Last night, I got to see one of my favorite authors, David Sedaris, speak at Reno’s Pioneer Center. It was a great night: My book club made an event out of it and began with tapas and sangria at Fuefo (AND, importantly celebrated with cake for my 30th birthday!).
Somehow, David Sedaris is hysterical even when he’s not saying anything funny; I just hear his voice and start to giggle. Last night, he read to us a piece he’d written for the New Yorker, an essay, a monologue and poems from his new book, some diary entries (which may have been my favorite: I loved the story about the very off-color Willie Nelson joke that he ended up explaining to a flight attendant) and an unpublished story or two before taking questions from the crowd. We got to hear the story behind his experience using the language learning company Pimsler. In the New Yorker story, Sedaris talks about how when Japanese cab drivers ask him if he has any children, he say he has three, a boy and two little girls, because Pimsler taught him that phrase and not “I am a middle-aged homosexual.” A week or so after the story came out, he received a new tape from Pimsler that he played for us, which teaches the phrase, “I am a middle-aged homosexual.”
Lots of laughter and a great night from my favorite humorist! Now, off to buy his recently released book, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls.
Alison O. Bender 