Response to: David Sedaris: "Consider the Stars"

Sedaris begins the philsophical journey of "Consider the Stars" by thinking back to a "Labor Day celebration at the Raleigh Country Club" where he overheard a group of sixth graders discussing the "celebrity circles" of their junior high school. Shocked by this, Sedaris comments on how a young him went "into a mild shock" upon hearing their conversation. For, in the young David's head, it had "simply never occurred to [him] that other schools might have their own" social circles. Reflecting on his own school's "popular crowd", Sedaris describes their characteristics and "power". A power so complete "that [he] actually felthonored when one of them hit [him] in the mouth with a rock". This encounter with a boy by the name of Thad Pope leads the narrator to further explain this anecdote. When Thad hit David, it caused damage to his teeth, causing him to need a root canal. This was something David's father, much to his son's dismay, felt should be paid for by the assaulting party. A meeting is set up with the Pope family, and Sedaris is very surprised to see that "Thad was full capable of operating independently" without his group of "special" students. Young David insists that the injury was caused by his own stupidity and out of no malicious intent on Thad's part. He eventually comes to the conclusion that he and his dad do not belong around the Pope's. Sedaris even goes so far as to blame his father for he himself not fitting in; saying "You don't belong here. More precisely, I decided that he was the reason I didn't belong." Eventually, the Pope's "agreed to pay for half the root canal" because, Sedaris believes, "they wanted us out of their house." The next day, at lunch, David makes an attempt to approach Thad and give his sincerest apology, only to be shut down. The whole encounter with David and his father was "so far beneath him that it hadn't even registered." Sedaris goes on to explain how things began changing after junior high. Desegregation had a large impact on the way high school cliques were sorted. It even so happened that Thad was jumped by a group of new black students "early in [their] junior year", although, Sedaris found, he had an odd sympathy/worship in his heart for Thad Pope. He tells the reader how he clapped longer for Thad at graduation and even found himself wondering about Thad and how his experiences would be at college or hoping that he would run into him in their now adult lives. In conclusion, Sedaris comments on him constant reminder of Thad and junior high: his root canal. Something he eventually comes to describe as "a little misunderstanding between friends".

            Cliques suck. That is what I got from this essay. To be honest, I feel like everyone I talk to these days has had some problem, at some point in their life, with being the odd man out or being bullied. Although, I had a great middle and high school experience, the road getting there was awful. I was extremely bullied in elementary school. I have always been a "no nonsense" kind of girl, and lets just say, the girls in my elementary school class were full of all kinds of nonsense. They were petty and backbiting and I couldn't deal with it. Not to say I was some model child that was nice to everyone, but I feel as though, compared to these girls, I was. When the "popular" girls were mean, I would tell them. And those actions quickly got me off to the wrong foot with this clique. I found myself completely ostracized from the class. I worked alone on group projects, shot hoops by myself at recess, and joined many extracurriculars that were unaffiliated with my school. These were my saving grace. I found out then, that you didn't have to worry how people thought of you, especially in a small situation like the fifth grade. Reading this essay, I found myself hating Sedaris. The way he worshipped this "celebrity circle" disgusted me. When I was little and my mom told me to "not worry what others thought of me" I found solise in her words. Telling me those things saved me, and the way young Sedaris despised his father for encouraging him to be his own person caused me, as a reader, to have no sympathy for him and his unhappiness.

            Mine main question for Sedaris does not have to do with his writing style or use of language, it has to do with his feelings about his writing. Did he really worship Thad the way he described? Why did he feel so strongly that his father was wrong? Looking back on these events as an adult, does he believe that his father is right? Why did Sedaris include the details an emotions that he did? I also find myself wondering how this pondering over junior high drama ended up relating to his initial questions regarding the universe? Why did he choose to not return to his original thoughts?

Response to: David Sedaris: "Let it Snow"

