grew up in
this you know, small apartment, and I think they really
did not know what to do with a child. I mean,
I remember my parents at the beach. Never saw them
go in the water. They wore street clothes to the beach.
They were not in baby, they were like in, like
the same clothes that they would wear, like wall Bounds
(10:43):
or something.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Wald Bounds. Well that was our local supermarket, wall Bounds
hours too. Well wait a minute, now, tell me about
your childhood. Was it lonely? Do you consider yourself a
latch key kind of a thing or what it was?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Lonely? I was not a watch key kid, because again
this is part of you know, do not die. My
parents hired a series of what they called, or I
should say my mother she hired a series of what
she called the maids. And these were young girls who
mostly didn't speak English. They were Norwegian, and some of
(11:19):
them were okay, we're nice, and some of them were
not nice at all, and you know, not good, not good.
So I was alone a lot, and I really do think,
you know, for me drawing and making stuff up, writing, drawing,
making up worlds, making up words, creating in my head
(11:43):
little things that I would draw out. This was a
way of you know, not going crazy, sort of yes,
keep being entertained.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And that's the truth for a lot of artists, you know,
you find this kind of soulas this kind of comfort
in creating your own little world. Yeah, Oz, Like, do
you ever get a sense of ecstasy from it? Do
you ever get an amazing feeling of fulfillment from your work?
Because it was an escape for you, right and it
(12:12):
was made it okay for you? Did it ever make
it like wonderful for you?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I feel so lucky. I cannot even you know, tell you.
I mean, it just sounds so corny, but I do
feel that things have happened that I really did not expect,
you know, one was getting picked up by The New Yorker.
When I was twenty three. I thought like, maybe I
would draw cartoons for the Village Voice. That was my
sort of goal. I submitted to The New Yorker only
(12:41):
because my parents subscribed and I knew they used cartoons,
but I never thought that they would ever take anything.
And I didn't really know what I was doing. I
didn't know who the editor was I didn't know who
the art editor was. I didn't know how to really
do this. I called them up, you know, because that
was back in the day you could actually call and
talk to a person. And they said, if you are
(13:04):
not on staff, you put all of your cartoons in
an envelope and you drop them off and then you
picked them up the next week. And so that's pretty
much what I did, and they they bought one right away,
which is weird and wow, very unusual. Yeah, and then
at the end of that year they put me under contract.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Unbelievable. So what exactly was it that made you think
when you were this kid and looking for this place
of your own, this world of your own, what made
you go, Wow, cartoons, you know, that's what I want
to do. Did you go to school for cartoons? Is
there like a PhD you can get in cartooning? Like, seriously,
(13:45):
there probably is now.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I mean I went to I went to Rhode Island
School of Design. But that was the only time in
my life since I was maybe thirteen, that I didn't
draw cartoons. I think when I was around thirteen that
was when I started to really get pulled in that
direction cartoons into cartooning. But there were so many things
about cartoons that I loved. I loved that it was
(14:08):
drawing and writing, you know, and I didn't have to
choose one over the other. I could do both. And
also it seemed like a very flexible medium. For some reason,
I felt like you could like make up how you
did it, Like you didn't have to draw like one
of those newspaper strips with the big noses, because I
(14:30):
didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do like,
you know, Jimbo and Bimbo and you know, there you
go to the butcher store and then he slips like
you know, and that just goes on, you know, into infinity.
And that was like definitely not me. And the underground comics,
which I guess I started seeing when I was about
(14:50):
thirteen or fourteen, I liked them a lot. I thought
they were amazing.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Like that you're talking about all that.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Kind of stuff, zap comics. I thought it was hilarious, wonderful.
I didn't have words for it back then, but I
think they were like extremely male, right, and like the
women were like sort of these side characters. They were
just really basically there to be fucked.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Can I say that, yes, please absolutely, especially our crumb
I mean boy that Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
It was really basically like the women were there to
either be skulds or to be.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Bitches, or to be.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Fucked or like to be touched or you know, they
were never yes, three dimensional people, So there was something
about that. And also like in some way I sort
of knew like the hippie thing, Like this is gonna
sound horrible, but remember this thing where there were like
these like cloth belts and like they would hold these
(15:47):
like dirty bell bottoms, and it was like there was
something so repulsive to me about that look. And I
don't know, and like the women with like the headband,
and I just the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Was like it I didn't didn't tell you seventies was
not hippy. Look.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I didn't like it, No, it didn't. Did not like it.
