Now I don’t want to be responsible for taking anyone’s virginity so I’m going to give you this condom but you can only use it for anal sex,” David Sedaris says to a 17-yearold boy waiting to have his book signed.
Sedaris has equipped himself with a Costcosize box of Trojan condoms and hands them out to all of his teenage fans. This particular boy is tall and awkward: curly hair, gawky limbs spotted with freckles and bushy eyebrows poking out from behind his glasses. The boy’s face turns bright red. Sedaris recently made a stop in Winston-Salem at Barnes & Noble to support his latest book, When You Are Engulfed In Flames. The author has been on the New York Times bestseller list multiple times with his other books Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. When You Are Engulfed In Flames currently sits at No. 2 on the paperback nonfiction list. The Barnes & Noble event kicks off at 7 p.m. and Sedaris, dressed in a multi-colored stripe shirt and paisley print tie with rolled up sleeves, enters to a crowd of about 600. Due to poor planning only about 100 in attendance can actually see the author as he stands at the podium. Management has placed him at the junction of religion, Christianity, Christian inspiration and nursing sections.
He opts out of reading excerpts from his book and instead reads an unpublished fiction piece titled “Just a Quick E-mail” written in the form of an e-mail between two women. Next he reads a piece titled “Author, Author?” that was published in the March 30 edition of The New Yorker. The short story recounts the author’s trip to the Winston-Salem Costco with his brotherin-law and how gay he felt as he bought a box of condoms, strawberries and olive oil. The author then goes on to read entries from his diary discussing a kidney stone he experienced while staying in a hotel, how odd it is to call an animal an asshole, how he wants to get married so an owl can fly his wedding rings to him and stories he came up with for his friend to tell at her Weight Watchers meetings.
As the evening goes on Sedaris takes a few questions about his boyfriend Hugh, his current residence in London and his favorite city on tour. After the Q&A he signs books for the fans, which Barnes & Noble management has organized with numbered wristbands.
He greets each person with a smile and attempts to guess their astrological sign and age. He listens to every story with complete focus and interest no matter how bizarre or long-winded they may be. One woman asks him to sign her sister’s book with something really dirty, leaving it open for his interpretation. A mischievous grin comes across his face and he jots something down in the book. The woman and her husband read it and agree that it’s pretty bad. Two women toss a pack of Colgate Wisp disposable toothbrushes at him. Apparently they were given out somewhere nearby earlier in the day and both women thought that he would appreciate them. He randomly hands out bottles of hotel shampoo, conditioner lotion and soap from places he’s stayed on his tour to people who have recently graduated college or have a birthday. He continues to tell interesting stories he’s heard from people he’s met during his tour. He asks one teenaged girl what an owl says, she guesses, “Hoo-hoo.”
He replies, “No, they have actually been saying ‘I like black people’ all these years.” The African-American bookstore clerk sitting near him nearly falls off her chair.
A solid portion of the crowd consists of gay men. One college student tells Sedaris his story of coming out to his family and subsequently being disowned by his father. Sedaris listens intently and reassures him then offers him a treat from a gift basket supplied to him from Barnes & Noble, which he has dubbed his gay-only treat basket. Everyone else is offered jellybeans.
He enjoys hearing stories about breast feeding and, with his encouragement, several people share personal experiences they have their books signed. He jots some of them down in a miniature green notebook he keeps in his shirt pocket, his favorite being a story about a woman whose nipple fell off from an infection she contracted from breast-feeding.
“This is the most I have taken out my notebook throughout this whole book tour,” Sedaris says as he jots. Once the clock hits midnight the conversations become a bit more racy. Sedaris tells a story about a mother and daughter who end up pregnant at the same time and once the daughter’s son hits two years old she refuses to breast feed him anymore, so he goes to his grandmother.
“The kid told his mom, ‘My grandma gives me titty,’ and you can’t get much more white trash than that,” Sedaris said. He tells one tattooed lady a story about another woman he met on tour whose grandmother had a tattoo of a mouse tail coming out of her pubic hair and would show it to people and say “I have a mouse down here…oops! My pussy ate it.” By 3 a.m. the crowd dwindles down to the last 50 people who have endured the wait. Sedaris keeps his good humor and enthusiasm up until the very last person and hundreds of satisfied fans go home happy.
Writer and raconteur David Sedaris draws from his own (twisted) life experience for material. (courtesy images)
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