01/05/2013

Dear Diary – David Sedaris Returns

At 56, David Sedaris still keeps a regular diary. “It’s how I start the day,” he recently told Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “By writing about the day before.” He’s kept one since 1977 and only misses one or two days a year. Most of his essays and stories come out of it. More than 130 volumes of his diary entries are tucked away and will remain private (at least in his lifetime, wink wink). Talking to NPR about his new book, Let’s Talk Diabetes With Owls, he recounts the story of a seven year-old who once asked him: What’s the point of writing things in your diary?

“That’s a question I’ve asked myself everyday since September 5th, 1977,” he said. “It’s not that I think my life is important, or that future generations might care to know that on June 6th, 2009 a woman with a deaf, drug-addicted mother-in-law taught me how to say I need you stop being an asshole in sign language.”

It’s a question that keeps him going. Sedaris has been a lot of things: an art-school dropout, a meth-head alcoholic, a Manhattan nanny, a closeted gay teenager in rural North Carolina, and, most recently, a volunteer trash collector in West Sussex. But he’s best known for his witty observations about the absurdities of everyday life. No other writer today can touch his sought-after mix of self-deprecation, intuition and resolve. His books, which include Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day, have sold nearly ten million copies since he was first discovered by Ira Glass in Chicago in the early 90s. His readings sell out in minutes. Let’s Talk Diabetes With Owls, his first new collection of non-fiction in five years, won’t make it any easier to get a ticket.

There’s certain topics Sedaris won’t touch, sex and politics among them. Even in his journals, he said, he refers to having sex as “getting romantic”. It’s interesting coming from a guy who has no trouble writing about smoking meth in an abandoned warehouse and making a chair out of pubic hair. “There’s the ‘you’ that you present to the world, and then of course there’s the real one,” he told Gross. For all of his assumed unveiling, Sedaris likes to keep most things to himself. “People say to me, ‘Oh, you’ve exposed everything about you’— no I haven’t. I just give that illusion.”

Lane Koivu 
Share: Facebook,  Twitter  
04/05/2012

An Evening With David Sedaris

An Evening With David Sedaris

Those who have read his work know that David Sedaris was many things before he became a best-selling author: a college dropout, a lousy teacher, a struggling house cleaner, a crack addict, conceptual artist, personal assistant, closet homosexual and, most famously, an elf at Macy’s. Readers know this because, like many writers―Bukowski, Vonnegut, and Brautigan jump to mind―his personal failures and professional shortcomings are the subject and scrutiny of nearly all of his writing. His shortcomings, it turns out, are key to his success.

Mr. Sedaris got his start as a writer in Chicago, where Ira Glass spotted him reading from his diary at a nightclub and invited him to do something on his then radio show, The Wild Room. He came to life in the pubic eye as a frequent contributor to This American Life and NPR. He is among the small rank of authors who have managed to transcend the sturdy boundaries of those shows. His 1992 story “The SantaLand Diaries” made him a minor celebrity and painted a picture of himself that’s become emblematic of his work: That of the outsider, the dumb-ass, the frustrated loser. The idiot who has no talent and looks to the other side of the pendulum with a mix of frustration, jealousy, and bitter reserve.

His real talent is that he does this with humor, humbleness, and with a strong sense of humility. Which is a surprise once you realize that all of his books since 1994’s Barrel Fever have hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. (His sister Amy once said that he seriously believes that each book he releases will be his last.) But it’s not surprising to anyone who’s read his work: He’s a fantastic, morally-driven storyteller who’s spent the better part of his career mining embarrassing situations for comedic gold. Family reunions, neighbor’s bathrooms, nudist colonies, his mother with cancer―no scenario is too taboo or off-topic, a characteristic that has sometimes landed him in hot water even within his own family. He’s also self-aware. He once said, after being asked what type of animal he’d likely be, that he’d “probably be a vulture because I pick the flesh off of other people’s experiences. It’s not very flattering, but I have to be honest with myself. I think probably any writer would be a vulture. I don’t think I’m unique in that regard. I think all writers exploit everyone and everything. That’s why you don’t want writers as friends.”

He’s often been asked if his success poses a threat to his work. Everyone wants to hear about a failed drug addict’s problems, but what about a wealthy writer’s? In other words; what does the loser write about if he’s no longer the loser? That doesn’t appear to be a problem for Sedaris, whose most recent book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, deals with animals committing all kinds of social faux pas. And the majority of his non-fiction continues to examine his life in a similar context: living in France with his boyfriend Hugh, giving up smoking, and pissing off his family by exploiting them for his career. So, sure, he’s found success, but he’s still as wildly insecure and hopeless as the rest of us. Best of all, he’s still not happy. Problems come in all shapes and sizes, but it’s often how we deal with them that matters most. Not all of us have the sense to find humor in the drudgery of reality. For that we have David Sedaris, and we are thankful.

An Evening With David Sedaris at at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), May 7th, May 8th.

Lane Koivu – image courtesy of CAMERA PRESS/Karen Robinson

Share: Facebook,  Twitter