Tuesday 1/28/25
David Sedaris is one of New Yorker editor in chief David Remnick's guys. In that sense he's like Jeffrey Toobin--a married man with kids who impregnated someone who wasn't his wife, denied it, was then sued for paternity and had said paternity proven, who likes to follow women he does not know home from parties and ask if he can anally fist them, which has long reigned supreme atop of the Jeffrey Toobin sexual wish list (same guy who also masturbates on Zoom work meetings)--and The New Yorker's Michael Luo. The ivory tower boys.
Which is to say, David Sedaris, a New Yorker contributor since 1995, is a horrible human being, but he has that New Yorker cultural credit and backing (and will until there's sufficient public backlash and embarrassment for the likes of a sub-human roach like a David Remnick, who knew all about Toobin following those women home and asking if he could anally fist them--among many other transgression which you can read about with a simple Google search--but only relieved him of his New Yorker duties after the Zoom masturbation incident a few years ago became a source for millions of punchlines; that's the sole reason David Remnick cared, because he didn't want to have...well, pick a substance...on his face), and gets the push from the industry to the outside world.
The people in the outside world will read a David Sedaris book because they don't go looking for things to read. When we don't go looking, we don't have something that is very important in this world, whether it's with art or morals, or what we'll accept, or what we allow is okay, or for how we understand right and wrong, and that is standards.
David Sedaris is a cruel, bitter man. He writes often about flatulence. And the dead skin on the bottom of his feet. He's really into writing about the dead skin on his feet. This is supposed to be funny.
"What a laugh, I'm writing about the dead skin on the bottom of my feet again, hold on, let me pause that while I jeer at this person going through something difficult in their lives, I have many millions of dollars, you know, up here in my totally unearned ivory tower of gross old white guy privilege. What up, neighbor Remnick!!!!"
If you don't go looking, and you haven't experienced much, and you haven't gotten out, so to speak, in the sense of what you've sought, you're less likely to have standards. It's important to cultivate standards. What we think we know is often not what there is to be known; which is to say, we don't know.
When I was fourteen, the music I listened was the music I thought was the best there had ever been. The deepest, the most moving, the most sophisticated. Because I had no clue. I had very limited standards. I was inexperienced.
It works the same way with anything. That's how you can get a lot of people to say that an unfunny, untalented, revolting individual--and "individual" isn't the right word, because Sedaris doesn't deserve it, but you know what I mean--is this master humorist, the sharp-eyed essayist, the person you need to go see when he comes to Boston's Symphony Hall--more on this in a bit--for a Celebrity Series event, which is really about telling people that you went to such an event. It's the tony, in-person event version of a New Yorker tote bag.
I want you to look at something now from a David Sedaris book, which is typical of how he writes and what he does. Let's actually look at something. With standards. While paying attention. Out in the open. Not in private, glossing over shit that is so clearly shit, thinking about other things while doing it, making allowances for the the shit, and giving ourselves self-congratulatory back pats for reading a book book by a New Yorker author, etc. Okay?
At M&S, I emptied my basket onto the belt saying, 'I don't need a bag, thank you.' Then I watched as my cashier, who wore a badge reading, 'HEARING IMPAIRED,' put my items into a bag and charged me 10p for it. When we tell the disabled they can do anything they want in this world, don't we mean they can invent a new kind of alarm system, or write a book about loneliness? Something, well, that can be accomplished at home?"
That's real. That's not me making something up and attributing it to someone.
What do you think about that? It's hard to believe, isn't it? That someone would write that. Think it. Have it be published. That here is someone held up as a great writer.
A great writer adds to humanity. To our human wellness. To our evolving humanness.
Do you think that's what someone who writes things like the above does?
This is a vile creature who is making fun of someone born with a physical disability.
Making fun of them for having given them a bag during a transaction in a store at a register.
But it's even worse than that, isn't it?
We're talking a simple, harmless error of no significance that an owl-eared person could have made. Errors do happen, do they not? Ever not heard someone because you attention was split for a second?
David Sedaris is too stupid to realize as much. But that's also not what this was about. Wasn't about the bag. It was about someone who wanted to slam someone else who is handicapped. And that was done from a place of pure hate. Pure entitlement. Delusional privilege.
This is a bad person in David Sedaris.
And this is funny, huh? You think that's funny? I mean, this a genius humorist, right?
