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WOODWORKING '87
up? Am I under oath?"
Asked whether a salute in a strip en-
titled "What's New?" to a new-fangled let-
ter that looked suspiciously like the
Hebrew letter "gimmel" was a covert effort
to foist her Jewish roots upon New Yorker
readers, Chast said, "Oh, is that a Hebrew
letter?
"I didn't go to Hebrew school. I did go
to something that met once a week. It was
horrible. If I didn't bring my picture Bible,
we didn't have a lesson. My mother paid
me a quarter if I went. It was so atrocious-
ly boring. That's what I mostly remember
about it."
But Chast's husband, New Yorker writer
Bill Franzen, suggested that life with Roz
is not as dull as she implied.
"Roz has moments," he said, "of pure, un-
adulterated silliness. Two or three times a
day, she has laughing fits."
And Roz's reading habits aren't as de-
sultory as she may pretend. Franzen said
his wife recently read Henry James' The
Europeans and Dostoevsky's The Idiot.
Franzen introduced himself to Chast in
The New Yorker's offices in 1980. Familiar
with her work, he "didn't expect someone
off the wall. A lot of artists or writers are
not like their work. But I thought that Roz
could certainly think off the wall."
Franzen pulled out "a weird postcard of
some clowns taking a spill at Cyprus Gar-
dens. I thought she might like its
strangeness."
Apparently, she did. They dated for four
years, then married. Wooing Chast wasn't
like wooing anyone else. Soon after they
met, said Franzen, she "showed a strange
reluctance" when he mentioned something
about kites. It turned out she was afraid
of them.
A few weeks later, she told him she had
had a nightmare the previous night.
"I had visions," said Franzen, "of Roz be-
ing chased down the street by a monster
or falling off a cliff. Something traditional."
Instead, Chast told Franzen she had
dreamt that the word "cookie" was spelled
with three "O's."
Since then, Chast's dreams have become
more ordinary and kites no longer terrify
her. But she still has her eyes peeled for
"The Three Certainties â Death, Taxes
and Bobo the Clown." And she still has a
knack for the itsy-bitsy quirks of life, for
such "inconspicuous consumption" as "the
smallest tube of toothpaste, a new ironing-
board cover, three boxes of cereal."
And she still likes flannel-lined tea. â
OCTOBER 21 - OCTOBER 25
Exhibit & Sale
Handcrafted Furniture
Accessories & Gift Items
sponsored by
Michigan Woodworkers Guild
The Best in Old World
Craftsmanship and Modern Design
SOMERSET
THE MALL
Big Beaver Road at Coolidge, Troy
Wednesday & Saturday 10-6
Thursday & Friday 10-9/Sunday 12-5
THE utfROIT JEWISH NEWS
29