Celebrating 100 Years: Jia Tolentino and Roz Chast Pick Favorites from the Archive

Summary

The New Yorker Radio Hour: Celebrating 100 Years with Jia Tolentino and Roz Chast

Release Date: February 18, 2025

In the milestone episode "Celebrating 100 Years: Jia Tolentino and Roz Chast Pick Favorites from the Archive," The New Yorker Radio Hour commemorates the centennial of The New Yorker magazine. Hosted by David Remnick, the episode features insightful discussions with staff writer Jia Tolentino and acclaimed cartoonist Roz Chast, each selecting and analyzing a cherished piece from the magazine’s extensive archive.

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Introduction to the Centennial Celebration

David Remnick sets the stage by reflecting on the significance of reaching the 100-year mark. He highlights the debut issue of The New Yorker from February 21, 1925, and introduces the concept of celebrating this centennial by revisiting standout pieces from the past century. Remnick emphasizes the magazine’s legacy of profiling, storytelling, and incisive conversations, setting a nostalgic yet analytical tone for the episode.

Quote:

“This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Listen, I am not one for anniversary journalism or even birthdays. You reach a certain age and it's hard to remember what all the fuss is about. But when you reach 100, well, at 100, you get to make a fuss.”
(00:39)

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Jia Tolentino’s Exploration of Joan Didion’s Essay on Martha Stewart

Jia Tolentino, author of the bestselling Trick Mirror, selects Joan Didion’s essay on Martha Stewart as her archival favorite. Published in the year 2000, Didion’s piece delves into Martha Stewart’s public persona, examining the nuances of female power and the complexities behind a meticulously crafted image.

Why Joan Didion and Martha Stewart?

Tolentino explains her choice by connecting Didion's foresight with Martha Stewart’s subsequent legal troubles and Didion’s own personal tragedies. She appreciates how the essay anticipates the challenges Stewart would face, maintaining its relevance even years later.

Quote:

“This is published in the year 2000, and three years later, Martha Stewart gets indicted for securities fraud. And four years later, Joan Didion starts writing the Year of Magical Thinking...”
(02:30)

Analyzing Didion’s Perspective

Remnick and Tolentino discuss Didion’s ability to capture the dichotomy between Stewart’s flawless public image and the underlying pressures of maintaining such perfection. Didion portrays Stewart not just as a symbol of feminine domesticity but as a powerful woman navigating a male-dominated world.

Notable Quote:

“She seems perfect, but she's not. She's obsessed. She's frantic. She's a control freak beyond my wildest dreams. And that shows me two things. A, no one is perfect, and B, there's a price for everything.”
(07:41)

Tolentino admires how Didion’s essay remains focused on the themes of image versus reality without being complicated by Stewart’s later legal issues, allowing for a pure examination of ambition and the cost of perfection.

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Roz Chast’s Tribute to George Booth’s Cartoons

Renowned cartoonist Roz Chast brings George Booth’s work into the spotlight, celebrating his unique contributions to The New Yorker. Booth, known for his dog-themed cartoons, used humor and detailed observations to depict the quirks of everyday American life.

Why George Booth?

Chast recounts her admiration for Booth’s ability to infuse ordinary scenarios with humor and depth. She highlights one of his cartoons depicting a chaotic grocery store scene, showcasing his talent for capturing human idiosyncrasies through meticulous detail and storytelling.

Description of Booth’s Work:

“A woman is having a yard sale. This front lawn and the side lawn are just covered with crap... The grocery cart is smashed into a parking meter and two rabid looking dogs are barking at her...”
(11:56)

Personal Anecdotes and Impact

Chast shares personal memories of meeting Booth in the mid-80s, illustrating the profound influence his work had on her. She appreciates his authentic approach and the way his cartoons diverged from the stereotypical sophisticated New Yorker imagery, instead focusing on the peculiarities of small-town life.

Quote:

“George was always nice and he was a great laugher. He laughed at his own stuff, he laughed at other people's stuff. And he was so true to himself, you know, from the beginning to the end. That, to me, that was, you know, encouraging.”
(17:00)

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Connecting Themes: Image vs. Reality and Perfectionism

Both Tolentino and Chast explore overarching themes of image versus reality and the pressures of perfectionism through their selected pieces. Didion’s essay on Stewart and Booth’s cartoons collectively highlight the façade individuals maintain and the underlying complexities that often remain hidden from the public eye.

Discussion Highlights:

• Tolentino on Didion’s Analysis:

  “They are both perfectionists on the surface, something that I can't quite connect to... what she was analyzing was another woman that had made a career out of flawless surfaces at a cost to her critics.”
  (04:58)

• Chast on Booth’s Observational Humor:

  “I loved his work so much. I loved it for its unique point of view. Always funny, never cruel, kind of off the wall.”
  (17:00)

These discussions underscore the enduring relevance of The New Yorker’s archival pieces, showcasing how they continue to offer valuable insights into human behavior and societal norms.

