reply to david sedaris

A friend of david sedaris' sister wrote an op-ed responding to the essay sedaris wrote. keeks reported on that story earlier. It's an interesting perspective.

2Pz long-ish reads

i recommend these articles to you personally.

this one is written by david sedaris about his sister's suicide, but don't worry. it's full of laughs.

Unlike the cottages of our youth, this one did not have a maid’s room. It was too new and fancy for that, as were the homes that surrounded it. Traditionally, all the island houses were on stilts, but more and more often now the ground floors are filled in. They all have beachy names and are painted beachy colors, but most of those built after Hurricane Fran hit the coast, in 1996, are three stories tall and look almost suburban. This place was vast and airy. The kitchen table sat twelve, and there was not one but two dishwashers. All the pictures were ocean-related: seascapes and lighthouses, all with the airborne “V”s that are shorthand for seagull. A sampler on the living-room wall read, “Old Shellers Never Die, They Simply Conch Out.” On the round clock beside it, the numbers lay in an indecipherable heap, as if they’d come unglued. Just above them were printed the words “Who cares?” (via)

this one is the new yorker's take on college football fandom in alabama, or as they call it, "mayhem". it's real snooty, and i loved reading it.

Then there is the fact that, like any one person or institution, the state is rightly proud of the thing in which it is most successful. After the game, Auburn’s athletic director declared that, if his team wins next week’s S.E.C. championship, against Missouri, it would be “a disservice to the nation” were Auburn to be left out of the national championship. (Barring losses, Florida State and Ohio State seem likely to face off in that game.) It’s a ridiculous sentiment, but one I sympathize with: there is no other moment, save for regularly scheduled football games and unscheduled tragedies, like the tornados that struck Tuscaloosa in 2011, when the state of Alabama has the attention of their three hundred and nine million fellow Americans. Who are we, in parts of the country with professional sports to cheer and (relatively) thriving economies to enjoy, to deny Alabamans a bit of crowing? (via)

david sedaris is not that hunky

what david sedaris reads

here's a delightful little q + a with david sedaris, focusing mainly on his reading habits. it's adorbz.

Do you consider yourself a fiction or a nonfiction person? What’s your favorite literary genre? Any guilty pleasures?
I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives. The worse off the subjects, the more inclined I am to read about them. When it comes to fictional characters, I’m much less picky. Happy, confused, bitter: if I like the writing I’ll take all comers. I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the “Harry Potter” books. They’re read by the great Stephen Fry, and I play them over and over, like an 8-year-old.
...
Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
Boy, did I have a hard time with “Moby-Dick.” I read it for an assignment 10 years ago and realized after the first few pages that without some sort of a reward system I was never going to make any progress. I told myself that I couldn’t bathe, shave, brush my teeth or change my clothes until I had finished it. In the end, I stunk much more than the book did.
...
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know? Have you ever written to an author?
I’m horrible at meeting people I admire, but if I could go back in time, I’d love to collect kindling or iron a few shirts for Flannery O’Connor. After I’d finished, she’d offer to pay me, and I’d say, awe-struck, my voice high and quivering, that it was on me. (via)

david sedaris has a new book coming out!

In his new book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, writer, radio star, and amateur zoologist David Sedaris takes an artistic leap away from memoir and essay to channel a dark and dirty Aesop. In sixteen brief tales, Sedaris introduces readers to snotty warblers, lab rats who experience Schadenfreude, and a certain parasite that sings in a hippo’s butt. Children’s book author Ian Falconer (of Olivia books fame) illustrated the volume with warm, gorgeous illustrations — yes, even of the hippo’s butt. (via)

there's an interview here.