The hell he is.
All of these people are bad at what they do. What they're not bad at is getting others--or having others--carry water for them.
Do you have kids? If so, your child has some things that make life harder for them than if they didn't have them, yes?
We all do. It's a part of life. We are born with these things. Maybe we're deaf. Maybe we have anxiety. We're scared of this or that. We're predisposed to addictive issues with substances.
My buddy, my five-year-old niece Amelia, has struggled with her speech and goes to speech therapy twice a week.
We have options. We may be able to work at what our things are. We can embrace them, depending on what they are. We can do everything in our power to make sure that they don't hold us back and make our lives any less special or memorable or helpful or inspiring or well-lived.
David Sedaris would mock those people. He'd mock your kid. He'd mock your disabled child. He'd mock you for whatever it is he thinks he has or is that you don't or are aren't.
And trust me: David Sedaris, as a human, has less going for him than you do.
The man above who worked at the store has a mother. You could have been his mother. And David Sedaris is belittling him for his physical handicap?
But it's even worse. It's a lot worse, actually. If you think about it.
Because what David Sedaris is saying is that this man shouldn't have this job. He shouldn't be working. He shouldn't be out in the world.
He should be home writing about how lonely he is.
The galling assumption is that anyone with a physical disability must necessarily be lonely and cannot have a richly peopled life with relationships, friendships, love.
This is the result of a worker giving you a bag when you said you didn't want one, funny man?
But it's worse than that.
Because what David Sedaris is saying is that if you're hearing impaired--or whatever he deems as lesser--then your life isn't worth living as much as his life.
You shouldn't be working where he shops. He shouldn't have to interact with you at all. Because he finds it annoying.
That's evil. What do you want to call it? What do you want to call this writing? Brilliant? Witty? Insightful? You think so?
Because I don't believe that anyone honestly thinks that, unless it's someone who is very limited in what they've allowed themselves to experience in life, kind of like when I was fourteen and thought the paragons of music for all-time was the collective known as Great White.
And you know what? That was pretty stupid on my part. But my experience was so circumscribed. I didn't get out, or hadn't gotten out much yet. I didn't know.
The problem is, that's how most adults live their lives, especially when it comes to the arts. To films, music, and especially books, because they read so little. If all you know is Dumb and Dumber IV, and you haven't seen The General, your ideas of what is comedy aren't going to be the same as if you have.
Why does no one say what I'm saying here? There it is. How is this not a thing? Millions of people read David Sedaris, right? But do they really?
Or are many of those people akin to programmed post-human drones with no standards, who get their marching orders and troop down to the bookstore, buy the Sedaris book, drop it in the New Yorker tote bag, and read from the script, which says: This guy is super funny! What a wit!
Just like people do a version of that with the fiction of George Saunders, whom we discussed the other day. So creative! What a brilliant fiction writer!
I'm supposed to believe that millions of people read the above and were okay with it? Didn't trouble them? Not enough to say anything?
And if you are okay with that, you might want to invest in a mirror and try looking in it.
Again, it's typical of David Sedaris's writing. That's his worldview. That's how he regards you and yours. That's how he views anyone who isn't like him. In his circle. With a David Remnick.
David Sedaris will be at Boston's Symphony Hall on Sunday, April 6, of this year.
Gary Dunning is the president and executive director of the Celebrity Series of Boston. You can reach him at: gdunning@celebrityseries.org or gd@celebrityseries.org.
Nicole Taney is the artistic director of the Celebrity Series of Boston. You can reach her at: ntaney@celebrityseries.org or nt@celebrityseries.org.
If you don't get a response from those accounts because they're minded by minions, let me know and I'll furnish you with the relevant gmail addresses.
I'll leave you with this. The Celebrity Series sends out a catalogue of their upcoming events for that season. Here's the page for the David Sedaris event in April. And lo, what do we see in the middle of the page?
This performance will feature American Sign Language Interpretation.
So in sum: If you're deaf or disabled--among other things--David Sedaris doesn't think you deserve to work if that means he could ever encounter you while he shops. Instead, you should be home alone writing about how lonely your miserable, limited life is.
But: You can pay money to come see him at Boston's Symphony Hall, that's okay, sucker and human deserving of no human decency, and certainly none of the things that David Sedaris believes himself automatically deserving of and which he should automatically be handed, despite what he so plainly is, and so plainly is not.
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