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Conclusion: Enduring Legacy of The New Yorker

Remnick concludes the episode by emphasizing the timeless nature of the selected archival pieces. He invites listeners to explore more insights on The New Yorker’s centennial through the website, promising continued celebrations and deep dives into the magazine’s storied past.

Final Quote:

“You can find Roz Chast on George Booth, as well as Gia Tolentino on Martha Stewart, by the great Joan Didion, and much more @newyorker.com takes...”
(18:18)

The episode serves as a testament to The New Yorker’s lasting impact on American literature and culture, celebrating its ability to capture and dissect the intricacies of everyday life with unparalleled depth and wit.

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Additional Notes:

• Supporting Cast and Production: The episode features contributions from various WNYC Studios and The New Yorker staff, including production by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, and others. The theme music composed by Meryl Garbus adds a distinctive auditory backdrop to the discussions.

• Availability: Listeners can access the featured essays by Tolentino and Chast on newyorker.com/takes, alongside other centennial celebrations.

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This comprehensive exploration not only honors the rich history of The New Yorker but also provides contemporary listeners with a deeper appreciation of its pivotal role in shaping and reflecting societal narratives over the past century.

Transcript

[Gia Tolentino]

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[WNYC Studios]

Listener supported WNYC Studios.

[David Remnick]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Listen, I am not one for anniversary journalism or even birthdays. You reach a certain age and it's hard to remember what all the fuss is about. But when you reach 100, well, at 100, you get to make a fuss. And the debut issue of the New Yorker magazine appeared on newsstands dated February 21, 1925. Throughout this year, we're going to be celebrating the centennial in many ways, and one of them is to highlight a few of the gems from the New Yorker's archive. And we've asked some of our writers to pick a piece that means something special to them. And so we'll start off today with Gia Tolentino, who's the author of the best selling book Trick Mirror. And Gia picked a story by one of the great genius observers of American life, the late Joan Didion.

[Gia Tolentino]

Joan Didion. One thinks of the stingray, the mohair throw and the typewriter bloodshed in Laurel Canyon, the decaying summer of love. It's always a surprise to remember that the neurasthenic empress of American nonfiction once turned the terrifying gimlet of her attention to Y2K era fan blogs and Kmart cake toppers for a defense of Martha Stewart.

[Joan Didion]

The dreams and the fears into which Martha Stewart taps are not of feminine domesticity but of female power, of the woman who sits down at the table with the men and still in her apron, walks away with the chips.

[David Remnick]

Joan Didion's essay on Martha Stewart read for us by an actor. And I'm here with staff writer Gia Tolentino. Gia, tell me why you picked this story out of so many thousands that we've published over a hundred years. Why Joan Didion and why this piece about Martha Stewart?

[Gia Tolentino]

This is published in the year 2000, and three years later, Martha Stewart gets indicted for securities fraud. And four years later, Joan Didion starts writing the Year of Magical Thinking, her.

[David Remnick]

Memoir about losing her husband and daughter.

[Gia Tolentino]

Yeah. And so their entire sort of 21st century image is defined by things that have not happened yet but are almost about to happen when this piece comes out. And so I find it just this amazing thing that exists and it Remains.

[David Remnick]

Surprising to me that she decided to. To take this on.

[Gia Tolentino]

Wait, can you actually. Can you give me the goss? Like, can you tell me, how did it happen?

[David Remnick]

I think we threw ideas at Joan Didion constantly hoping for the best, that we would get lucky once in a blue moon. And for some reason, she bid on this.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, do you think you know what the reason is when you read the piece?

[David Remnick]

I think when you read the piece.

[Gia Tolentino]

When you read the piece.

[David Remnick]

When you read the piece, she's really interested in this kind of domestic God goddess notion.

[Joan Didion]

You could bottle that chili sauce. Neighbors say to home cooks all over America. You could make a fortune on those date bars. You could bottle it, you could sell it, you can survive when all else fails. I myself believed for most of my adult life that I could support myself and my family in the catastrophic absence of all other income sources by catering.

[Gia Tolentino]

I think when you read this piece, you get why she accepted this assignment. Because she loves Martha Stewart. I don't think.

[David Remnick]

Did you?

