Not So Funny
June 28, 2018
Author/comedian David Sedaris has written a new book of essays called Calypso. I haven’t read it, and I probably won’t although it is guaranteed to be a best seller. Nevertheless, I was curious enough to go to his reading from it at Politics and Prose, our favorite bookstore. The program was scheduled to begin at 8:00, but when Peter and I arrived an hour early there were no seats left.
Scrambling to find the best place to stand, we were approached by a lovely young woman who claimed that she and her partner couldn’t bear to see us stand for so long and insisted we take their seats.
David Sedaris is very funny and a very successful author. The audience laughed non-stop as he read from his book. I distinctly remember chuckling twice, smiling occasionally, but mostly thinking that Peter and I are not his audience.
I was amazed and impressed to learn that when he is not traveling, he spends four to eight hours a day picking up trash from the roads near his West Sussex home in Britain while listening to podcasts and books. He told his audience that there is a garbage truck named after him and that he was invited to Buckingham Palace as a result of his single-handed efforts to rid the highways of trash.
Walking in our neighborhood the next day, I saw a metal object in the middle of the street. As I often do when I see something on the road that might cause a flat tire, I picked it up. I thought of David Sedaris and was impressed.