I recently heard David Sedaris at the fabulous Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, MA, early on a tour that will take him to 45 cities in 47 days. Of course, he was fantastic. Smart, hilarious, heartfelt, and occasionally profane. And generous: he held up a copy of Ann Patchett’s new essay collection, “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage” and gave it a glowing recommendation. “Best thing I’ve read all year,” he said. “Buy it before you buy my books.” I hung around to have him sign my copy of “Diabetes with Owls,” and it took nearly an hour to get to the front of the line. It’s clear that one reason he’s such an extraordinary essayist is his intense—if not obsessive—curiosity about people. He has to talk to EVERYONE. It probably drives the people in his life nuts; they’re trying to get him on a plane and he’s asking the Jamaican baggage handler for his mother’s jerk chicken recipe. Sedaris does a hysterical routine about a gringo art teacher he had in college who was jazzed about Central American culture and politics and would flamboyantly over pronounce place names. When I finally made it to his table I said, “I have to ask. Is this tour taking you to…Nicarauga?” (which I pronounced with a glottal stop that shredded my tonsils.) He grinned. “Sadly, no. And neither am I going to…El Salvador.” The liquid “l’s” and the rolling “r” would have done his teacher proud. He got a kick out of how I asked him to sign his book: “To Charles Coe: a disgrace to the writing profession.”
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 16:37:32 +0000
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