 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Lecture Review: Humorist David Sedaris laughs it up with 2,000
Tuesday, October 19, 1999 By Bob Hoover, Post-Gazette Book Editor
Among Sigmund Freud's forays into the human psyche was his attempt to explain why we laugh at jokes, thus spoiling the punch line for everybody.
So, I have no intention of explaining why 2,000 people spent more than an hour laughing until their sides hurt last night when David Sedaris read from his stories at the Drue Heinz Lecture.
I can only say that right now the slightly built, 40ish Sedaris is one of the funniest men in America. He's a humorist, not a standup comic with an HBO special, a writer first and foremost in the tradition of James Thurber.
He possesses a skill seldom found in American culture today -- subtlety.
Delivered with a deadpan style, his images, at first sounding commonplace but, with a little twist, weird and absurd, are brilliant little gems of hilarity.
It's also important to note that Sedaris achieved his growing popularity on radio, a medium which depends almost entirely on words and the listener's imagination.
It was his readings on National Public Radio which attracted his ever-growing audience and led to three story collections and a busy magazine career.
Critical, I think, to his popularity, is his unusual voice, a high-pitched blend of innocence and sarcasm. Finally, at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, his fans got to see the man behind that voice.
Sedaris emerged in shirtsleeves and tie, lugging a large briefcase, and set to work immediately without a cloying introduction on how much he loved Pittsburgh, etc.
He read four stories and a particularly disgusting -- if you weren't laughing so hard -- closing vignette involving a toilet bowl.
So there's my problem: I can't really describe Sedaris' performance without ruining it.
Oh, I could detail how he used his experiences learning French in Paris to condemn the entire French race.
I could try to capture the speech and behavior of his younger brother, Paul, nicknamed the Rooster, whose reliance on a certain 12-letter word starting with "m" separated him from the rest of his family.
Then, I might work hard to replay the reaction to Sedaris' story about his father, called "I'll Have What He's Wearing," in which his father eats part of his hat.
There's no reason to try. Sure, Sedaris offers no trenchant political or social commentary. He appears to have little interest beyond his own life and his family.
What he does have is a keen nose for the absurdity of modern life, one that we're apt to take too seriously.
Sedaris brings us back to earth.
|
||||||||