There was something about it that like creeped me out,
that looked like dirty or something.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I love the disco look, listen. I love a disco look.
I love a roller skate with a side pony and
a frizz. I love that. But the dirty thing, I
never liked it. I'm not into that.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I never liked it. Never liked a little little creepy Yeah,
the disco thing I like. Also, I knew that wasn't
really gonna you know, I mean the side ponytail. I
have enough troubles, you know, I don't need to add
to look like possibly not insane like for me is
(16:44):
a lot, you know, like, look, I'm my T shirt
has it has an ostrich on it. It's like, I
don't need to add to my problems at a side
ponytail to this just adds to like, Okay, this is
like a very eccentric and horrible person.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So back to this idea. You were drawn into cartooning by, yes,
I think by stuff by Witch who, Mad Magazine.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Mad Magazine, Charles Adams, Gay and Wilson. There were a
lot of New Yorker people actually whose work I really like.
And also I liked funny, you know, I liked making
jokes and not like jokes like those newspaper jokes.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
But political cartooning did were you turned on by that?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Not really political cartooning. I wasn't that interested in that.
I liked like the way Mad Magazine made fun of
the culture, you know, because these were guys that looked
at those ads on TV and they just sort of
saw right through them, and they made fun of pop
culture in a way that nobody else at the time
was doing. But I just loved that stuff made me
(17:54):
laugh and laugh those fake ads that they had in
Mad Magazine.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Mad Magazine was the most fabulous thing. I have to say. Oh,
one of my dear old friends is this person called
Liz Kurtzman, and her dad was the fabulous her Carvey Kurtzman. Yeah.
I I never met Harvey, but I met his wife,
and I was very dear friends with Liz. She's still
in my life a little bit. But so you got
this breakout job. You sent some cartoons to the New Yorker,
(18:22):
and you got accepted. They bought one. Which one was it?
Can you? Can you remember it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Of course? It was probably the most personal of all
of them. I would never have predicted it. It was
something called Little Things, and it was the kind of
thing that like when I'm sitting at my desk and
I just am amusing myself and like making up these
little shapes and like giving them very serious like names,
(18:51):
like you know, this little thing, this is a chint. Really,
you know. I'll tell you about this if you're curious
about what a chint is you know, I'll make something I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Making draw at the end of the star and get
a piece of paper ready because you're gonna draw a
chen and hold it up to the camera. But go on, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, all right, and still I still love to, you know,
just make up nonsense kind of stuff. And so that's
that's the one they took. And in fact, when they
ran it, people got really upset really because it was
so different. There were people who canceled their subscription to
The New Yorker because they hated it so much. And
Lee Lorenz, who is the cartoon editor, told me years
(19:28):
later that one of the older cartoonists asked Lee whether
he owed my family money.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Wo wow, that is beautiful. Ras what a story.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, some of those old guys really didn't like me.
But then the good thing is that in years to come,
a few of them told me that when my first
stuff first started running, they really did not like my stuff,
like bordering on hating it, and then it was like
they started to kind of get it, and then they
start to love it, so they had to like do
(20:03):
a little adjusting.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Old story, Darling, the old story, right, they hate you,
and then they tolerate you, and then they love you.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, then they love you. They get worn.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Down exactly exactly. They catch up. They catch up. You know.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I've been asked, like, what was it weird being you know,
the only woman on staff at the New Yorker, And
it was like that was only one of like a
constellation of problems, you know. It was like that. It
was that I was ten years younger than everybody else,
probably most of all. I loved these older guys stuff,
(20:45):
but I didn't want to do that. I had my
own ideas of what I wanted to do, and it
wasn't drawing in their style, an imitation of that style
and an imitation of their gag. I had my own
sense of humor, you know, and I do right, And
that's what I wanted to do. That's the reason why
I became a cartoonist, not to like learn how to
(21:06):
draw you know, somebody else's type of cartoon, but to
my own right, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And it's very very specific, and it keeps going back
to the same thing. And I know you don't think so,
because I know you probably think every damn cartoon you
make is a breakthrough. Because that's what I think. And
then I go back in a month. Is it a
pink dress again? Is it a joke about your mother again?
You know what I mean? And you feel like you're
breaking through, but in fact you're doing like the same.
