David Sedaris in Seattle

Me Talk Pretty One DayI fell in love with David Sedaris about eight or nine years ago when I read "Me Talk Pretty One Day" on an airplane. It was a big mistake because I was laughing so hard at every single thing on the page. I was in raptures. Tonight, I had the fortune to see David Sedaris reading live at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.

He opened up with a story about greed and book tours. Starting it off as a joke because of the ubiquitous tip jars in America, he  supposedly planted a tip jar at each and every book signing of a tour. People started off with quarters and ended up with fives and twenties. He started to gauge the crowd at the review not by their numbers, but how cheap they were, or by how much money he got from a particular city.  This is ironic, because I started to judge the reading, not by its own merit, but by the fifty dollar price tag. For fifty dollars, I expected a bit more.

The best story of the night started with a thank you letter for a wedding gift. The gift? A gift certificate for two pizzas. The sheer cattiness of the letter was a joy to listen to, and the twists and turns showed a true Sedaris genius. Unfortunately, the whole show wasn't quite that enticing. It had its ups and downs, but in the end for me, despite the charm of the man and the quality of his writing, was not quite up to par with the fifty dollar price tag. To be honest, I could have spent the evening, quite happily, at home, with a ten dollar bottle of wine, and three of his better books. Perhaps, "Naked", "Me Talk Pretty One Day" , and a grab-bag of one of his other books.