David Sedaris, Douglas Rackoff & Sarah Vowell

I was rather disturbed by the stuff in 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' about how Sedaris went to Paris and did nothing but watch American movies there and mock the illogicality of the gender system in the French language. Then there were the put- downs of faggoty New York restaurants with their 'over-creative food', and the jokes about pretentious art students doing drugs.

Sedaris, like any writer, writes about what he knows. But he's a satirist, so he attacks what he knows. When this is persecution, like the 'speech therapy' he underwent at school, that's fine. But when, later, he has approximately the kind of life he deserves -- a gay, sophisticated, metropolitan one -- he attacks that too. That's when it gets problematical for me. Paris and New York are too sophisticated, and the suburbs are too boring and straight. Breeders from the boondocks get mocked when they visit him in New York, but queeny head waiters get mocked too.

So where does Sedaris stand? What are his unquestionable values, his unimpeachable virtues? They seem to be 'me and my sister, and our difference from everybody else'. And I'm a teensy bit concerned by some sort of autism there.

Except that that bit only reads as "persecution" if you run with his eerily non-jokey joke that his childhood lisp was somehow part of an incipient gay identity. In fact this is basically his only joke through much of that collection: "Oh my God, even when I was five years old I was already so gay."

The sissy lisp in 'Me Talk Pretty' is a stigma, some kind of tangible sign of membership of an 'elect'. (Interesting to note that it recedes in later episodes, in Paris and New York, as an attribute of the fussy gay types he's satirizing. They apparently do not have the stigmata...)

But perhaps it's no more than an exaggeration of one of the things that might set off our 'gaydar'. I mean, 'gaydar' (gay radar) contains the concept that there are obvious markers and clues to gayness. Most people accept that. Some of the triggers may be stuff like 'macho-looking men who talk and make mannerisms more characteristic of middle-aged women'. Which could be cultural. But others, like the Sedaris lisp, are certainly biological, and 'incurable'.

I don't have a problem with this, although I accept that we won't know for a while if there's a 'gay gene', and that, even if there were, there might be some men who became gay for other reasons than biological determinism.

I don't know whether gay men see a hierarchical or 'class' division between those born gay (with the lisp) and those who merely become gay later. The person I know who had sex with Sedaris was a late convert to homosexuality, first fathering a small family before deciding the gay life appealed more. Does that mean that Sedaris saw him as 'less gay'? Perhaps he liked him better for that reason, and perhaps the 'Oh my god, even as a child I was so gay' tone is really a kind of self-satire, or self-hatred, tying in with the famous dislike of most gay men for 'sissies' and 'femmes'. (Nobody even places a gay personal ad saying 'I am a sissy / femme acting man...')

"So where does Sedaris stand? What are his unquestionable values, his unimpeachable virtues?"

I read 'Me talk pretty...'. Lightweight fluff, kinda funny, killed an hour or two. I don't think 'unquestionable values and unimpeachable virtues' are really on the menu here.

If I wanted that sort of thing a writer of mildly amusing anecdotes wouldn't be the first place I'd look.

In Canoli there's plenty of fluffy crap, but there's also a really fine essay about the Cherokee Trail of Tears, which also touches on her 1/8 Cherokee heritage, her Oklahoma childhood, the Civil War, and her love/hate relationships with Adnrew Jackson and Bill Clinton. I thought it was really insightful.

I gave a little review of a book I read.

I don't even think anyone else on the thread mentioned her--they talked mostly about Sedaris.

she was so awkward and precious that i felt physically ill.

"I was rather disturbed by the stuff in 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' about how Sedaris went to Paris and did nothing but watch American movies there and mock the illogicality of the gender system in the French language. Then there were the put- downs of faggoty New York restaurants with their 'over-creative food', and the jokes about pretentious art students doing drugs.

Sedaris, like any writer, writes about what he knows. But he's a satirist, so he attacks what he knows. When this is persecution, like the 'speech therapy' he underwent at school, that's fine. But when, later, he has approximately the kind of life he deserves -- a gay, sophisticated, metropolitan one -- he attacks that too. That's when it gets problematical for me. Paris and New York are too sophisticated, and the suburbs are too boring and straight. Breeders from the boondocks get mocked when they visit him in New York, but queeny head waiters get mocked too.

So where does Sedaris stand? What are his unquestionable values, his unimpeachable virtues? They seem to be 'me and my sister, and our difference from everybody else'. And I'm a teensy bit concerned by some sort of autism there.

-- Momus (nic...), May 29th, 2002."

OTM OTM OTM OTM OTM OTM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if i have one more person recommend me a book by any of these three clowns im gonna lose it.

as someone who has been given THREE of his books in the past year by three different people, this is 100% OTM. not that any of those people were "snobby indie hipsters" in the least, but for some reason i get incredibly wary when that many people just automatically assume i'd like a certain author/band/whathaveyou. i'm scared to read them because i feel like i wouldn't give any of them a fair shot. i did try listening to one of his NPR readings at my boyfriend's behest (he luvs DS) but i zoned out after about five minutes.