(21:34):
It really is like this world of Ra's chast.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
You're in your own world, whether you want to be
or not. I mean, and mostly not for me, but
that's sort of where you know where we are.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
So you were accepted by the New Yorker, right, and
then things started to pick up. Did you find yourself
like overwhelmed with stuff?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I do sometimes still every once in a while, like
you know, you feel like you're over committed and like
why did I say yes to this? But mostly mostly
I just feel so lucky that I got to make
a living doing pretty much the only thing I know
how to do. I mean, I can't do other things.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Did you ever have a job as a waitress or
a I don't know, ballet dancer, I don't know. Did
you ever do anything else? No?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I've never I have never done another job.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Wow, So noble, it's incredible.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I thought like you were going to say, that's just
you are so spoiled.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
No, I think it's amazing that you kind of followed
the star, Darling, you followed the star. Now tell me,
because I think the world knows you as this really
successful character, like this really successful artist. Was there a
setback in your career that taught you a lesson?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
I think that one of the worst things that ever
happened to me as far as confidence went, was going
to Rizzdy was going to art school, and it was
it was bad. I mean when I was there, this
(23:30):
was the seventies and cartooning was not a thing. And
I think for a lot of reasons. It was like,
you know, minimalism was very big, like Donald Judd or somebody.
You would do something like have like a wooden board
and lean it up against the wall and then write
like ten pages about in or I remember things where
(23:51):
like somebody would set up to like video monitors and
they'd be static or installation art or conceptual art. And
you know, traditional painting was bad enough, but cartooning was
not only you know, some sort of retrograde reactionary saying
of you know, using actual imagery, but you know it
(24:18):
was like pathetic because you were like wanting to make
people laugh. I mean, what could be more like tacky
and bad, and I just felt like at Rizzy this
was just not seen as something. It was just embarrassing
you were.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
You were socially kind of unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
If you were a cartoon was unacceptable and it was weird.
I stopped drawing cartoons. Then I became a painting major
and I got good grades and stuff, but I always
felt like, oh, I can't wait to stop doing this,
And by my last year I went back to drawing cartoons,
but secretly because the reactions that the cartoons got were
everything from disinterest to actual like negativity. I had a
(25:01):
teacher tell me, you know, ros, I don't think you'll
ever be happy, and it was like, well, honey, tell.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Me something I don't wow.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
I mean that goes back to childhood, and like what
can I do about that? You're not telling me something
I don't know already, and other just weird comments, you know,
who are you really as bored as all out? You know,
just all this stuff, and then the worst of all,
at risdie. There was actually this cartoon magazine that was
started by these boys and it was called.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Fred Fred What a hard name.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
I love the name, and it was these boys and
they thought they were like really good cartoonists and stuff,
and so I submitted and they rejected me right and
I cried and cried. I mean like I cried like
a little girl because I was broken. It was broken
(25:58):
in a million pieces. The thing that I learned from
this was that even if nobody likes my stuff, I'm
gonna do this. I'm going to keep drawing. And I
don't really care, you know what you think. I don't
care because I don't know what else to do with
(26:18):
my life. I can't not do this beautiful No.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah, that is such a great thing for our listeners
to hear. That's what I was kind of hoping I
would hear from you. You know. I remember I went
to Parsons and it was very confusing. Like my first
year at Parsons, I also felt like completely like an outsider,
and I adapted by the second year. I remember the
ones who didn't adapt and who kept failing, you know,
(26:45):
and I always used to look at their work and
think that's better than anything of these stars in the class,
you know what I mean? Yea, so fucked up and
so wrong and so like bad that it's good. You know.
There was something incredibly like I don't know what inspiring
about the shitty things that they were doing, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, yeah, well, you know, art school is a very
weird thing.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yes, I do, I do, I do, I do. And
one of my best friends in school, like we would
take figure drawing and the teacher would come up and
say to him like, oh, you know, you're not looking
and say, excuse me, I'm not looking, You're not looking.
And he failed everything, but he was so fabulous, this guy,
you know, and I was so inspired. Oh yes, oh yes.
And he became a huge success. He made more money
(27:31):
than everybody else in the class. No, I mean he's
a huge success, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I mean none of these guys in this friend magazine
ever became ever and none of them ever became cartoonists, right,
you know, I don't want any of them, And like,
if you think that, that doesn't make me happy, and
you don't know me.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
The little things, it's the little things lovely.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Now all right, wait a minute, now, could I bring
you back for a minute, because you live in your
own little world. It's the ras chast world that we
all love to look inside of sometimes. Right, do you
like the real world? Do you like living in the
actual world.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
I only know what it is from my point of view.
