by John D. Bess
Daily Lobo
Openly neurotic, self-obsessed and unabashedly gay, David Sedaris is one of America's most hilarious authors.
For one night only, the acclaimed writer and National Public Radio humorist will be reading from his newest works live as part of Popejoy's Ovation Speaker Series.
Sedaris has written several bestsellers, including Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, as well as a collection of personal essays, Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day. His quick and acerbic wit has garnered him a reputation as a wonderful satirist.
Sedaris infuses much of his written work with biting political incorrectness as he attempts to detail his adventures in a world that expects people to fit nicely in prescribed, stereotypical boxes.
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Sedaris' work tends to be highly personal, often self-effacing and always extremely funny. Attempting to make sense of the world around him, and his skewed perspective of it, Sedaris waxes eloquently about drugs, nudists and the slew of odd jobs he's had.
On the other hand, he also engages his readers with bitter, sidesplitting tales of his childhood tormentors, obsessive sex toy collectors and, of course, his family.
Though a satirical wordsmith of the highest order, Sedaris has a penchant for the bawdy, the obscene and the downright filthy. This is because, regardless of how idealistic one may be, foul-mouthed country folk, drug-addled performance artists and sex-crazed factory workers do not a wholesome world make. But, that's the life Sedaris has lived, and his work is an accurate reflection of his time on the road, drifting around the country, trying to find himself.
Yet, Sedaris does not rely on vulgarity or obscenity to carry his work. As a regular contributor to Esquire, he can still display his wit without the "R" rating, as in the following excerpt from "You Can't Kill the Rooster."
"When I was young, my father was transferred, and our family moved from western New York State to Raleigh, North Carolina ... Our speech was monitored for the slightest hint of a Raleigh accent. Use the word y'all and, before you knew it, you'd find yourself in a haystack french-kissing an underage goat."
His sense of humor and comic timing are masterful. The following account of his speech therapist, whose name Sedaris constantly mispronounced, from Me Talk Pretty One Day, shows Sedaris' perfect timing.
"She was in love with the sound of her own name and seemed to view my speech impediment as a personal assault ... Had her name included no S's, she probably would have bypassed a career in therapy and devoted herself to yanking out healthy molars or performing unwanted clitoridectomies on the schoolgirls of Africa. Such was her personality."
If his public appearances are anything like his writing, Sedaris promises to perform some of the most racy, outlandish and thoroughly entertaining spoken word to ever grace Popejoy's stage.
