My Evening with David Sedaris

Fans packed the Ryman Auditorium Friday night for An Evening with David Sedaris--(Nashville being one stop along the way of Sedaris’s 36-day, 36-city tour). I was thrilled to see my favorite living writer for the first time, but I was nervous about the animals. Sedaris’s forthcoming book, “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary”, due out in October, is not a new collection of essays, but rather a book of animal fables.

Hmm.

Animal fables.

With pictures.

MAMA WANTS ESSAYS! MAMA WANTS ESSAYS!

Of course, that was before mama listened to Sedaris read from the new book, a stroke of satirical genius that features animals grappling with all-too-human issues (like a mother stork struggling with what to tell her child about where babies come from).

“The Faithful Setter” is written from the point of view of a pure bred Irish Setter, whose mixed-breed wife (one-quarter Spaniel with a mouth like a trucker) cheats on him with the bull terrier next door. The setter, who is employed as a stud, tries to explain to his wife that what he does for a living is not the same as her cheating. It’s my job, he tells her, wearily. “Well if it’s a paycheck you’re after,” she retorts, “you could just as easily lug around a blind person.”

Hilarious. Every bit of it. And available for pre-order on Amazon now.

Sedaris went on to read several essays--all works in progress. His essay about how airports reveal our true natures had everyone howling, even applauding in places. Rounding out the cast of characters in that piece were a teenage father wearing a shirt that says “Freaky Mothafocka” and a flight attendant who confesses to amusing herself by “crop dusting” or deliberately farting as she walks through the cabin.

In an essay about French doctors and their lax approach to medicine, Sedaris wrote of the time he discovered “a lump, the size and consistency of a deviled egg tucked beneath (his) skin." When the French doctor dismissed it as a no-big-deal fatty deposit (“Dogs get them all the time!”) Sedaris said, in his adorably self-effacing voice, “He made me feel vain and frivolous for wanting to have it removed.”

Next Sedaris shared snippets from his diary. In one entry, he marveled at the mysterious food labels found in British grocery stores—and the store clerks who can’t explain them. Not one could list the ingredients in “crumbled ham dummy” or “lightly dusted river cobbler”.

There was so much funny Friday night; I can’t begin to do it justice here. And not all of it was reading. Sedaris brought an intimacy to the room by chatting up the audience and remarking on things that interest him. Like his theory that couples who honeymoon in hot places have shorter marriages than those who honeymoon in cold places. Hot climate honeymoons are all about “let’s wear bathing suits and f**k”, he mused. Whereas, honeymoons in cold places are more about mutual interests like, “I know, let’s go look at glaciers!”

One couple in the audience stood up during the Q&A period and told Sedaris they’d cut short their honeymoon to be there that night. “Do you think we did the right thing?” the newlywed husband asked. “That depends,’ Sedaris said, “Where were you planning to go on your honeymoon?”

Personally, I think the couple made a good call.

Sedaris is not to be missed.