Fangirlism: David and Amy Sedaris

I‘m quite content with my relatives, but if I ever had the option of acquiring an adoptive family, I know who I’d pick: the Sedaris mob.

David Sedaris and his sister Amy are two of the most interesting people on the planet. Like the other members of their family, they’re a bit oddball. David has a fondness for taxidermy and medical antiques, once bought a human skeleton as a birthday present for his long-term boyfriend, and likes to test the comfort boundaries of fellow air travellers by touching them on the head three times. Amy is a writer and actor with a fondness for at-home entertaining who spends her Saturday nights making capes for her pet rabbit, arguing with the ghost of her imaginary dead boyfriend and perfecting her cheese ball recipe.

Many will be familiar with the collective Sedaris oeuvre — both of their books have spent months atop the New York Times bestseller list, and Amy wrote and starred in Strangers With Candy, which also featured Stephen “Dreamboat” Colbert. If you’ve not had the tingly pleasure of reading David’s essay collection Me Talk Pretty One Day, I suggest you drop everything and purchase it immediately.

This week I was lucky enough to meet the great Mr. David Sedaris at one of his book readings. His book tours are the stuff of legend. At each signing he spends several minutes one-on-one with each of his fans, asking them about their lives and delving into a plastic bag to distribute miscellany to his younger readers. He gives away bottles of conditioner swiped from his hotel room. He hands out condoms to teenagers on the proviso that they “only be used anally”. He is charming, gentle and patient, but with a streak of irreverent cheekiness that makes you feel like a co-conspirer in some dastardly scheme.

The night I met him was no different. After reading two essays — one featuring the line “I will make nachos from the body of Christ” — Mr. Sedaris sat down with his pen at the ready and beckoned the first book-toting fan to come forth. That was at 7pm. At 10pm, it was my turn. And there were at least 100 people behind me, all of whom received a personal promise from the man himself that he would sign their books.

He talked to each person as he wrote them a message. A few things I overheard while waiting in line:

• An inscription written to a guy called Eric: “I can’t spell ‘hysterical’ without you.”
• He tried to guess a few people’s star signs. Occasionally he was correct. More often, he was wrong:
  DS: “Do you have a cat?”
  Girl: “Yes!”
  DS: “I knew that. That’s why I drew one in your book, see? I also know that you’re a Cancer…”
  (Girl shakes head)
  DS: “…on society.”

• To another girl: “Did you recently have sex with a Gemini? Because you smell like a Gemini.”

I’m not usually rendered breathless by celebrity, but this guy is my writing idol. His shtick — selectively embellished comedic anecdotes — is exactly the kind of stuff I hope to emulate when I get around to writing and publishing my first book. So when I came face-to-face with the man himself…well, I won’t lie. I got all fangirly.

“It’s so lovely to meet you,” I said, enunciating my vowels in a manner not dissimilar to my drunk voice. He smiled and asked where I was from.

“Sydney,” I said, and he proceeded to wax rhapsodic on the superior quality of my hometown’s public swimming pools. I nodded dreamily. He asked what I was doing in New York, and I stumbled my way through what might be charitably called “words” before picking up my newly inscribed copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day and sauntering off in a daze.

On the way to the cash register I opened my book to the title page and found this message:

Dear Ella,

I love your pools.

DS

If he weren’t 50-something and gay, I would try to make him my boyfriend.

Should there be a book tour near you, I implore you to go. In the meantime, here is some Amy and David goodness courtesy of our friend the internet:

• Amy charming the pants off Letterman
• David’s essay, In the Waiting Room
• David reading his Stadium Pal story