Roz Chast, 70, is a writer and cartoonist best known for more than four decades of output at The New Yorker. Her latest book, “I Must Be Dreaming,” was published last year. This October, she received a National Humanities Medal for her contributions to cartooning. She lives in Ridgefield, Conn. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
A Cautious Gifting Philosophy
Fear and loathing would probably sum it up. I’m not a great gift getter, and I’m not a great gift giver. I think there’s a lot of factors here. Like if people know you collect, let’s say, bird things, they might give you something, but it’s completely wrong and you don’t quite know what to do. So you have to pretend that you like it a lot more than you do, which is sort of embarrassing. And now, a new area of embarrassment has been created that wasn’t there before.
Gift giving is, to me, very, very fraught, especially if it’s somebody’s birthday or a holiday. I would rather buy something spontaneously and then give it to them spontaneously. I can think of horrible things that I’ve given because it was right before the holiday and I didn’t know what else to do, you know?
Say It With Sculpey…
My favorite gifts have been from my kids, and that’s usually something homemade or, you know, a card. And I love, love, love that.
I have one kid who’s actually a therapist, but he also is an artist. We make stuff for each other, and that’s fun. Out of Sculpey clay, he’s made me a tiny Starbucks cup, a plate with tortilla chips and salsa, a teeny cellphone. There’s also a MetroCard, maybe like a half an inch by a quarter of an inch. I don’t even know how he got it this small. And it all came in this really cute little box that he made.
…Or With Mixtapes
My oldest son used to make the most wonderful CD collections for me and I still listen to them because my car is old and it has a CD player. A good friend of mine also made me a Smiths cassette — I had never heard of the Smiths. This was a long time ago, and I was like, “This the best thing I’ve ever heard!”
I have a friend who also collects cartoon ephemera, and he gave me these wonderful, wonderful Peter Arno cocktail napkins.
I’m hard to buy for. Also, you know, at this point in my life, stuff just seems like stuff. And I get kind of anxious about too much clutter piling up. Except for my kids and the homemade stuff that I love.
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