Terry Gross on Fresh Air remembers Thomas Disch, and replays a 1988 interview where his lighter side took over for a while.

“I think everybody... especially towards their toaster, regards them as personal. I mean, electricity... is... is like blood, it’s a living fluid. And it’s hard not to think of appliances as having independent existences... because they do things. They make noises. Radios talk to us. Toasters are kind to us. They reflect our faces. Uh... sit down in the morning, if you live by yourself, and the first positive relationship of your day is going to be with your toaster.”

“There’s a certain vein... uh, false innocence is not the right word, because that suggests that it’s false, and it isn’t, it’s quite sincere... the point is that there’s a certain attitude that makes a story a children’s story. And it’s basically the Brave Little Toaster’s attitude, that everything is basically nice in the world, and that you only have to smile and other people will get along with you. .... Well, it’s the opposite attitude to most adult literature, I mean, life is more complicated than that. But I think that it’s... it’s a reasonable attitude to inculcate in children. I mean, a large part of the world will work on that assumption just fine."