I assume we all live in our own little worlds,
right I do?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Is there you know what, like you are not someone
who takes kindly to you know, a restaurant, a new
restaurant where you know, everything is built in and there's
loud music and there that's the real world. And there
are people wearing designer clothes and crazy hairdooes and designer
bags and men and shirts and you know what I mean, right,
(28:43):
it's like the world, only the world. It's the world.
Tell me what you think about the world?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Sary.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's scary. It's so fucking scary. Raw's scary, and it's it's.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You have to stop making me laugh because I'm not
supposed to laugh like this. But it's really.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You know, I love New York so much, so I
don't know. I mean, the New York is the world
now for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
But like you see what I'm talking about. For every
one of our favorite restaurants that we used to go to,
or our favorite movie theaters or our favorite now you
can't find those. There are no more diners. There are
no more diners.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
For West Side as diners, and I love that. I
love the Upper West Side because I see people who
are older than me, which is kind of nice, you know,
and they're still like curmudgeonously walking along thinking their own
like curmudgeons th thoughts and like doing their errands. And
(29:50):
I think, you know, that's all right. I could I
could live with that, you know, being like eighty if
I am eighty something years old and walking around thinking like, yes,
fucking driving, by.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
The way, we're going to be eighty tomorrow. Roz. You
realize that, right, you do do? So I want to
get a little personal now I helpe, you don't mind.
Do you have more than one kid? Do you have
two kids?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
I have two kids. I have a boy who is
thirty six and he has two kids, So I am
I know.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Can we talk about this for a minute, because I
think this is a really worth talking about with you.
I've been a mother for many, many years. What was
that like being a mother and an artist?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It's hard. It's hard because, especially when my kids were little,
I felt like I was doing a really half assed
job at both of those things. But I'm so driven
to do this. It never occurred to me to stop drawing.
You know, I mean that it just was not really
(31:03):
an option. So yeah, I just kind of kept doing
it even if I didn't have the energy or the
time to you know, do as good a job as
I wanted to do. It was just like, let's just
keep going and it will get better, and it did.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Did you ever feel like you compromised your work sometimes?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah? Yeah, sometimes it was necessary. You know, you're working
on something and you have a deadline, and then something
happens and you have to deal with your kids, and
you know, suddenly like you know, you're you had budgeted, like,
you know, eight hours for this job, and now you've
got to do it in full right right, and you
have these choices. You call them up and you say
(31:43):
I can't do the job, or you okay, I will
just sit down and do it. And I look back
and sometimes I see things and I think if I
had had more time or like more brain cells or something,
you know, I could have done a better job. But
I didn't, And you know, I hate myself for it,
but those were the.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Choices, right And on the other side of it, do
you look back with any kind of regret of having children, know,
of having children and living the life you did. Where
do you live, by the way, you don't live in
New York anymore? Where did they grow up?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Suburban Connecticut? I'm about an hour and fifteen minutes north
of the city, and yeah, it's it's not my natural habitat.
I mean, for one thing, you have to drive. I
luckily we live in town because when we moved up here,
I didn't know how to drive, and I thought, there
is no way in hell am I moving to a
(32:38):
place where I can't walk to the library or you know,
walked at a quart of milk or something like that.
I'm not doing that. And I don't care about yards.
I don't care about land. I don't care about any
of that. But we moved here because, you know, it's
boring to say, but the schools are good, so and
we could afford it.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
So I just thought of this thing. Did you read
that book, the biography about Mary Rogers Cold Shy by Jesse.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
No, I haven't. I wanted them.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Well, you know, speaking of women who really tried to work.
She tried to be this songwriter, you know, and there's
a story in the book about how one of her
kids passed on. And it's not because of her negligence.
But anybody who has a kid who dies and who
is an artist is going to say that it's probably
because I was a negligent mother and that's why the
(33:24):
kid died. But that is not the truth. God knows
what the truth is. But I think it's the thing
you tell yourself, right as an artist, you blame everything
that didn't go right in your life with your kids
on your work, and I think you probably do the
converse as well, right, Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
It's hard to do. It's not the easiest thing to
do both.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Would you recommend it to somebody, I.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Think yeah, if you really want to have kids and
you want to have a creative life, yeah, I would
say if you can, you know, it's best to marry
somebody who is going to help you. Because my husband's
a writer and he's home a lot, and you know,
he didn't have to go to some super high powered,
(34:17):
you know, lawyer job, and that I think would have
completely capsized our little ship. You know, having a person
who could help in an emergency was more than helpful.
