Daily Show Writer Gives Pep Talk for Catastrophe

ATLANTA—Rob Kutner wrote “Apocalypse How” to help us all make the most of the end of civilization.  As he says, after Armageddon, one can get mired in negativity, or “choose to live by this simple but powerful credo: when life gives you radioactive lemons, use a lead-shielded catapult to launch them at the foragers attacking your compound.”

Kutner writes for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Can you tell?  An Atlanta native, he visited The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum on July 13 to discuss his book.  He said he got the idea for the book from being a Jew at Atlanta’s very competitive prep school, Westminster.  He never knew if he was about to be sent to detention or to burn in a lake of fire, he said.

But seriously, disasters, epidemics, climate change, terrorism, created a mood of anxiety strong enough to suggest to him that people might need a Martha Stewart for the imminent end.  Kutner stepped up to the apocalyptic plate with dating advice from End Times Edna, “extremely creative” recipes, and landscaping ideas to keep neighbors away.  A giant topiary of Munch’s The Scream might do the trick.

Kutner’s parents were in the audience, laughing heartily like most of us.  They did not mind that he used their first names for extremely creative recipes. “Nothing personal,” said Kutner. 

Apocalypse How, like America the Book, is hugely funny and quite rich in graphics, with “flee-charts,” pictures of your mutated future self, flesh eating zombies, robot overlords, you name it.  I can’t say it better than Jon Stewart does on the cover:  “A great read.  Don’t cower in your lead-shielded, ape-proof bunker without it.”  Running Press published the book, “but try your bookstore first,” says the jacket, warming the cockles of my pre-apocalyptic heart.