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Hair Raising House

Summary: October 27 2006Hair Raising HouseJeff Mermelstein At first I thought it would be cool to have a smoke machine and it all just took off from there Bill Franzen on the origins of the annual Halloween spectacle he creates in the yard of the house he shares with his wife cartoonist Roz Chast RIDGEFIELD Conn ROZ CHAST hates Halloween And so it is with resignation that she anticipates the events of this Tuesday which include the publication of her latest book of cartoons and the appearance of 1 000 or so strangers on her front lawn here The hordes will assemble as many of them have for the past 11 years to gawk at the Halloween spectacle that is her husband Bill Franzen s yearly production I don t like holidays Ms Chast said And I don t like crowds of people I don t like noise There is a lot of noise I don t like amusement parks and it s sort of like an amusement park There are smoke machines things move it s a real commitment It was 11 days before Halloween Outside the rain came and went in gusty fits stymieing Mr Franzen s strict setup schedule which begins to unfold in late August He has folders filled with intricate Rube Goldberg like schematics and maps He has a calendar inked with important dates when to sort the extension cords when to lay out the electricals move the skeletons dummies headstones mummies etc there are a lot of props from a storage area in town to a tent set up in the backyard when to make repairs tweak past ideas When he s finished there might be 15 or 20 tableaux they have titles like Alien Crash or Death in the Desert or Lunatic Asylum each marked by an impish deadpan humor It s the Mad Magazine version of Halloween said Mr Franzen who writes fiction the rest of the year and who was spending the day in his tent behind the house sorting through his props with quiet urgency Inside Ms Chast sat polite and tiny on a large mauve ish sectional sofa in the living room of the white clapboard 1940 s colonial that she and her family moved to 16 years ago from Brooklyn when their son Ian was nearly 3 and she was pregnant with their daughter Nina Four television remotes a copy of Time magazine and her new book sat upon the large square coffee table there were ink stains on the couch and tufts of stuffing erupting from one of the arms Each item contributed to another sort of tableau the domestic sort Chast territory Other people reads the text of one of the cartoons in her book know how they want their living rooms to look Other people lead complicated rich secretive personal lives Other people are not enraged by jars of dried pasta used as door Other people says the last panel know exactly what the Federal Reserve is All art is implicitly autobiographical and Ms Chast s work is particularly so each cartoon like a page from an idiosyncratic visual journal Her new collection Theories of Everything Selected Collected and Health Inspected Cartoons 1978 2006 from Bloomsbury begins with Ms Chast s first cartoons for The New Yorker in 1978 when she was just 23 and charts an appealingly perverse course from urban befuddlement to suburban bewilderment More than 40 drawings from the book will be exhibited at the Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea from Nov 30 to Dec 23 Her point of view remains particular and consistent that of a miniaturist running gently amok through the psyches and living rooms of the NPR crowd A sort of urban family anxiety is a funny bone Roz has been chewing on for a very long time said David Remnick the editor of The New Yorker and a longtime admirer Yet the foibles and worries of the well educated middle class are not her only playthings For almost three decades Ms Chast has been using language like Play Doh subverting aphorisms like a kid that just says the word blue blue blue over and over again until it s stranger and stranger Mr Remnick said and twisting the mundane and the familiar like greeting cards coupons tax forms niche magazines flow charts pie charts genealogies telegrams canned food cereal boxes and the Miss Subways contest Putting together the cartoons in the book was both unnerving and satisfying Ms Chast said patting it It was a surprise to realize how long I ve been doing this like you can t believe how old you are but on the other hand it makes clear that I don t just spend my days doing nothing and fretting over one tiny irrelevant thing Fretting is the hallmark of a Chast character Is the flesh and blood version as anxious as her doppelgangers I am extremely anxious that you are going to write that I am extremely anxious she said But it is true that I am very good at worrying As for which worries top her best seller list she averred that she had a portfolio of certain blue chip anxieties that were solid performers the ones you might