It was invaluable, you know, and necessary. So if you're
going to try to do this, I have children and
(34:38):
you're a woman and you want to have a career,
and or you're a creative person and you want to
have children, marry somebody who's going to help you some.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's a good piece of advice.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
You know, because otherwise it's it's hard enough with both kids.
But my kids are so they are both so great
and so important to me.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I'm gonna bring up this word, which is future right?
The future right? As an artist, do you ever sit
down and go like, I don't know what the fuck
to say about tomorrow? Are you ever stumped by the
future by like thinking about what to do next or
what is the next thing to come out of your mouth? Oh?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Constant? I mean yes, it's but it's again, it's kind
of like you know, walking, Like when you're walking and
then you concentrate too much on your walking or you're
breathing or something like that, and then you just feel like,
what is walking right? What is walking? And said you're
walking like, I don't even you ever have a walk,
you know, but a lot of I'm luckily, you know,
(35:47):
knock on a million pieces of wood. I don't look
super far ahead because it's just too fucking scary really
with everything, it's just too scary, but I think, Okay,
you know, I have these projects coming up, and you know,
I'm going to do a book tour for the Dreams book,
and you know, I think I look a little bit ahead,
(36:08):
but not like way, way way ahead, because there's just
so many variables, you really, you know, I mean, an
asteroid could come and like crash, we'd be dead.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Well, I mean, because my next question was going to
be darling, like what if you were someone's mother today
who wasn't an adult looking at the future. Do you
feel like as a mother you made your kids feel
safe about the future.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I hope. So I feel like there's a lot that
I couldn't lie to them about, you know, like, do
I have an extremely strong like religious you know set.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Do you believe in God? Do you believe in God?
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I am an agnostic, you know. I do believe that
there's stuff that we don't know, you know, and that
maybe when we were dead will know more or maybe not.
I mean, it's funny because Patty, I think, is absolutely
an atheist.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Patti Marki is a mutual friend of ours who writes
for The New Yorker for instance. She's also hilariously funny,
and you you women have a crazy ukulele thing going
on where you play the ukulelean do this amazing act,
which is one of the great things. But but what
were you going to say about Patty?
Speaker 1 (37:27):
I think she's a staunch atheist. I mean, the conversations
that I've had with her, you know, she really thinks
that like death is completely the end and that you're really,
you know, kidding yourself if you But I don't feel
that way, you know, I'm really it's a question mark
to me. And that's partly because of dreams. You know, dreaming,
(37:47):
which I think is just such an interesting state of consciousness,
which is sort of one of the things you know, that.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Motivates your work I think throughout from the beginning. Really,
I mean, you just had a boo about it. But
I feel like your work is really very very surreal
or something.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
It's about dreams, you know, it's about dreams and it's
about like that stuff like I don't know, you know,
people say like, and I'm sure you get this too,
like where do you get your idea?
Speaker 2 (38:15):
I hate that question, but it's a good question, I think, you.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Know, yeah, it's a very basic question. But like I
never know how to answer it. I have no idea
how to even talk about certain things like this in
actual words. It's just like more of a feeling. You know.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
When I look at your work, I think of it
as a form of poetry, you know, your work, your work,
because it's so hard to kind of categorize it. And
what I love the most about it is that I
do see a kind of silver lining in it. You know,
no matter how depressing and sad it is and how
(38:54):
low the expectations of the characters are in the work,
there's always this kind of like a full end note
and always hilarious, always hilarious.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Well, thanks, thanks. I mean I think, do you try
to tell or to communicate in some ways to my
kids that like, yeah, it's gonna be pretty much of
a ship show, but like somehow it's gonna be okay,
Or you can't always make it okay, but we're going
to try as much as we can make it okay.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yes, that's a good thought. Okay, tell me about Are
you obsessed with obits the way I am? Because I
wake up every single morning and I read the obits
the first thing I do. Oh yeah, yeah, Can you
talk about your own a bit like when you go,
what do you want the headline to be and what
do you want the article to be about?
Speaker 1 (39:45):
She drew funny pictures. I like that told funny stories.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, that's nice. I have to say, I didn't expect
you to be so kind of like hell bent or
obsessed with something about funny stuff. You know, I didn't
think it was that that you were really that kind
of tied to making people laugh, even though I can't
(40:12):
even look at you without laughing. I mean, like, you
just make me laugh when you open your mouth or
when I usually when I read one of your cartoons.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
But you're just picturing me with a side ponytail.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Exactly exactly, exactly exactly like.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Grown up women with like pigtails.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
That's about what it is.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
I have sent looked up sometimes like older woman with pigtails,
and the pictures just make me laugh and laugh.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Why would you look that up? By the way, I
love that you use the phrase look up as opposed
to google. Could please let you never use the word
google again and only say look up because you look
I do know what you mean by look up, darling.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
It's not yes, it is googling, but it's looking up
because it's like, you know, if you saw the list
of things that I You know, sometimes it does make.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Me laugh, but like look up like older women with pigtails.
