Now this only makes sense if you have heard or read David Sedaris’ “You Can’t Kill The Rooster”, an homage, perhaps, to his brother Paul aka “The Rooster”
If you are a regular follower of David Sedaris then you will probably recall that his family moved to Raleigh, NC during his formative years and that is where his Dad and brother still live.
So if you are enough of a fan to know all that, then you may understand my excitement when, sitting at a traffic light in Raleigh (Five Points area if you know the city) when a van crossed in front of me with a logo that said “Sedaris’ Floor Sanding”
I couldn’t believe it. I called my husband on my cell squealing. It’s like…I dunno, going to a bookstore in San Francisco and realizing it’s the one owned by Margaret Cho’s parents, or coming across a Catholic church in Minnesota called Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility.
Well, you can see, I just had to share.
Wow! I’d be thrilled, too. I’m trying to remember the name he was going to give his floor sanding business. It was his rap name, IIRC. Silly P, or something like that.
Where can I buy a CD with The Santaland Diaries on it? I checked Amazon, and it looks like the only CD with it is the complete collected works boxed set, at $50 , which is little more than I wanted to pay. I will be spending Christmas with my family for the first time in 4 years, and I want to turn them on to it. There is a version posted on the NPR website but it is only 9 minutes long, and as I recall, the original was longer than that.
He was going to call it Silly P’s Hardwood Floors. When his father told him he couldn’t use a name like Silly P for his business, he was going to call it Silly Fucking P’s Hardwood Floors.
“You Can’t Kill the Rooster” is a classic. Be sure to catch the follow-up, “Rooster at the Hitchin’ Post”; it’s in Sedaris’s new book as well as the Best American Non-Required Reading collection from (I think) 2003.
I was thinking about the mail order cheese-ball business she runs that she talked about on the Late Show.
Sorry if this is a hijack, but in your (any of yours’) opinion, what is the best David Sedaris book to start with? I’ve never read him but think I should start.
***Naked *** is probably the best place to start, but they’re all great. I also highly recommend his books on tape, all read by Sedaris, of course. His delivery is outstanding.
If you’ve never even HEARD Sedaris, I’d recommend getting his works on tape - part of the joy for me in reading a Sedaris book is hearing it in my head in his voice. So if you don’t know what his speaking is like, I’d go for the audio.
I have no tolerance for audio books, they’re never read at the speed I like, and I have poor hearing wrt certain sounds, I always have to watch movies to follow them. And with CDs you can’t rewind it to catch a word. Thanks for the suggestion though.
I’ve seen Sedaris on one of those late-night talk shows, and he seemed like a pretty funny guy there.
Yes, by all means, get Sedaris’s books on tape. His delivery is half, no, two-thirds of the fun. He was in town recently for a reading and book-signing, and I got to talk briefly with him. He has a basket on his table and asks for - but does not require - donations: “I have plenty of money already, but I’d like to have more, and I’ll like you more if you give me some.” If you put some money in his basket as you hand him a book for him to sign, he asks your name and says, very loudly, “Thank you, [name]!”