have for a lifetime she said Death she continued there s not a lot you can do about that one Illness is another Others come and go like penny stocks You might have a worry that s so stupid it just peters out by itself like a bad investment Fear of cooking is one of the blue chips Neither Ms Chast nor Mr Franzen is much of a chef Recently when Ian was home from college Ms Chast brought home a bag of seafood things she said from Trader Joe s It was like until just put these bits in the sauce and dish it out da da a fantasy but something went terribly wrong There was this giant claw thing we couldn t cut it it wasn t clear what it was and then other bits finally Bill said this has been a very sobering affair While Ms Chast was poring over Charles Addams cartoons in her Brooklyn youth Mr Franzen was lying on the sofa watching mummy movies on television in Minnesota Halloween as it is now practiced in the Franzen Chast household began in earnest about 1995 they both say But the seeds were always there slowly germinating Ms Chast said I think it s a dark Scandinavian Bergmanesque Midwestern thing It was in 1995 that Mr Franzen set out to buy a coffin from the local funeral home It was a crematory coffin way cheaper than the floor show models but even though it was designed for a quick performance he said it looked the part with all the fittings and stuff He squeezed it into the back of his minivan after the funeral director discouraged him from tying it with bungee cords to the roof rack Until bet there are zoning laws against that sort of thing Ms Chast said I wonder if they thought we were starting our own home business In those days Ms Chast had a modicum of Halloween spirit she said obligingly making severed finger hors do euvres for her children and their friends Recipe Slice snail beds into baby carrots secure almond sliver fingernails with honey And then I thought it would be cool to have a smoke machine and it all just took off from there Mr Franzen said Now he has four one of which emits a smell like apple cider You love that he said to Ms Chast I don t it s disgusting she retorted shooing him outside Mr Franzen demonstrated how the huge wire spider s web next to the front door will hold a child size dummy dressed like a trick or treater in a Spider Man costume It s sort of ironic with an overturned Spider Man candy bucket that Mr Franzen will thread strings of candy from making it look as if the loot is spilling out That s what horrifies the kids he said That the kid s candy is falling out Happy accidents occur just as in writing as Mr Franzen pointed out altering themes suggesting new ones A hillbilly shack vignette and an alien crash vignette both got so big they merged There are inside jokes A headstone is inscribed with the word Keefe which is the name of Mr Franzen s therapist During the year town folk will leave donations on the front steps a leg brace a box of shoes an old swing set a three foot Barbie all of which Mr Franzen stores and then cunningly outfits to flesh out existing narratives or start new ones The basement the garage and a shed behind the house are utterly given over to Mr Franzen s oeuvre Plastic storage tubs are labeled neatly and enticingly like panels in one of his wife s cartoons hands eyeballs footwear weather balloons It is very annoying because we can t throw anything away Ms Chast said One of the hillbillies wears my old plaid bathrobe which I have to say looks alarmingly suitable This Tuesday she will wear a skirt printed with Day of the Dead figures and hide out with her parrots an African gray named Eli and a blue streaked lory named Marco in their little room off the kitchen A poster next to the cages lists all Eli s words and sounds written in Ms Chast s familiar hand Look dammit you ve fired hi birds Microwave beep phone ring Nina are a few of them Nina will be dressed as Evil Freud her mother said with a cigar beard vest and machine gun holding a party for her friends inside Outside dressed in a pirate s hat and an old black choir robe he bought at a yard sale Mr Franzen will be scurrying about tending to his production making sure all is safe and running smoothly Then the house next to us sold for a gazillion dollars a few years ago Ms Chast said I worried that they hadn t been told I wondered do they know about Halloween But like the rest of the neighbors they didn t seem to mind and Ms Chast said she expects a good time to be had by all on Tuesday Or except for a few she added Or maybe one Questions Who are Roz Chast and Bill Franzen What kinds of things does Mr Franzen create for Halloween What will you do for Halloween this year Where is the Chast Franzen home When have you ever seen a particularly scary funny or clever Halloween display Why do you think some people like Halloween the best of all holidays How did Mr Franzen start