Last night I went to see David Sedaris read at the Virginia Theater. As expected, it was awesome. All of the work he read was new (to me at least), and he had the audience laughing pretty much right from the start. The best quote of the night was definitely "'Shit' is the tofu of cursing." He also talked about how he hadn't seen much of Champaign except for his hotel, which was "between a Hooters and a TGI Friday's." I think my favorite story was the one that started out with the plane ride with the well-heeled couple who cursed like sailors, moved on to the cab driver who asked him if he liked "the dick", and ended up with him looking at beastiality porn with his sister Amy.

He seemed a little nervous about being in front of an audience, maybe. There was no opening patter to warm up, he just walked out (after a brief dash back to the wings to retrieve his bottle of water), started reading, and kept his head down, staring at the pages even between stories. He did warm up for audience questions at the end, though, and gave a great description of flying into Springfield with a Lincoln impersonator who was on his way to the Lincoln Museum opening. And he even handled with aplomb being almost upstaged by a bat winging its way across the Virginia's stage.

There were quite a few library and library school folks in attendance. There were at least 10 that we saw or talked to, and I'm sure there were a ton more we didn't manage to spot. Unsurprisingly, when he asked who in the audience listened to NPR almost the entire theater answered yes.

He also talked up Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, the new anthology of his favorite short stories, and made an interesting observation about one of the authors (possibly Lorrie Moore). He said that he loved her stories because they made him laugh all the way through and then feel sad at the end... Which is what I've always felt is one of the greatest strengths of his own stories. Just try reading "The Youth in Asia" or "Repeat After Me" without being completely in tears by the end.