Bleak but funny, from March of this year: “Lucky-Go-Happy,” a New Essay by David Sedaris | The New Yorker
And, as ever, the perfect tonic for enforced holiday cheer:
His writing is a bit reminiscent of Jean Shepherd to me and I enjoy it a lot, but not so much his voice. He sounds like a 12 year old or something.
I love his voice! Maybe because I heard him on the radio a lot at first. Now, whenever I read his books, I hear them in his voice, and it makes them even more special to me.
Yes, definitely. I get his audiobooks whenever possible.
I like the stuff I’ve heard on NPR over the years and bought tickets to see him live at a rather large performing arts theater. There was no added value; just a small man behind a podium reading from a page. Nothing extemporaneous at all and zero stage presence. I’m not sure what I expected, though. The week before, in the same theater, we saw Garrison Keeler who was very engaged with the audience, plus fresh material, so maybe I set my bar too high.
That’s definitely not been my experience. Also you should experience his meet/greet/signings after the shows, OMG the chats he has with everyone! Hilarious!
As I said in post #86, I went to a reading by him in a local bookstore and got some books signed. He not only answered questions from people as they got signatures from him, but he even asked them questions himself. Of course, the real difference from what’s mentioned in post #106 is that he was speaking to a much smaller audience at the event I went to than the one that’s mentioned in post #106. It appears that if you want to hear him speak, you should only go to events with a fairly small audience.
For your holiday enjoyment:
Just finished his latest collection, Happy-Go-Lucky, which is good but not great. I find I still prefer his early stuff.
He was on with Maher a few days ago. Can’t find the whole episode online, but here’s an excerpt:
Bumped.
Now he’s written a kids’ book!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7PKigrTe9k