this tradition October 27 2006Hair Raising HouseJeff Mermelstein At first I thought it would be cool to have a smoke machine and it all just took off from there Bill Franzen on the origins of the annual Halloween spectacle he creates in the yard of the house he shares with his wife cartoonist Roz Chast RIDGEFIELD Conn ROZ CHAST hates Halloween And so it is with resignation that she anticipates the events of this Tuesday which include the publication of her latest book of cartoons and the appearance of 1 000 or so strangers on her front lawn here The hordes will assemble as many of them have for the past 11 years to gawk at the Halloween spectacle that is her husband Bill Franzen s yearly production I don t like holidays Ms Chast said And I don t like crowds of people I don t like noise There is a lot of noise I don t like amusement parks and it s sort of like an amusement park There are smoke machines things move it s a real commitment It was 11 days before Halloween Outside the rain came and went in gusty fits stymieing Mr Franzen s strict setup schedule which begins to unfold in late August He has folders filled with intricate Rube Goldberg like schematics and maps He has a calendar inked with important dates when to sort the extension cords when to lay out the electricals move the skeletons dummies headstones mummies etc there are a lot of props from a storage area in town to a tent set up in the backyard when to make repairs tweak past ideas When he s finished there might be 15 or 20 tableaux they have titles like Alien Crash or Death in the Desert or Lunatic Asylum each marked by an impish deadpan humor It s the Mad Magazine version of Halloween said Mr Franzen who writes fiction the rest of the year and who was spending the day in his tent behind the house sorting through his props with quiet urgency Inside Ms Chast sat polite and tiny on a large mauve ish sectional sofa in the living room of the white clapboard 1940 s colonial that she and her family moved to 16 years ago from Brooklyn when their son Ian was nearly 3 and she was pregnant with their daughter Nina Four television remotes a copy of Time magazine and her new book sat upon the large square coffee table there were ink stains on the couch and tufts of stuffing erupting from one of the arms Each item contributed to another sort of tableau the domestic sort Chast territory Other people reads the text of one of the cartoons in her book know how they want their living rooms to look Other people lead complicated rich secretive personal lives Other people are not enraged by jars of dried pasta used as door Other people says the last panel know exactly what the Federal Reserve is All art is implicitly autobiographical and Ms Chast s work is particularly so each cartoon like a page from an idiosyncratic visual journal Her new collection Theories of Everything Selected Collected and Health Inspected Cartoons 1978 2006 from Bloomsbury begins with Ms Chast s first cartoons for The New Yorker in 1978 when she was just 23 and charts an appealingly perverse course from urban befuddlement to suburban bewilderment More than 40 drawings from the book will be exhibited at the Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea from Nov 30 to Dec 23 Her point of view remains particular and consistent that of a miniaturist running gently amok through the psyches and living rooms of the NPR crowd A sort of urban family anxiety is a funny bone Roz has been chewing on for a very long time said David Remnick the editor of The New Yorker and a longtime admirer Yet the foibles and worries of the well educated middle class are not her only playthings For almost three decades Ms Chast has been using language like Play Doh subverting aphorisms like a kid that just says the word blue blue blue over and over again until it s stranger and stranger Mr Remnick said and twisting the mundane and the familiar like greeting cards coupons tax forms niche magazines flow charts pie charts genealogies telegrams canned food cereal boxes and the Miss Subways contest Putting together the cartoons in the book was both unnerving and satisfying Ms Chast said patting it It was a surprise to realize how long I ve been doing this like you can t believe how old you are but on the other hand it makes clear that I don t just spend my days doing nothing and fretting over one tiny irrelevant thing Fretting is the hallmark of a Chast character Is the flesh and blood version as anxious as her doppelgangers I am extremely anxious that you are going to write that I am extremely anxious she said But it is true that I am very good at worrying As for which worries top her best seller list she averred that she had a portfolio of certain blue chip anxieties that were solid performers the ones you might have for a lifetime she said Death she continued there s not a lot you