David Sedaris on tour
CliffB
Posted on Thu, Oct. 10, 2002 story:PUB_DESC
Smokin' Sedaris
Author draws crowds big enough to make rock stars jealous
By CARY DARLING
cdar...@herald.com
All David Sedaris wanted to do was to get in and get out.
He didn't want a harangue. He didn't want an argument. Certainly coming face
to face with a hysterical saleswoman wasn't at the top of his to-do list
that day. But as an American ex-pat author living in self-imposed but
linguistically challenged exile in post-Sept. 11 France, shopping in peace
may have been just too much to ask.
''Before the Afghanistan war had started, I was in a store and this woman
fell apart,'' he recalls. 'It was the only time someone behaved as if I were
president. She said, `You can't bomb them. They will retaliate. We're all
going to die. We're going to starve.' I'm sorry but that's not the way to
sell a sofa bed.''
On the phone from Paris, Sedaris relates the story in the deadpan, everyman
style that has become his trademark on National Public Radio's This American
Life and in such best-selling autobiographical reminiscences as Me Talk
Pretty One Day and Naked. And it's that style, meshing the magic of memory
with the minutiae of daily mundanity, that's turned him into a literary
superstar, the Eminem of the Saab and Starbucks set.
After all, his current 14-city tour itinerary is more rock 'n'roll than
Random House. He plays the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach on
Wednesday and ends the trek at New York's Carnegie Hall Oct. 22.
All of it leaves Sedaris mystified.
''I was never much of a going-out person. I never went to concerts. I don't
go to that many plays,'' he says. ``I have no idea why a person buys a
ticket to watch a person read from a book for an hour.''
But if Sedaris, 45, is clueless about his appeal, others aren't. ''He
clearly has an audience that borders on the fanatical,'' says Mitchell
Kaplan, owner of Books & Books in Coral Gables and Miami Beach. ``He's so
personal in his writing, [people] feel they know him.''
Echoes Ira Glass, host/producer of This American Life and the man
responsible for introducing Sedaris to the airwaves: ``He's the single most
popular person we put on the air. He's one of the most popular people on
public radio. . . . The stories are written so that you can relate to them.
He's writing about situations that, if you haven't been in them, it's easy
to imagine yourself in them.''
While Sedaris' life seems more holiday than workaday -- living with his
partner, painter Hugh Hamrick, in Paris; recently finding a second place, in
London, in which to hang his well-traveled hat -- his stories spark with the
nagging neuroticism of modern life. Whether it's struggling with parental
pressures or the tongue-twisting tropes of a new language, Sedaris' works
ring with the clarity of small but indelible truths. He mines some of the
same territory as, say, Seinfeld -- but with more pathos. (In fact, a few
years back, he waved away an offer to write for Seinfeld.)
Yet Sedaris, who was named Time magazine's Humorist of the Year in 2001 and
nabbed the Thurber Prize for American Humor, won't even accept that he's a
writer. ''I've been suspicious of titles like that,'' he explains. 'I went
to art school and you'd meet someone who says they're an artist and I'd say,
`I don't know about that.' Wait till the world calls you something. I write,
but I'm reluctant to call myself a writer. A lucky typist sounds better.''
LIFE WITH FATHER
Sedaris' dad, Lou, a Greek-American engineer, had big dreams for young
David. And while they might have involved luck, none of them involved
typing. They veered more toward athletics (at which David had no skill) or
music (ditto). Growing up in the '60s and '70s in western New York state and
then Raleigh, N.C., as one of six children, the self-admitted
obsessive-compulsive, short (five feet five inches) and gay David felt
something of a misfit. ''I thought he'd be a normal kid eventually,'' his
father told People magazine in 1997. (Dad is now one of his biggest
supporters.)
Yet judging from his work, his childhood didn't provoke anger so much as a
jaundiced, yet loving, eye. Besides, he gets his revenge now by putting the
often unkempt emotional laundry of family members on public display -- they
often are the subjects of his stories.
''There are a lot of things they don't want me to write about,'' he says.
``But I just wrote a story about my brother's wedding, and he had no
problems with any of it. To me, it's just a story and I think he tends to
think the same way.''
Yet he does get a twinge of regret when he's told how obsessive fans will
call his siblings at all hours asking if certain things are true. Referring
to a chapter in Naked in which Sedaris writes of a family mystery involving
bath towels being used as tissue paper, Sedaris says, ``None of us ever
anticipated someone calling at three in the morning and asking about wiping
my a-- on the bath towels.''
Sedaris kept journals long before becoming a professional writer, but he
originally wanted to be a visual artist. ''I was writing when I went to art
school. Art became a hobby and it just went away,'' he says. ``There are
enough bad paintings in the world. Now I just buy other people's bad
paintings.''
He attended Kent State University in Ohio but left in 1977, traveling and
doing odd jobs (house painting, working in a mental hospital) until landing
at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1984. After graduation, he became a
writing teacher there. He moved to New York City in 1990 and began
publishing his wry, observational stories in literary magazines.
