David Sedaris reading

I do David Sedaris (and myself) no justice by writing just now about the reading he gave at McNally Robinson on November 22.  Oh well.  

I'm adding an audio file, later tonight because it's taking forever to load, that I took of him telling jokes and relating stories from his book tour.

David "No Pictures" Sedaris, who for whatever reason we weren't allowed to take pictures of during the reading or the signing as McRobinson staff watched us like hawks, gave a reading from his new book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary.   See how many people came to see him?  This wasn't even in front of him, these were the poor people who got pushed to the side.


                                                                      
Sedaris's new book is a book of modernized fables, minus
any tell-tale morals.  They're more of an anthropomorphism          
on how ridiculous people are.

He did his reading of the story, "The Squirrel and the    Chipmunk," about the squirrel that "got away."  Squirrel and
Chipmunk are dating, and the relationship is getting kind of
stale.  The Squirrel tells Chipmunk that he likes jazz.
Chipmunk has no idea what that is and agrees just for the
sake of agreeing that she's into that.  Chipmunk, realizing that   jazz could mean something terrible, like squirrel slang for anal sex.  Chipmunk's family is disturbed and force her to break it off.

Years later, Chipmunk and Squirrel have kids of their own
and Chipmunk finds out what jazz is, and she associates that
with all that she failed to appreciate in her life.



Sedaris's tour theme this year was, "jokes," because people come up during the signings and tell him the most ridiculous jokes.  If you listen to the audio file, when I get it posted, you will hear some of those, including the snail joke he told on The Daily Show.

David Sedaris is hilarious.  The book is actually very funny, I highly recommend it.  One of my personal favourites is, "The Toad, The Turtle, and the Duck," about the three of them being stuck in line at the DMV.  Pretty awesome.

David Sedaris is a writer, comedian,Grammy Award-nominated humorist and radio contributor.  Recognition came from his essay, "SantaLand Diaries."  He has made contributions to The New Yorker B.B.C. Radio, and Esquire. 



Anyway, I will get that audio file to you tonight.  Happy Holidays!
Photo of David Sedaris courtesy of DavidSedaris.net.

Boys Town by Jim Shepard, review

Jim Shepard is an American author whose works have been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper's and Playboy, to name a few.  In 2008, his short story collection Like You'd Understand, Anyway, won the Story Prize and was nominated for a National Book Award.  Boys Town is from the short story collection You Think That's Bad.

Boys Town, which ran in the November 8, 2010, issue of The New Yorker, is the story of a man who just never measures up.  The reader follows the narrator as he struggles to pull together his tatters of a life.  He is a 39 year old war veteran who lives with his mother, who doesn't understand his personality, and who is divorced with a child he pays support for but is only allowed to see twice a year, at most.   His father walked out on the family when he was in the third or fourth grade.  He struggles to form any kind of relationship that doesn't have some deep-rooted tension.   Even his ex-wife complains about him to his mother, and his mother complains back.

There is a statement made by the narrator's mother about him possibly having a mental illness ["I think you got that thing they talk about on the news [...] P.T.S.D. Is that what it is?  I think you need to talk to somebody" (73)], but this isn't a story about mental illness so much as someone who's lost.  Maybe someone who's even been broken by the world.  Someone who's lonely, bitter, defeated, ganged up on, and who lets it happen because he seeks solace in isolation, whether in the woods or in his mind, so he doesn't have to take action.   When he does take action it borders on abusive, probably due to his pent up emotions and inability to get anyone to listen unless he does something drastic.

There are references made to the 1938 movie "Boys Town," the one thing that the narrator's mother had kept from her marriage.  References such as, "'Well, I'm nothin',' And the kid says right back, 'Then you can continue being nothin'.  And nobody cares,'" and, "'And when Tracy has to tell him that he doesn't have anything else, the kid goes, 'I thought you said that if we were good, somebody would help us.''  The movie seems to act as a self-reference, like the narrator can't relate to anyone in the world but the kids in that movie.  Father Flanagan built the orphanage Boys Town and let the kids determine the rules. Like the narrator, the kids were on the outskirts of society; however, someone in that story was kind enough to give them a voice.

The ending where he fires shots at his girlfriend's house and then hides from the cops I think is either a metaphor for how isolation leads to delinquency or maybe for what kind of actions it takes in this world to get attention sometimes.  Given the Boys Town references to work with, it seems plausible.

I loved this story.  I don't enjoy reading short stories very often but I made it through this one happily.  I liked the style of it, the interior monologue was quick and semi-circular.  One weakness was maybe the ending which seemed to pull quickly from lack of action to an act of defiance, but given the context it's completely understandable.  

I felt sympathy for the narrator, which is hard for me to feel for characters.  I'm not really sure if he is to be sympathized for or if he's someone that is "lazy," which makes him unsympathetic, but then we find out he's really a prisoner of his own thoughts and paralyzed due to self-consciousness, which I feel does make him sympathetic.  Every time I wanted to feel less sympathy for him, we'd find out how sympathetic he is or how hard he's tried.  I thought that worked really well.