David Sedaris: Live

I find it remarkable that anybody could fill a 2800-seat theater (at an average cost of $30 a ticket), and provide no more of a 'show' than to read a few essays and stories that they've written from a podium. Yet that is exactly what David Sedaris is able to do. He visited Columbus, OH this weekend as part of a tour that includes an astounding 36 cities in 37 days. He is a humor writer, frequently heard on NPR, and not a comedian, but we had to purchase tickets nearly a year in advance in order to secure good seats.

The great thing about the show was that he read mostly yet-to-be-published stories as opposed to just reading out of one of his published books. He started with a humorous piece of fiction involving a conversation between a crow and a sheep, then read two really great essays that will be published in the New Yorker sometime in the near future, and finished it off with "Town and Country" a hilarous, if profanity-filled, look at how we judge people based on how they dress or talk or because they happen to drive a taxi-cab. After that, there was a short Q&A.

I really enjoy David Sedaris' storytelling style which is often based on events from his own life and tends to be somewhat stream-of-consciousness and usually speaks to larger truths about the human condition.

One thing that baffles me was to observe the young man seated to my left during the show. He was clearly there with his girlfriend, and was clearly there because it was something she wanted to do, and he was clearly not going to let her see him get any enjoyment out of it. I kept glancing over at him, and I never once saw him crack even the smallest of smiles, while most of the audience was laughing throughout the show. It seems like it would have taken a great deal of effort not to accidentally find something funny during the show.