A Night With David Sedaris

David Sedaris is a little man with a high, nasal voice from New York City by way of North Carolina. He is an essayist, humorist, comedian, and radio contributor. He is hilarious. His books are collections of essays detailing his life and various experiences growing up, doing drugs, life as a performance artist, and most notably, working as an elf in Santaland. Read his books if you haven’t already. They are wonderful. Hilarious, darkly cynical, superbly observational, delightfully absurd, and yet ultimately incredibly touching and engaging. Read them and you’ll fall in love.

So Mr. Sedaris came to the Morris Center for one night to read some of his work. As a side note, I had never been to the Morris Center and was pleasantly, perhaps incredulously surprised with the place. It’s quite the classy establishment, and in South Bend no less. Go figure. That being said, we got the cheap tickets for the show – which were still $25 – and were seated in literally the back row of the third balcony. I always considered “nose-bleed section” some terrible colloquialism that got thrown about, but sitting that high up, staring down at such a tiny point of light, and knowing you paid $25 for it, it really does make you want to punch someone in the nose.

At any rate, Sedaris made up for it all. He began reading from his latest book, When You are Engulfed in Flames, starting with an account of his trip to the Australian bush and feeding a kookaburra. The story then segues into a story from Sedaris’ childhood when he and his sister Amy (star of Stranger’s With Candy) sang the song Kookaburra together for an hour on end, ultimately infuriating their father and culminating in Sedaris getting smacked with a fraternity paddle. I hadn’t read Sedaris’ work for a while, and it was a great reminder of why I liked it so much. He walks the line of absurdity and nostalgia so well, you often question – “This could not have happened.” More than anything, he writes – and speaks – with a Southern gentility and formality that combines with a New York sharpness and cynicism that is just – it’s just wonderful.

Sedaris moved on to some short quips from his diary. The standout of them all was an account of his time in line at an airport and his observation of a red-headed kid with cornrows and a shirt reading “Freaky Motha-Focka”. Once again, a bizarre and hilarious story of everyday minutiae.

The reading was wonderful. Sedaris is an incredibly kind and humble author. He stayed for two hours after the show just to sign books and talk with the crowd. I spoke with him shortly and he just asked us questions about who we were, what we were studying, how it was going and so on. He was probably just searching for his next bizarre subject, but it really seemed like he cared about his audience. All in all, a night with David Sedaris did not disappoint.