shout out to the master
07.13.05 • comment • trackback
I admit to having mixed feelings about David Sedaris’s Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Oh it’s funny and deeply touching at times, but it doesn’t match Me Talk Pretty One Day, at least in my (very) humble opinion. I think it has something to do with the fact that since his early works, Sedaris has matured in many ways, namely that he’s a little older and a lot richer. So his stories, while still certainly worth the price of a book, have undergone a subtle change in character that I don’t connect with quite as well.
All that said, “Turbulence,” which you can read at the New Yorker’s site, is an instant classic. It concerns an argument on an airplane and a crossword puzzle, and in describing the circumstances Sedaris shows off some of his best comedic timing and wordplay. Fair use:
The problem is that you have to concentrate [on a crossword puzzle], and all I could think of was this woman.
Seventeen across. A fifteen-letter word for enlightenment. “I am not an asshole,” I wrote, and it fit.
I can’t wait for his next book.