Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart, and I have a question for you. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could read Nick Offerman's new book? Well, I don't know about chucking, but I do know that it would find some very helpful tips on how to use that wood for all kinds of fun projects. The actor, woodshop owner, author, and friend of the show is back with a new book called Little Woodchucks: Offerman's Woodshop's Guide to Tools and Tomfoolery. It contains 12 projects for beginning woodworkers of any age. We're talking whistles, benches, toolbox tongs, and much, much more. Nick Offerman will be at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square tonight in conversation with his co-author Lee Buchanan, moderated by one Stephen Colbert. Nick is in studio right now. Hi, Nick.

Nick Offerman: Hello there.

Alison Stewart: Hey, listeners, if you're starting out as a woodworker, call in and tell us what you're working on, or if you start with questions for Nick Offerman about how to get started, or how to get your kids in on the fun safely, give us a call as well. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You have run a woodshop for 25 years, yes?

Nick Offerman: That's right.

Alison Stewart: Where were you in your career when you opened Offerman Woodshop?

Nick Offerman: My career had not really begun. I was in my late 20s, and I'd had a nice little run in my 20s in Chicago doing theater, and building a lot of scenery to pay the rent. I loved building scenery. I had moved to Los Angeles, and started making furniture. I had met the love of my life, Megan Mullally, doing a play together in the year 2000. It was shortly after that that I opened my shop. I was working sporadically as a dependable character actor, completely unknown. I was still depending on my carpentry skills to pay most of my.

Alison Stewart: I do have to say, you were so excellent on the Last of Us.

Nick Offerman: Oh, thank you.

Alison Stewart: It was such an amazing, amazing performance. Obviously, your career as an actor has taken off. Why is woodworking still in your life?

Nick Offerman: That's a great question. I have a wonderful mom, and dad, and I have three incredible siblings. I come from this great family, and they all lead these lives of service. They set this example for me. I'm this weird black sheep that went away to dance for people. Nonetheless, as I grow older, and I get to make my own content, I find myself drawn to also trying to offer up works of morality, and good values, and mirth. It's always got a sense of humor with me. I tried briefly early on with Megan 'cause she was already hitting home runs with Will & Grace, and winning awards. I thought, "Great, I'm marrying this hot, rich actress. I'm going to go float in the pool, and put on some Neil Young, [inaudible 00:03:05] and some mood enhancers.

I tried that for about a song and a half. He's got a great record called Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere. I fittingly got into the second song, and said the whole point of life is getting work done, being productive, and being of service to others. That was right around when I started my shop, and said even if things are going well as an actor, which thankfully they are, I still would rather make things, and be productive, because I'm a human being. If I don't make things, and keep my hands busy, then I will probably turn into an alcoholic, or worse.

Alison Stewart: We don't want that.

Nick Offerman: No.

Alison Stewart: I want to read from your book. There's this great segment where you write, "Here's the thing. Not only will you be learning to make valuable implements in toys, and even furniture by shaping wood, and fastening the pieces together in different ways, but you'll also be learning a great deal about how the world is put together," about how buildings, and other structures are assembled, and about how all the conveniences of modern civilization have come to be created. Be created by woodchucks, and human ingenuity, You'll begin to learn how to solve problems with your problem-solving techniques. Before you know it, you'll have become what we call around the gravel pit handy." How has your woodworking philosophy infiltrated the rest of your life?

Nick Offerman: Well, it's really a series of puzzles. Making things out of wood, and I love puzzles. Who doesn't love putting together a puzzle of one sort or another? Any woodworking project is just a series of, like, problem-solving. Okay, I've got to make this wood the right size, and I got to make it stick together. I got to make this lid hinge open. It's all going to fit.

One of the things you learn quickly in woodworking, even after decades of experience, is that you're going to make mistakes. With any project, we buy extra wood to screw up, and so we get cheaper wood to try out your cuts or your measurements. It's so easily applicable to life where relationships, anything we're human. I have my own weaknesses, and foibles, and so I'm going to make mistakes, I'm going to be clumsy. Thankfully, my wife is patient with me and I say, bear with me, honey-

[laughter]

Nick Offerman: -my third or fourth cut will be accurate. I just find that that applies to life in general. Like the patience that it takes to figure out how to put together a chest of drawers also then allows me to figure out how to drive home. I can figure out how to navig a sticky conversation with Megan at the dinner table. All of these things are applicable to all of our lives, I think.