can do about that one Illness is another Others come and go like penny stocks You might have a worry that s so stupid it just peters out by itself like a bad investment Fear of cooking is one of the blue chips Neither Ms Chast nor Mr Franzen is much of a chef Recently when Ian was home from college Ms Chast brought home a bag of seafood things she said from Trader Joe s It was like until just put these bits in the sauce and dish it out da da a fantasy but something went terribly wrong There was this giant claw thing we couldn t cut it it wasn t clear what it was and then other bits finally Bill said this has been a very sobering affair While Ms Chast was poring over Charles Addams cartoons in her Brooklyn youth Mr Franzen was lying on the sofa watching mummy movies on television in Minnesota Halloween as it is now practiced in the Franzen Chast household began in earnest about 1995 they both say But the seeds were always there slowly germinating Ms Chast said I think it s a dark Scandinavian Bergmanesque Midwestern thing It was in 1995 that Mr Franzen set out to buy a coffin from the local funeral home It was a crematory coffin way cheaper than the floor show models but even though it was designed for a quick performance he said it looked the part with all the fittings and stuff He squeezed it into the back of his minivan after the funeral director discouraged him from tying it with bungee cords to the roof rack Until bet there are zoning laws against that sort of thing Ms Chast said I wonder if they thought we were starting our own home business In those days Ms Chast had a modicum of Halloween spirit she said obligingly making severed finger hors do euvres for her children and their friends Recipe Slice snail beds into baby carrots secure almond sliver fingernails with honey And then I thought it would be cool to have a smoke machine and it all just took off from there Mr Franzen said Now he has four one of which emits a smell like apple cider You love that he said to Ms Chast I don t it s disgusting she retorted shooing him outside Mr Franzen demonstrated how the huge wire spider s web next to the front door will hold a child size dummy dressed like a trick or treater in a Spider Man costume It s sort of ironic with an overturned Spider Man candy bucket that Mr Franzen will thread strings of candy from making it look as if the loot is spilling out That s what horrifies the kids he said That the kid s candy is falling out Happy accidents occur just as in writing as Mr Franzen pointed out altering themes suggesting new ones A hillbilly shack vignette and an alien crash vignette both got so big they merged There are inside jokes A headstone is inscribed with the word Keefe which is the name of Mr Franzen s therapist During the year town folk will leave donations on the front steps a leg brace a box of shoes an old swing set a three foot Barbie all of which Mr Franzen stores and then cunningly outfits to flesh out existing narratives or start new ones The basement the garage and a shed behind the house are utterly given over to Mr Franzen s oeuvre Plastic storage tubs are labeled neatly and enticingly like panels in one of his wife s cartoons hands eyeballs footwear weather balloons It is very annoying because we can t throw anything away Ms Chast said One of the hillbillies wears my old plaid bathrobe which I have to say looks alarmingly suitable This Tuesday she will wear a skirt printed with Day of the Dead figures and hide out with her parrots an African gray named Eli and a blue streaked lory named Marco in their little room off the kitchen A poster next to the cages lists all Eli s words and sounds written in Ms Chast s familiar hand Look dammit you ve fired hi birds Microwave beep phone ring Nina are a few of them Nina will be dressed as Evil Freud her mother said with a cigar beard vest and machine gun holding a party for her friends inside Outside dressed in a pirate s hat and an old black choir robe he bought at a yard sale Mr Franzen will be scurrying about tending to his production making sure all is safe and running smoothly Then the house next to us sold for a gazillion dollars a few years ago Ms Chast said I worried that they hadn t been told I wondered do they know about Halloween But like the rest of the neighbors they didn t seem to mind and Ms Chast said she expects a good time to be had by all on Tuesday Or except for a few she added Or maybe one Questions Who are Roz Chast and Bill Franzen What kinds of things does Mr Franzen create for Halloween What will you do for Halloween this year Where is the Chast Franzen home When have you ever seen a particularly scary funny or clever Halloween display Why do you think some people like Halloween the best of all holidays How did Mr Franzen start this tradition

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