[Gia Tolentino]

Um. No, no. You know, I. Both Martha Stewart and Joan Didion are fascinating figures to me that I could never feel an entire kinship with because two things. They are both perfectionists on the surface, something that I can't quite connect to. And there's a real steel. There's such a genteel perfection and ease, but behind it, there's, like, a little bit of blood. There's some sense of. I mean, she kills her own Thanksgiving turkeys, right? Like, there's. And with Didion, too, there's this icy, icy, icy, like, control and coldness behind these perfect, gorgeous, you know, impeccable sentences and surfaces. And one gets the impression, reading it, that Joan Didion connected to Martha Stewart because of this. What she was analyzing was another woman that had made a career out of flawless surfaces at a cost to her critics.

[Joan Didion]

She seems to represent a fraud to be exposed, a wrong to be righted. She's a shark, one declares in Salon. However much she's got, Martha wants more. And she wants it her way and in her world, not in the balls out boys club realms of real estate or technology, but in the delicate land of doily hearts and wedding cakes.

[David Remnick]

Of the pieces that Joan Didion wrote for the New Yorker, there were some reporting pieces from California. The other critical piece that she wrote was about Ernest Hemingway and about Hemingway's sentences and perfectionism of sentences, Defense of perfectionism. Exactly. What a link between Martha Stewart and Papa Hemingway.

[Gia Tolentino]

Well, it's funny, I think so much of this piece. Most of the lines that Didion writes about Stuart. It's hard not to hear the echoes of people saying that about her, of people being like, she's like, can't you tell? She's a shark. And it's almost like Didion is saying, yeah, I know. We all know.

[Joan Didion]

This is not a story about a woman who made the best of traditional skills. This is a story about a woman who did her own ipo. This is the woman's pluck story, the dust bowl story, the burying your child on the trail story, the I will never go hungry again story, the Mildred Pierce story, the story about how the sheer nerve of even professionally unskilled women can prevail. Show the men. The story that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men.

[David Remnick]

Gia, you mentioned that Martha Stewart hit a bump, shall we call it? She was convicted on charges related to insider trading investigations, and she spent several months in prison, but when she got out of jail, she rebounded like crazy. Could Joan Didion have written the same profile of Martha Stewart just a few years later?

[Gia Tolentino]

I'm so glad that she didn't. Right. It would have been much more complicated. That's why this piece is so good, is this piece can just be about the question of image versus reality, perfectionism versus the price you pay for it on the inside, which is this current running underneath it. It's a question of, you know, a woman that is succeeding on a woman's terms, with ambition that can outpace that of any man. What do you make of it? What do you call it? How does that woman herself understand it? And how do other people relentlessly misinterpret it? It's nice that it can just be about that. It can be about image versus what's under it. Didion ceded the best line in her piece to an anonymous Internet user who wrote about Stewart in a summation that could be applied to both.

[Joan Didion]

She seems perfect, but she's not. She's obsessed. She's frantic. She's a control freak beyond my wildest dreams. And that shows me two things. A, no one is perfect, and B, there's a price for everything.

[David Remnick]

That's from Joan Didion's essay on Martha Stewart headlined everywoman.com excerpts were read for us by actor Amy Warren, and Gia Tolentino wrote about Didion's essay, and you can find Both [e-mail] takes that's newyorker.com takes t a K-E s more in a moment.

[Mandy Patinkin]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by Dell.

[WNYC Studios]

Dell Technologies is celebrating with anniversary savings on their most popular tech. For a limited time only, save on select next gen PCs like the XPS 16 powered by Intel Core Ultra processors. Plus curate your dream setup with great deals on select monitors, mice and more. Must have electronics and accessories. When you shop [e-mail] deals you'll have access to leading edge technology to match your forward thinking spirit and free shipping on everything. Again, that's Dell.com deals.

[David Remnick]

Support for this episode comes from Exile, a podcast from the Leo Baeck Institute and Antica Productions.

[WNYC Studios]

The Viennese Julia Child a rebel theater.

[David Remnick]

Director, a librarian turned spy I'm Mandy Patinkin.

[WNYC Studios]

Join me on Exile for deep dives into the archives and untold stories of Jewish lives in the shadow of fascism. Find Exile wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Roz Chast]

WNYC Studios is supported by Quince I.

[Mandy Patinkin]

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[Stephen Colbert]

You about the Late Show Pod show, which is the podcast of the Late show with my producer Becca. Becca, what's up?

[Becca]

So the Late Show Pod show is everything you love about the Late show on a podcast.

[Stephen Colbert]

I want to know about you. Enough people see everybody in an ad talks about the thing they're trying to sell. I'd like to know about you, the person behind creating the podcast.

[Becca]

I'm having a really good day. Barry baked some bread and my friend.

[David Remnick]

Kara got me some chicken salad. It's a really nice day in the.

