The Sedaris and Vowell Show

David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell were so funny this weekend!

Sedaris started off taking the piss regarding the recent criticism about his embellishments in his stories. I thought it was a great 'response' to his critics. You can't beat satire as a means to shut down the critics. He basically said 'FU' to them without really saying it. I don't know if many people knew what he was referencing during the show, but I think from all the laughter, it was still funny even to those who hadn't heard the back story.

I never knew the origin of Oneida  china, and Vowell made it amusing as only she could. In fact, prior to the show as I was waiting in line to have my two David Sedaris books signed, I was having a conversation with the woman in front of me, and saying how I love Sarah Vowell on This American Life, but hadn't been interested in her book because I'm not much of a history book reader. Oh, how I changed my mind after the show! I should have known better--of course she made history interesting!

I have to say the VIP reception was a bit disappointing. When I went to a VIP reception for Ira Glass, he actually hung around and mingled for like 30-45 minutes! People were having conversations with him, it was casual and cool. Last night was nothing like that! (Oh, and the P.S. on that is that I could not think of anything cool to say to Ira Glass, so ended up saying nothing--I just hovered around other conversations he was having and laughed at the appropriate times (I hope)--I'm sure I looked like a freak.)

The reception started at 6:30, was supposed to be until 7:30, show supposed to start at 8:00. My friend and I arrived a little late (husband was not allowed to attend with me, as he is not familiar with Sedaris and Vowell, so no chance in hell I was going to waste this on him... though maybe I would have done him a favor by introducing him to their humor? Now I'm doubting my decision... but I just envisioned him not enjoying it, because sometimes I'm surprised at the American humorists he finds funny or not.
After the show I definitely thought he would have enjoyed it. So I'm a bad wife).

We got ourselves situated with some wine, cheese, and brownies and sat chatting for a while. It must have been close to 7:30 when finally the general manager of the NPR station announced that they were here but only had a few minutes. So then awkwardly, we all moved into a kind of big circle around the two of them and people just threw out questions at them. Even Sarah Vowell said at one point, "this is awkward!" I felt bad for them. At least in Santa Barbara though, people are good at pretending that they are not star-struck, so don't act like total freaks, well, you might disagree when you see the footage (and in case you are wondering, you do not hear me talking or anything--maybe my laugh at one point, but I was strictly OFF CAMERA). Now, please don't complain about the quality of the recording, or the fact that the sound is bad--it's a friggin' digital camera, that 'happens' to take video recordings. If you wanted better sound quality, you should have pledged enough money to attend the reception yourself!

I missed catching it in my video footage, but the very first question thrown out to David, was "Is it true you are now single?" Sedaris didn't deny it. It was really funny though because then right after and even during some other parts of the questioning session, the guy who asked it would humorously shout out things like, "Back off, Bitch!" to any women who said anything like how much they admired Sedaris.

[I'm having some !@#$!%#@%^%$^ technical difficulties... trying to get the clips onto YouTube (I'm a YouTube uploading virgin)]

After Sedaris and Vowell had swiftly exited this round of dodgeball Q&A, a few of us were talking to the guy who had asked this. He said he'd heard the rumor in NYC, and he said that he noticed that Sedaris was not wearing his ring that he normally does wear. No clues on this were to be had during the show.

In part 2 of my video clip, you will see Vowell mention how awkward it was that we were all standing around, she starts to compare it to being like Joan of Arc. It's also hard to hear when Sedaris answers a question about having a laptop. Some of the funniest bits of that exchange got lost to the sound-demons--what you probably can't hear well and that I loosely paraphrase now is that Sedaris says he used to travel with a typewriter, but now after 9/11 he can't. Vowell then quips that has to be one of the weirdest casualities of 9/11. Even off the cuff, the two of them are great!

I did have my moment to chat with him when I got my 2 books signed. I think I blew it though. He wasn't mean or anything, but I just never got that, "hey, you are a kindred spirit and if I weren't famous we would totally be friends" thing as I had kind of secretly hoped would happen. I just said, "you make my family seem normal," and got a weak smile from him as he was drawing in my books. He was nice and all, and really chatty in a way that surprised me. He had some standard questions that he was asking people as he signed. I got, "Who are you here with?" and then after I said my stupid comment about my family, he asked me where I was from originally. I don't think he saw me as potential friend material.

At least it was a great show.

Comments

[Ariel]

That's more googling for me to do as I have absolutely no idea who those people are. Should I have heard of them?

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