It will crack you up, it will just I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
I'm still obsessed with what a chint is. Do you
have a piece of paper there and a pencil? Seriously
draw a chint for me. Okay, literally draw a chint.
Thank you so much, because I have to see what
that is.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
But well, I can't remember whether this is a chent
or a hack eb but.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I will well, whatever it is, draw it quickly. I
don't want to tax you too much. Okay, intends I'm
buying one of your books and you're signing it. Dear Isaac,
I love you. Here as a chin or a hackab?
What is that? Hold it up? It's a little Oh
look at that. It's like almost an ostrich with a
corkscrew tail. No, what is that? It's like a potato
(41:47):
with a flag.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
It's a chint. Well, darlings, this is a chant and
you can get a chant when you buy the chantz.
You can get ones with a little flag, or you
can get ones without the flag. The ones with the
flag are a little more expensive, but they're better.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Well, obviously, obviously, obviously, obviously, I'm so excited. I will
sleep so well tonight knowing what you just showed me. Okay,
so good.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
This was in your dreams.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
That is going to be in my dreams. Seriously. So.
By the way, if you want to see a picture
of the chant that she just drew, look at our Instagram.
So tell me what you want to promote on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I have a book coming out, a new book coming out.
It's called I Must Be Dreaming. It comes out October
twenty fourth, and it is about dreams and dreaming and
it has a lot of illustrated dreams that are sort
of like turned into cartoons in a way. And it's
about my relationship with dreams in my life. And also
(42:47):
it has some very interesting theories about dreams and what
they are. And I have to say, the jury is
still out. Nobody really knows for sure why we dream.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Well, I have to tell you I have the book.
You sent me an advance copy of the book with
a fantastic eye mask, et cetera. Really smart. Yes, I
love an eye mask, darling. But you know too, When
I saw that book, I thought, like, do you call
roz Chast an illustrator or do you call her a cartoonist?
(43:16):
What do you call yourself a cartoonists? Okay, yeah, good answer.
You are the best. Thank you so much. I love you.
I mean it.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I'm well me too, I love it.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, all right, well love you, love you. Well it
happened again, you know, Like I looked at roz Chast
and I just lost my shit and I just couldn't
stop laughing for you know whatever. It was the full
hour that we were talking. She literally makes me laugh
(43:47):
more than most people I know. And I'm not exactly
sure what it's about. Still, there's still this big mystery,
but I do think we got a glimpse into some
of it, you know. And what I have to say
is that I admire so much women who are artists
(44:08):
and who have children, you know. And I would say that,
like I didn't expect us to be talking about that,
but because I know her, I couldn't help asking her
that question. And I couldn't help sort of relating motherhood
to being an artist and being a poet in her case,
(44:30):
and also to think that one of our greatest national treasures,
as in Roschast and the work that she produced was
a product of her insisting that it was the only
thing she could do. She didn't plan, she didn't think,
she didn't really even study to be ros chast. She
(44:51):
just was and that's all that she could be in
her life. And I think that is such an incredible
lesson for us, all darlings. If you enjoyed this episode,
do me a favorite and tell someone, tell a friend,
tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell everyone you know. Okay,
(45:11):
and be sure to rate the show. I love rating stuff.
Go on and rate and review the show on Apple
Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes
such a gigantic difference, and like it takes a second,
so go on and do it. And if you want
more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow
(45:33):
the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast
And by the way, check me out on Instagram and
TikTok at. I am Isaac Msrahi. This is Isaac Mizrahi.
Thank you, I love you, and I never thought i'd
say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by
(45:56):
Imagine Audio awfully nice and I am entertain Hayman for iHeartMedia.
The series is hosted by me Isaac Musrahi Hello Isaac.
Is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse
Burton and John Assanti, and is executive produced by Ron Howard,
Brian Grazerkara Welker, and Nathan Cloke at Imagine, Audio production
(46:20):
management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson.
Original music composed by Ben Waltzer. A special thanks to
Neil Phelps and Sarah Katanak at i AM Entertainment
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