Evening With David Sedaris

On Monday night we had tickets to see readings by David Sedaris. Sedaris is known as a regular contributor to the WBEZ Chicago radio show This American Life. His humor is really fanstastic and his delivery when he reads his essays is unmatched. If you haven't read or listened to any of his work I highly recomend that you do.

Sedaris read a great story unpublished story on Monday, i belive it was titled 'Innocents Abroad'. The essay was themed around that fact that even when you are speaking english abroad local languages or accents slip into you conversations. 'Paris' becomes 'Paireeee' or 'Street' becomes 'Strasse'. It isn't so weird when you are talking to a non-native english speaker, but as soon as you find another American and you start doing this is just becomes a little wierd.

Sedaris had submitted the essay to This American Life but the producers didn't accept it. He talked about it a bit, and said that they were completely wrong, none of the producers had lived abroad and probably would never relate to or understand the essay. I can understand his point, at times when you talking to others that haven't lived over seas, you try explaining something, a quirk in living, and strange tradition that you have to follow, whatever. Some just don't get it. And probably never will unless they decide at some point to live outside their boarders and outside of their comfort zone.

The roars in the club after the reading by Sedaris illustrated the fact that that the essay was right on the mark. Many of us in Switzerland had shared similar experiences to Sedaris who currently resides in France. Although we may never see this yet unpublished work in writing because of the difficulting of the nuances of pronunciation that make it such a great spoken piece I do hope that he will record it at some point for an audio collection.