Truman Capote to thread! I've always wanted to say that. I have been thinking about david sedaris and truman capote lately for some reason. i'm sure he would have an answer when the question of gay southern misfits with lisps and glorified childhoods is raised.

They will play well in Canada, perhaps.

i find that funny for some reason. is it true?

there is something weird about this thread, but I'm not sure how to put it -- basically I think as Sedaris as pretty much the essay-form equivalent of a stand-up comedian (would anyone really dispute this?), so it seems odd to perceive attacks or elitism or even interrogate the stance too much, given that if he were wearing a blazer with sneakers and standing in front of a microphone we'd probably limit the complaints to his not being a funny as advertised

but I dunno, maybe we should have more critical faculties about stand-up comedy, too

there is something weird about this thread, but I'm not sure how to put it --

momus

I actually know someone who has had sex with David Sedaris.

dullest boast ever

'gaydar' (gay radar)

i post on a message board that used to be frequented by someone who knew someone who had sex with david sedaris

i saw a david sedaris "performance" (if you call it that? a "reading" maybe?) when my boyfriend got 2 tix for his birthday. it was pleasant, and non-challenging, and mildly funny in the way that he is.

i didn't really understand the stans who wait in line for 3 hours to get a book signed, tho. he's just a pleasant, witty, kinda neurotic dude.

thtans

(so so sorry)

xpost to elmo -- yeah, that seems OTM to me, and I will admit to an outright prejudice about some people's saying that Sedaris is one of their top/favorite writers -- I mean that is all well and good if that's what people like, but it seems like so little to get out of books, that your favorite writing would basically be like an upscale version of watching comedians on Comedy Central

well maybe not a prejudice, I mean whatever, enjoy what you enjoy and good for you, I ain't judging

xp yeah it should be thtanth, c'mon now

oh man, i have met so many people like this

or at least a few that have annoyed me disproportionately

sedaris seems like he would be pleasant company for drinks & dinner but to hear people fawn over the genius of his work is just strange, like: do you not have funny people in your life who tell embarrassing family anecdotes?

i really don't know anyone who thinks sedaris is a bona fide genius writer (maybe i'm lucky) but the reason for his popularity is pretty easy to see--he's a consistently funny writer which is more than i can say for anything on comedy central

I think I might hate these people but I have grudging respect for their radio success despite their having the worst voices for radio.
They are the Muggsy Bogues of This American Life.

I liked SV at first b/c she told stories about marching band, and I was in marching band! And for having a voice like a consumptive mouse on the radio. But I think I lost track of her rise to fame somewhere.

there is something weird about this thread, but I'm not sure how to put it -- basically I think as Sedaris as pretty much the essay-form equivalent of a stand-up comedian (would anyone really dispute this?), so it seems odd to perceive attacks or elitism or even interrogate the stance too much, given that if he were wearing a blazer with sneakers and standing in front of a microphone we'd probably limit the complaints to his not being a funny as advertised

― nabisco, Monday, July 13, 2009 10:06 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i see your point, but at least in my world, his books are far more widespread than any one comedian currently standing. it seems natural that such stylized, "witty" writing would attract this sort of criticism.

to be frank, i couldn't finish the one sedaris book i tried to read. i got tired of listening to a smart-ass caricaturize (spl) people.

oh surely far more people in the world have watched a Chris Rock special or something than read a Sedaris book? I'm not really trying to compare, though -- I guess I just find it interesting that when something is written and taken seriously in a middlebrow realm we get to bring critical faculties to it, whereas something that serves a similar purpose in a lower-brow realm is sort of corded off as a space where certain things are just given.

nah that larry the cable guy book was shit, too.

you did compare, though so. . . .

well, i think that's exactly why i don't find it surprising. when placed in a middlebrow context of class judgments and the like, i think this sort of commentary is far more susceptible to criticism.

Maybe this will draw a lot of fire but I think the reason Sedaris gets outsized "what a genius" love is that he wrote a book, _Barrel Fever_, which really IS a kind of anarchic genius masterpiece, in the vein of (and in places at the level of) the books Woody Allen and Fran Lebowitz were writing in the 1970s. (So e.g. if you think those books are precious and awful you ought to be ignoring my opinion here.) It is much less autobiographical and much less something you can imagine read aloud to an appreciative Ira Glass.

The books after that are steadily more attenuated echoes of Barrel Fever and fit the "mild, slightly neurotic, pleasant, amusing" descriptions elsewhere in the thread.

I do not regret picking up "Me Talk Pretty" in the airport bookstore, as it made for a breezy flight, but it never led to any interest in further exploration.

I'm trying to think of what would be superior versions of these three and am stuck with Dave Barry for Sedaris and Guns, Germs, & Steel for Vowell, and I don't know what Rakoff writes.