This entry is dedicated to Miss Pink, who just yesterday kindly asked me a review of David Sedaris’ book I’m currently reading.

That being declared, let’s move on to the real deal. I am sure that we should not call this a review, since a review covers many aspects, literary or otherwise, and usually is accompanied with vast knowledge of similar works to compare with. While I, on the other hand, at my best, provide purely biased view of my own on the subject. Maybe one day there will be a Sedaris scholar.

My interest on the author actually rooted deeper than the Time magazine review of his works. It started when in my senior year in college, I happened to watch this now-defunct show Stranger with Candy on Comedy Central. The series was about a 40-something year old former problem child (drug addict, runaway, looser), Geraldine “Jerry” Antonia Blank, who decided to start her HS education. To fully experience what she might be missing the whole time, she came back to live with her family --which this time consists of the father, the stepmother and a stepbrother. Needless to say, the show was hilariously strange and, of course, funny, as it pictured Jerry’s often failed careers to mix and mingle with the teenager crowd, and not to mention the teaching units. Who won’t? With the kinds of support of her bizarre family and outcasts friends provide. Anyway, Amy Sedaris, who also co-written some of the episodes, played the Jerry character. I later learned that she is related to our book writer, his little sister to be exact. Get it? It seems that funny genes run in the family. Okay, now it’s enough background to support our following ventures.

The book I own is Me Talk Pretty One Day, MTPOD for short, his first National Best Seller. He also authored several others, Naked, Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, and the newest one, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. I was thinking of buying his latest, which naturally, is still bound to be in the hardcover edition. But, hey, let’s face it, the $10 difference really could make a different into one’s contribution at Sundays’ collection. Instead, these past couple visits to Barnes & Nobles always included my reading catch up on the DYFICAD. Yes, yes, I’m that cheap.

MTPOD is divided into 2 parts, the first consists of 13 chapters of essays on daily childhood life, and the deux part consists of 15 essays picturing his life in Paris. Not enough baring all this in just one book, the title-suggested DYFICAD becomes the proof of family as the endless source of his writing themes.

All of these double-covered humor autobiographical essays on MTPOD are positioned in almost no chronological order. In the first part, it starts with a story of him taking speech therapy for his lazy tounge lisp. His rebel against the forced practice, in my opinion, could easily become the foundation of him becoming a writer. Instead of practicing what the therapist suggested, he avoided all the s-infected words with the help of his vast growing number of thesaurus words. Speech therapist becomes articulation coach, New Year’s Eve becomes the night at the end of the year, and so on.

The essays gradually became more satiric and funnier as he bare down his adulthood experiences –nothing “dirty”. There is this chapter that provides insights into the unglamorous side of New York City lives from his odd jobs as mover and private assistant to a poorly rich Latin woman. Those were funny. Another chapter talks about him being in Paris but never bothered to visit the touristy parts of it, instead he spent many daytime hours developing bonds with the locals when he sauntered to the local cinema to watch American movies. There is also his hilarious trouble in learning French and its super-ballistic grammar. And then there is the genuienly funny comparison of his seemingly lackluster childhood and his boyfriend’s African upbringings. (The boyfriend is the child of an American diplomat family stationed in different African countries.)

One thing that kind of annoying, is the follow up of the climax of some of the essays. I was hoping that it will lead to more stories but instead he has a knack to end something just like that.

Some called him the modern day Oscar Wilde. I guess so too, but take this from a girl whose only experience of an Oscar Wilde is coming from its screen work. No, not the MJ playing Cecily character in the The Importance of Being Earnest play Spidey missed the first time, but from the much hilarious movie version starring Rupert Everert and the ever lovely Colin Firth.

Anyway, this is a 40-something years old man, with no real responsibility, getting paid to write funny stories about his life. He becomes sort of my idol, on a second thought, maybe not so much.

These past couple of days, I also find another source of musing here. Reading his blog really brings the smile as wide as the De La Plata the back to my face. (Wikipedia told me that the aforementioned river is the widest on earth. I thought it was the Nile. Oh, well). Dodol Surodol could easily be a better yet positive, version of David Sedaris. (Maap, Dol, kok jadi bicarain elo ya, abis emang bagus dan lucu sih tulisan-tulisan elo…) Come on, Mr. Surodol –-sorry if this bothers you-- find that publisher, write your own book, or column, or please don’t ditch us ever and just keep posting!

Phew, what else? I think that's it. See how things evolve from just a simple wish of reviewing book into forcing your blog-friend to write his own book.