[Stephen Colbert]

Office today Listen to the Late Show Pod show with Stephen Colbert, wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Remnick]

We also asked the cartoonist Roz Chast for her take on the magazine Centennial. And Roz wanted to write about one of her illustrious forebearers, the late George Booth, who contributed cartoons to the New Yorker for decades and decades. Half his life or more. Booth is known for his dogs. He was for sure the world champion dog cartoonist, but that doesn't really do justice to him as an observer of us humans. Like Roz Chast herself, George Booth drew a world full of stressed out, schlumpy people dealing with the weirdness of everyday existence. Here's Roz Chast.

[Becca]

A woman is having a yard sale. This front lawn and the side lawn are just covered with crap. Busted washing machine, chair that's like all in tatters. Maybe some exercise machinery and a million bottles and you know, just like what you see when somebody has like a particularly large and junky yard sale. And this couple is kind of looking and the caption is, there's more inside. Oh God, it's just so great. It's so great. Oh, there's tires. George Booth is a, was a beloved cartoonist for the New Yorker for many decades. I think George Booth brought a different world into the New Yorker cartoons. It was definitely not New York. It was definitely not so called sophisticated people going to the theater or, you know, wearing fashionable clothing or anything like that. They were from a small town someplace in the United States just going about their very, very strange business of grocery shopping or taking baths or some sort of sit. A miniature horse is running around the living room for some reason. One of the things that I love about George Booth's cartoons are the drawings themselves and the attention to all of the details that set the stage for the joke. One of my favorite examples of this is this cartoon of his, of this father in a car with his two doofusy sons crammed all into the front seat. They're in a parking lot of a grocery store and meanwhile the mother, her grocery bag has dropped on the ground. Everything is rolling away, the bag tore. The grocery cart is smashed into a parking meter and two rabid looking dogs are barking at her. You know, there's clearly this like grocery store post grocery store crisis going on and the father is saying to the sons, one of you boys, go help mom with the groceries. It's just the greatest draw. George and I met in the offices at the New Yorker in the. Oh, I'm guessing it was sometime in the mid-80s. Back in the day, people brought their work in. In person. And so that's when I met George Booth. He was tall and kind of goofy looking. He sort of reminded me of his cartoons. I was in awe of him because I had loved his cartoons for so many years. And I have to say that when I first started, some of the old guys didn't want to talk to me. I think maybe because I was very young, maybe because I was female, maybe. I think also they didn't like my work. It was just too different from what they were doing. But George was always nice and he was a great laugher. He laughed at his own stuff, he laughed at other people's stuff. And he. He was so true to himself, you know, from the beginning to the end. That, to me, that was, you know, encouraging. It was like, you know, you follow your guide. You know, the piece of his that just knocked me out was IP giss a girl. It's a two page episodic sort of story. It's not just one panel with a funny line. It's an actual story about ip. And it's all in this kind of caveman dialect that he made up. The first panel is this caveman with his friends and IP is saying, humwumpa girl. He wants a girl. First he pets this creature with spikes on his back and he says, s nap girl. Tis a hig. And then the next panel is he's looking at some giant, like it's a mini dinosaur or a giant lizard, I don't know. S harp girl. Tis a izard. And then he sees a girl and he goes, snorp. And she's like looking at him like, what is happening? And the girl just starts throwing rocks at ip. It's a croctron gull. And it's clear from reading it, it's a rock throwing girl. And her arm is just like windmilling around, just throwing these rocks at this guy. And then he like slings her over his shoulder and goes, I'm ike dasa croctron girl. He's saying, I like that rock throwing girl. And then the last panel is IP with the cave woman person. And he's patting her and he's going, gah. And they're surrounded by little cave babies. I just loved his work so much. I loved it for its unique point of view. Always funny, never cruel, kind of off the wall. Very inspiring. He was great.

[David Remnick]

You can find Roz Chast on George Booth, as well as Gia Tolentino on Martha Stewart, by the great Joan Didion, and Much [e-mail] takes newyorker.com takes and you can subscribe to the New Yorker at our website as well. New Yorker.com we'll be sharing many more takes on the New Yorker Centennial in the weeks to come. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us. Happy anniversary and see you next week.

[Roz Chast]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul and Ursula Sommer and.

[WNYC Studios]

We had special assistance this week from.

[Roz Chast]

Jonathan Mitchell with guidance from Emily Bottin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Tsarina Endowment Fund.

[Chris Marocco]

Hey podcast listeners. I'm Chris Marocco, food Director of Bon Appetit and Epicurious and host of the Dinner SOS podcast. Every week on Dinner sos, my Test Kitchen colleagues and I help listeners figure out what they should be cooking right now. And this winter, we're helping you embrace all things cozy cooking, letting you join the Ba Bake Club and getting back to basics with simple strategies to level up your home cooking. So don't miss out. Listen to and follow Dinner SOS wherever you get your podcasts and if you have your own kitchen, question ask. Email [e-mail] Happy cooking.