Part of the reason that I feel urgent about getting this book out, is that the world of corporate technology, and AI, and information streams are suggesting that we turn over this agency. Like, "You don't have to worry about math, or thinking of anything. Let us do it for you while you consume our products." I just desperately, [laughs] like, I want to drive my own vehicle. I want to be responsible for my own choices, especially how I'm using the resources of our planet.

Alison Stewart: I'm of an age, we're the same age where they actually taught woodworking in, like, home EC in shop class. I still have the little, I don't know-- Well, now I use it to hold jewelry, but it was like a little dish that I made, and I still have it from when I was a kid.

Nick Offerman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: It meant so much to me to be able to do that.

Nick Offerman: That's the thing. It sounds banal where you say, I can teach you to install a doorknob into your door, but if you, actually, do it with the proper screws, and you make this hardware work, it really feels like a superpower. That's why the book is for little woodchucks, but they come in all ages, because I know so many parents who also don't know how to put things together, or how to fix things. That's a simple agency that we can all have, and we can just. We can ret ownership of our world rather than turning it over to the algorithm.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking to Nick Offerman. His new book is Little Woodchucks: Offerman Woodshop's Guide to Tools and Tomfoolery. He'll be in conversation with his co-author Lee Buchanan tonight at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, moderated by Stephen Colbert. Let's take a call. Gary is calling in from Summit, New Jersey. Hey, Gary, thanks for taking the time to call All Of It. You're on the air.

Gary: Thanks for having me. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about a wood lathe, and making pens for a good place for kids to start with woodworking?

Nick Offerman: Sure. I often get asked if I live in an apartment, or I don't have a garage or space for a table saw, can I still become a woodworker? With hand tools, you can occupy any corner of an apartment. Also, a small lathe is a great place to start. It's a little apparatus that holds a length of wood between two points and spins it. You bring the tool to the spinning wood, and you can turn things like a ink pen or small implements like that, magic wands, or small baseball bats and little bowls and cups. It's a wonderful contained place to start. With proper training, it's actually a very safe tool to use, so that's a really fun suggestion for young people.

Alison Stewart: [00:09:08] Let's talk to Glenn, who's calling from Ditmas Park. Hi, Glenn, thank you for making the time to call WNYC. You're on the air.

Glenn: Hey, thanks for having me. My name is Glenn, and I actually run a kids woodworking program here in Ditmas park in Brooklyn.

Alison Stewart: Nice. Tell us about it.

Glenn: Yes. We have kids as young as three coming in up through teenagers, and it's one of the best things I've ever done. The little kids are making trains that run on railroad tracks. We're making toolboxes, animals, vehicles, treasure chests, jewelry boxes. One of the things I love is giving kids the feeling of I did something. What's really amazing is, especially with the young kids, we design a program where kids build with their grownups. We're essentially teaching the grownups how to build with the kids, but not getting the kids way. The parents are nervous. The kids are super excited. Channel all this, and eventually it comes to a moment where the kids doing it, and I've seen it, where the kid turns to the grownup and just says, I did it or I did that. And they're so excited and the parent is so excited. And to give a kid the feeling of I did that, and they get to physically, they get to walk away with something they physically made is a great moment of growth for them.

Nick Offerman: Glenn, I'm a little upset that you didn't call me when I was writing this book, because I could have used some of your insights, but that's something I talk about precisely, is that I love things on screens. Video games are super fun, so is television and film, but I treat those like a dessert because at the end of a video game, you shut it off and you actually have nothing. At the end of one of your sessions, as you say, you've done something, you've actually made something tangible. You've taken wood and turned it into a toy or an object of use. You've somehow made the world better. It's incredible the way people light up when they can realize they can do that with their ingenuity and a couple tools.

Alison Stewart: Glenn, thank you so much for calling in. I read that you have no computer driven machines in your shop?

Nick Offerman: That's correct. Yes. That's a choice I made. Again, none of these choices are binary. Obviously, technology does a lot of good things, but in our shop, the whole point is to enjoy making furniture with your hands. Every time you turn over a process to a computer, or a robot, then they get to have all the fun, and they don't even have fun. They don't care. Instead of pressing a button, and watching a machine do the crafting, we want to get in there, and do it ourselves. It's not impressive to say, "Well, yeah, I programmed this router, and it did the work. I want to get in there,and make the work with my hands. That feels a lot more like art.

Alison Stewart: The parent in me is raising my hand and saying, is this safe?

Nick Offerman: It is safe. That's a great question. In the shop, or like on the farm, when anyone visits, the first thing you do, it's always safety first. This is a combine. That's a table saw. This is a chisel. Here's how it can hurt you, here's why you should respect it. We're going to protect our eyes, and our ears, and our lungs. Everybody knows, like, this is no joke. This is something that we respect. Now that we have that respect in place, let's have some fun.