RADIO DAYS
But it was at a Chicago reading where Glass stumbled across Sedaris and
wanted to put him on the radio immediately. Sedaris was skeptical. ''I have
the anti-radio voice,'' he says. 'I thought, `Are you sure?' I offered to
get someone else to read the things I'd written.''
''I had to reassure him that it would be OK,'' remembers Glass. 'I had seen
him read a number of times in tiny clubs, and I knew that he would be great.
It was the equivalent of happening to hear Pavarotti in a tiny club, in a
basement and you say, `You might be good in front of a larger audience.' And
he says, 'That's fine but let someone else do the singing for me.' ''
Sedaris needn't have worried. He was an immediate hit. ''He was so
noticeable on the air that he had only been on three times when The New York
Times did a story about him,'' Glass says.
One of the stories he read, The Santaland Diaries, about working as a
put-upon Macy's elf during Christmas season, has become a fan favorite.
After that, publishers came calling. He has since written several
collections: Naked, Barrel Fever, Holidays On Ice, and Me Talk Pretty One
Day, the latter currently being fashioned into a film by director Wayne Wang
(The Joy Luck Club). Also, with sister/actress Amy, he has authored several
well-received plays, including The Book of Liz.
But Sedaris appears unfazed by it all. He still writes every day from 9 a.m.
until 1 p.m., and again from 8 p.m. into the night. He goes to the movies
daily (his favorite film is the original Planet of the Apes, which he ``saw
17 times in the theater''). But he expects spending more time in England
will shake up his routine and provide an impetus for more stories.
He has 60 new pages he is reading on this tour and is keen to hear what
makes people laugh. ''I really like the chance to practice in front of an
audience,'' he says. ``I can't believe my good fortune. . . . It's the
laziest form of show business.''
teerio
When he was on Letterman the other night, Letterman mentioned that
David Sedaris's sister was on the show and sang. Who is his sister?
BTW, I loved the Santaland Diaries! (The elf "Crumpet" lol)
Smoot
wrote:
>When he was on Letterman the other night, Letterman mentioned that
>David Sedaris's sister was on the show and sang. Who is his sister?
>
>BTW, I loved the Santaland Diaries! (The elf "Crumpet" lol)
Amy Sedaris is his sister. She was the star (and a writer) of the
Comedy Central sit-com, Strangers with Candy. (Which was brilliant, if
a bit sick.) She played the sister of Monk's assistant on the show
Monk last week and played a publicist on Sex and the City.
Emma (Rebecca)
drumslut
wrote:
>
>When he was on Letterman the other night, Letterman mentioned that
>David Sedaris's sister was on the show and sang. Who is his sister?
>
The inimitable Amy Sedaris. Check out our web site at
http://www.amysedaris.com .
ds
CliffB
Simpl...@nospam.com wrote on 10/11/02 12:24 AM:
> On Thu, 10 Oct 2002 22:55:37 -0500, teerio <tee...@comcastaways.net>
> wrote:
>
>> When he was on Letterman the other night, Letterman mentioned that
>> David Sedaris's sister was on the show and sang. Who is his sister?
>>
>> BTW, I loved the Santaland Diaries! (The elf "Crumpet" lol)
On that letterman,
She delivered a truly scary fantasy bit on taking sarah jessica Parker's
place as Matthew Broderick's wife after becoming their demented nanny. It
was a put on, but there was this edge to her delivery that made me a little
nervous. It was impressive. I wasn't entirely sure if they were friendly or
whether she truly had an obsession with SJP.
I didn't know at the time these were sister and brother. Their onstage
temperaments are quite different.
FilmChick7
Matthew have a lot of chemistry together so sometimes they pretend to be having
an affair.
I have 3rd row seats to see Sedaris at Carnegie Hall. He's SO funny at the
readings.
>ubject: Re: David Sedaris on tour
>From: CliffB fl...@gosympatico.ca
>Date: 10/11/2002 12:47 AM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <B9CBD02F.623E%fl...@gosympatico.ca>
SweetLittleTroubleMaker
From: teerio tee...@comcastaways.net
Date: Thu, Oct 10, 2002 8:55 PM
Message-id: <kpicqug3h46od1uvp...@4ax.com>
When he was on Letterman the other night, Letterman mentioned that
David Sedaris's sister was on the show and sang. Who is his sister? >>
Amy Sedaris, who was the star of Comedy Central's 'Strangers With Candy', a
brilliant little show that unfortunately isn't on anymore. I loved that show!
SweetLittleTroubleMaker
Date: Thu, Oct 10, 2002 9:16 PM
Message-id: <83kcqu4ada900n0lo...@4ax.com>
She might be inimitable, but her web site is all screwed up. :(
Bigmaybell
ago and while he is very caustic and the like, and really does appreciate his
fans.
Beth
"Smoot" <Simpl...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:dfkcquo35cq1ejqrr...@4ax.com...
Amy Sedaris has got to be one of the funniest people alive, and yes her
humor definitely has an edge to it. I remember David Sedaris telling a
story about riding on the subway with her, and she gets off the train before
he does but not before turning around at the door and yelling "Hey, good
luck with that rape charge!" -- and then leaving him there with a carload of
strangers.