Roz Chast

12/10/23 • 74 min

Since 1978, when her very first cartoon appeared in The New Yorker Magazine, Roz Chast has been chronicling modern life’s anxieties and absurdities. Neurotic characters with frizzy hair and mouths agape sit on sofas or walk along New York sidewalks worrying, observing, and making us laugh. Her more than a dozen books include Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, a memoir about her parents aging, and a collaboration with Steve Martin called The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!. On November 2, 2023 Chast came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to share stories from her newest book, I Must Be Dreaming.

Previous Episode

Werner Herzog

This week, legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog. He’s made over 70 movies – most of them documentaries like Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and Grizzly Man. Herzog’s style is so distinctive that his films are recognizable practically from the moment they start. His techniques can be controversial too, when it comes to his unusual casting, and his own presence in the stories he’s telling. On Oct 21st, 2023, Herzog came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Caterina Fake about filmmaking and writing, including his new memoir, Every Man for Himself and God Against All.

Next Episode

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Viet Thanh Nguyen's debut novel, The Sympathizer, earned him the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Now he’s written A Man of Two Faces. It’s a memoir about his family, as well as larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Viet Nam and America. On November 9, 2023, Nguyen came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Shereen Marisol Meraji to talk about the new book - why he chooses to call himself a refugee, not an immigrant - and his conflicted feelings about his hometown, San Jose, California.