People say, "Is it a good idea to give kids a sharp blade?" That's a great misconception, because a sharp blade is actually much safer than a dull blade, because if you're trying to, say, whittle a stick, if you have a dull blade, you've got to use a lot more muscle, and you're much more likely to slip. The important thing is that we teach these techniques at the appropriate age and say, "Look, if you're whittling this stick, you always move away from your body, and hold it in a place where the knife can never end up hitting your leg, or anything." Then they go crazy because suddenly they're carving a stick like butter, and the next thing you know, they've made a dragon.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Alexa on line one, calling in from Stamford, Connecticut. Hey, Alexa, thanks for taking the time to call All Of It.

Alexa: Hi, there.

Nick Offerman: Hello.

Alexa: Can you hear me?

Alison Stewart: Yeah, you're on the air. Go for it. Alexa?

Alexa: Hi. Can you hear me?

Alison Stewart: Yes, you're on the air. Go for it.

Alexa: Hi there. I am such a big fan of both of you. I'm a little bit nervous, but I wanted to say that my daughter, when she was around 10, I got her a little miter box, and a nice little Japanese saw, and all different shapes, dowels and shapes of balsa wood. She's so crafty, she would spend hours building furniture for her dollhouse, and little jumps for her horses. It has been such a great intro, and it's pretty safe. She could cut herself with that blade, but she wouldn't cut a finger off, like if she had a band saw, or table saw. I think it's such a great start for her.

Nick Offerman: It is great. Yeah. We use a miter box in the book, and we talk about Japanese pull saws and Western push saws, trim saws, and it's incredibly empowering. That's a great example that if you give a child the means to cut, and just a bunch of pieces of trim and dowel, they'll go nuts because then they can make their own Legos, and Lincoln log kits. That's a beautiful inspiration.

Alison Stewart: You have great, great examples of things you can make in the book. A slapstick?

Nick Offerman: That's right.

Alison Stewart: What's a slapstick?

Nick Offerman: Well, everyone knows the term slapstick comedy, and it comes from this theatrical implement that looks like a paddle, but it has a second paddle hinged to it so that when you do a paddle motion, it makes a slapping noise. You can pretend to spank people, and strike them. Punch and Judy Punch uses a slapstick to misogynistically be very mean to Judy, which I do not condone. If you want to pretend spank your sibling, this is the perfect item. It's really a lot of fun. You can make a lot of comedy with a slapstick. It came out of the conversation with my great co author Lee, who has a couple of boys, I said, "Look, anybody, so many kids, if you take them out in the woods and say, let's make something, I'm 55, and I'll pick up a stick and say, "This is my sword, this is my gun, this is my staff, so we've got to have a weapon in the book. I said, you know what? I have a comedy weapon. This is a way that you can like stage fights, but not condone violence. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: We have something for the nerds in the group. The meat locker, otherwise known as the little library.

Nick Offerman: That's right.

Alison Stewart: How hard is it to make a little library?

Nick Offerman: It's not that hard. One of the fun things about woodworking is there's also a planter cart. There are two examples. The little library is basically a box with a hinged door, and one side of it is tilted, and that becomes the roof, but the fun thing is you learned a lot of techniques on that for how to build something that wants to live safely in the weather. The planter cart is basically four legs, and a surface with a shelf. You realize if you can put that together, oh, if I make this bigger, I could make a studio apartment. Or if I make this planter cart, I could make this into bunk beds. Like, they're all. The little library is just a glorified version of a standing box in which you can put cured meats for the neighbors to borrow.

Alison Stewart: This person asks in a text, "Is your book suitable for adults who are interested in trying carpentry?" Asking for myself. Thank you.

Nick Offerman: It's a great question. It's for little woodchucks of all ages, 'because I know all these parents who also have never used a tool. It's actually thinly veiled propaganda because it's written for the parents to have to read to their kids. Kids, the mom, and dad are saying to the child, kids, ask your mom and dad if they know where your eggs come from, and if they're any good.

If not, why not? Do you know any farmers? If not, why not? Can we make good eggs? Can we raise eggs ourselves? There's a sense of mischief, and po piracy to banding the family together to have mischief.

Alison Stewart: I have been speaking to Nick Offerman. His new book is titled Little Woodchucks. He'll be in conversation with his co-author Lee Buchanan tonight at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, moderated by Stephen Colbert.