David Sedaris

I had so much fun attending a reading by David Sedaris last night. I was up in the highest most dizzying section of Bass Concert Hall -row X- suffering from occasional waves of claustrophobia. To my left was my good friend Debbie, who sent me the link to the event in the first place knowing my love of all things Sedaris. To my right was my patient husband, humoring me with his presence since I accompanied him to an event of one of his favorite authors Neil Gaiman.

Debbie laughed hysterically, having never read anything by David Sedaris and finding his humor both offensive and alternately laugh-out-loud funny. She was dabbing at the tears forced by her laughter the whole time. My husband chuckled a few times, and only took away a horrible joke I would never ever repeat, even on threat of death. Really, that was your favorite bit? I was appalled. David would be proud. I laughed so hard at one point that I was unable to catch my breath and panicked a bit because I could imagine myself passing out and catapulting multiple stories to my death. My husband said the railing 10 feet down would stop my descent. That’s comforting.

Mr. Sedaris came out wearing culottes. My first comment of the evening was, “Is that a kilt?” Nope. He proceeded to explain that these were one of his finds on a shopping trip to Tokyo. He enjoys finding the oddest pieces on his shopping adventures. Then he writes about them, especially pleased if he gets odd looks or comments from passers-by. I looked up how to spell culottes and they are defined as “women’s trousers, knee-length, usually cut to resemble a skirt.” Yep, that is exactly what he was wearing.

We didn’t stay for the book signing. I’ve done that before and it is underrated. He is a character, but I would rather admire him from afar than have actual personal contact. When I met him at a book signing years ago before he got so famous, I gave him a copy of one of my short stories, merely for his entertainment. He wrote me back, a postcard, saying he read the story on the plane flight home and found it entertaining. I got a kick out of that.

He has many critics, I’m sure. He can’t be politically correct to save his life. He cusses, has absolutely no filter, reads pages of his diary that make even die-hard fans squirm in their seats, then poses questions and ideas that make people want to throw rotten tomatoes at him. I love that he is that brave, that honest, that humble. He doesn’t take himself seriously at all. He doesn’t really seem to care what anyone thinks of him. He just tells funny stories of the world as he sees it and that makes me happy.

I am nowhere near as brave, as curious, as fascinated by the macabre, or as willing to let my freak flag fly as David Sedaris, but I am certainly a voyeur who enjoys reading about his adventures. I appreciate his humor, his opinions, his observations, and his ridiculousness, and am thoroughly entertained by it all.

me talk pretty

This is my favorite book by David Sedaris so far. They are all great, but I laughed out loud the most while reading this one…and have returned to it the most to share with others.

Today’s assignment was to share a passage from a favorite book. One of my favorite writers is David Sedaris. I love his essays the most. This one is from Me Talk Pretty One Day and is the essay by that same title. I will share the highlights.

I’ve moved to Paris with hopes of learning the language…The first day of class was nerve-racking because I knew I’d be expected to perform. The teacher marched in…spread out her lesson plan and sighed, saying “…who knows the alphabet?”

…Though we were forbidden to speak anything but French, the teacher would occasionally use us to practice any of her five fluent languages.

“I hate you,” she said to me one afternoon. Her English was flawless. “I really, really hate you.” Call me sensitive, but I couldn’t help but take it personally.

After being singled out as a lazy kfdtinvfm, I took to spending four hours a night on my homework, putting in even more time whenever we were assigned an essay. I suppose I could have gotten by with less, but I was determined to create some sort of identity for myself: David the hard worker, David the cut up. We’d have one of those “complete the sentence” exercises, and I’d fool with the thing for hours, invariably settling on something like “A quick run around the lake? I’d love to! Just give me a moment while I strap on my wooden leg.” The teacher , through word and action, conveyed the message that if this was my idea of an identity, she wanted nothing to do with it.

…Before beginning school, there’d been no shutting me up, but now I was convinced that everything I said was wrong. When the phone rang I ignored it. If someone asked me a question, I pretend to be deaf. I knew my fear was getting the best of me when I started wondering why they don’t sell cuts of meat in vending machines.

My only comfort was the knowledge that I was not alone. Huddled in the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps.

“Sometime me cry alone at night.”

“That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay.”

Unlike the French class I had taken in New York, here there was no sense of competition. When the teacher poked a shy Korean in the eyelid with a freshly sharpened pencil, we took no comfort in the fact that, unlike Hyeyoon Cho, we all knew the irregular past tense of the verb to defeat. In all fairness, the teacher hadn’t meant to stab the girl, but neither did she spend much time apologizing, saying only, “Well, you should have been vkkdyo more kdeynffulh.”

Over time it became impossible to believe that any of us would ever improve. Fall arrived and it rained every day, meaning we would now be scolded for the water dripping from our coats and umbrellas. It was mid-October when the teacher singled me out, saying, “Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.” And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying.

Understanding doesn’t mean that you can suddenly speak the language. Far from it. It’s a small step, nothing more, yet its rewards are intoxicating and deceptive. The teacher continued her diatribe and I settled back, bathing in the subtle beauty of each new curse and insult.

“You exhaust me with your foolishness and reward my efforts with nothing but pain, do you understand me?”

The world opened up, and it was with great joy that I responded, “I know the thing that you speak exact now. Talk me more, you, plus, please, plus.”

rebekahjmarshall

Tag Archives: David Sedaris

Me talk Pretty – (Day 15)