{"id":8170,"date":"2014-09-08T21:27:15","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T01:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=8170"},"modified":"2014-09-09T09:04:06","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T13:04:06","slug":"podchast-parental-guidance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podchast-parental-guidance","title":{"rendered":"Podchast – Parental Guidance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_1973\"<\/p>\n

Virtual Memories Show: Roz Chast\u00a0– Parental Guidance<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Season_4_Episode_34_-_Parental_Guidance.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“Starting out at The New Yorker<\/em> at 23, I thought, ‘If I draw really small, this won’t bother people too much.’ My editor told me it wasn’t just readers, but some of the older cartoonists really hated my stuff. One of them asked him if he owed my family money.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Roz Chast<\/a> is one of the best-known cartoonists around, famed for her New Yorker<\/em> gag panels and comic strips about anxiety, neurosis, phobia, parental insanity, and a ton of other symptoms of our worried age. This year, she published her first long-form book, a 240-page graphic memoir about her parents’ final years called Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir<\/a>\"\"\u00a0(Bloomsbury). We talk about her parents, the joy of doing a book-length project, whether her folks\u00a0ever got<\/em> her humor, how her shrink enabled her to structure the\u00a0book, and her two biggest pieces of advice for people with elderly parents. Along, the way, we try to answer the question, “Why do old people hold onto decades-old checkbooks?”<\/em><\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Season_4_Episode_34_-_Parental_Guidance.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“My mother didn’t read books about child-rearing. She was\u00a0an educator, so it was sort of surprising. Maybe she felt she knew it all. And she did . . . as an assistant principal. But being an assistant principal is not the same as being a parent. It’s really, REALLY different. They almost have nothing in common.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We also talk about her history in cartooning, why drawing chops aren’t the be-all and end-all, what makes her laugh, the best advice she ever got (from Sam Gross), and her love of Disco, the talking parakeet<\/a>. Bonus: We bond over our neuroses and I talk a lot! Maybe that’s more like a minus than a bonus. Whatever.<\/em><\/p>\n

Enjoy the conversation!<\/a>\u00a0Then check out\u00a0the archives<\/a>\u00a0for more great episodes! Related conversations:<\/p>\n