One of my favorite authors David Sedaris did a reading in Duluth yesterday and I didn’t even know he was going to be in the area. I’m literally reading his last book “When You Are Engulfed in Flames” right now. It’s on the nightstand and everything. D’oh!
For perhaps obvious reasons I have great affinity for famous authors who got their start doing slice of life commentaries for public radio. Sedaris is among several standout writers reshaping the memoir genre for a self-absorbed generation of people that should also buy my humorous memoir “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”
I saw him do a reading at UCLA. It was hilarious, but expensive. About $50. Well worth it, though. Sedaris was actually scanning tickets at the door, pretending to be a university staffer. Very funny.
It was the ABOVE THE FOLD cover of the DNT today with three pictures: one of people laughing while reading his book, one of people laughing while watching the reading and another of people lined up outside the reading. NONE of him. I am left concluding that either he had a stipulation that there be no pictures of him or that it was actually an elaborate Andy Kaufman-esq prank. Others have reported actually seeing him, though.