Sedaris sets the scene by explaining the "frustratingly mild" winters "in North Carolina", but how one day, when he was in the fifth grade, snow fell "and, for the first time in years, it accumulated". Excited to have school cancelled and see more snow fall for the next few days, Sedaris and his siblings hung around the house. Much, Sedaris found out, to his mother's dismay. The children had “disrupted the secret life she led while we were at school" and their "mother had a little breakdown".  She proceeded to kick them out into the cold winter day. Something Sedaris considered less of a "request" and more of an "eviction". Happy to be out in the snow, Sedaris and his siblings proceeded to play in the snow, but eventually they tired of the outdoors and attempted to return to the warmth and light of the interior. As they came to their front door, they found it locked, and their mother inside having a glass of wine in the afternoon. They tried knocking on the windows, but even after noticing her children, their mother proceeded to simply take her drink to another room of the house. The children found her in her bedroom and there snowballs at the glass, but she still made no move except to pull the drapes closed, leaving her family outside in the icy weather. The children cursed her telling her she was "going to be in so much trouble when Dad gets home!", but following some discussion, concluded their father would be of no help the them. The kids finally established that the best way to gain their parents attention would be for one of them to "get hit by a car". After some deliberation as to whom the victim should be, the children turn to the youngest of the family: Tiffany. Without fully understanding what she was agreeing to, Tiffany goes to lie in the street. The first car to approach her stops and asks the group what they are doing and they explain. Soon after, the kids see their mother making the trek down their front lawn towards them. Sedaris comments on how she does not own pants and the snow is up to her calves. She looks "pity-full" and immediately the children feel a sense of worry and love for their neglectful mother. The narrator sums up the events with his mother by stating how "one moment she was locking us out of our own house and the next we were rooting around in the snow, looking for her left shoe."

            What are the lengths a child will go through to gain a parents attention? I feel as though, aside from writing a playful anecdote about a snowstorm, this was the question Sedaris toyed with in "Let it Snow". I, personally, have never had any trouble with my mother wanting me around. That is, none that I know of. But I can relate this essay to wanting to gain the attention of someone else. As an acting major, it is almost our job to gain people's attention. We will go to the greatest of physical and emotional lengths to engage an audience for a few hours. Now, will we go as far to lie in the middle of the road and hope a car hits us: I honestly don't know...? Sometimes, you will have a great audience that wants nothing more that to see you and participate in what you are bringing them with your performance. But other times, the audience may be tired, unenthusiastic, or overall unhappy to be at your show. The latter of these two instances is represented by Sedaris's mother. She has no interest in being around or engaging in activity with her children, she is sick of them. It is the children's job to gain her attention, to get her to participate. Much like an actor must do with a stubborn audience.

            In contrast to some of his other essays, Sedaris used a larger percentage of dialogue in this particular piece. Why was that? What impact was he hoping to make with this? I also found myself most curious about the children’s father. Why did the children immediately assume he would not help them as well? I enjoyed getting to know the authors siblings and the way he interacted with them. How much did their feelings about the events of this essay effect the way the story was told? Seeing as they were going through the exact same occurrence as Sedaris was which often does not happen in his narratives. 

Response to: David Sedaris: "That's Amore"

David Sedaris's "That's Amore" primarily focuses on Helen. Helen is Sedaris's elderly and spunky neighbor while he and his good friend and writing partner Hugh lived in a dodgy New York apartment building. The essay goes on to describe Helen in great detail as an "Arrogant, pushy, proudly, almost fascistically opinionated" woman with an extremely quotable personality. On Hugh's first encounter with Helen she immediately insists that he carries her groceries for her, no questions. Upon Sedaris's first encounter with the woman, she tells him, "Mess with me, and I'll stick my foot so far up your ass I'll lose my shoe.'" Although from the outward appearance, Helen appears rude and unpleasant, Sedaris describes his relationship with her as if she were a "grandmother". Sedaris found that when he didn't get his always daily interaction with her he "missed her, or at least missed someone [he] could so easily drop in on." The author found that the “beauty of Helen" was that "she was always there, practically begging to be disturbed." At times he would call her a "friend" but quickly second guess his choice of language with statements like "Was that a friend, or had I chosen the wrong word? What was the name for this thing we had?" Helen is once described by a short anecdote explaining how she would stubbornly only give gifts to those who do not ask for them. It is obvious that Helen must also see a friend in Sedaris as she calls him one day when she has "taken three strokes" and again when, with some humor on Sedaris's part, she asks him to fetch her dentures from the "planter in front of [the] building". Nearing the end of his essay, Sedaris seems to have some guilt about the end of his relationship with Helen. One day, Helen asks the author to put some shoe polish on a stain on the ceiling of her apartment. For unknown reasons, Sedaris quickly tell her "tomorrow" and leaves. Later that day, Hugh hears a crash in Helen's apartment. She had tried to apply to polish to her ceiling herself and fell off the stool, resulting in a broken hip. While in the hospital, "the problem wasn't her broken hip, but the series of strokes that followed her operation." At her funeral, Sedaris meets many of Helen's friends and family and they reflect on the hilarity of Helen's life. In a final reflection, Sedaris thinks back to a day when Helen was feeling some pain in her shoulder. She had asked him to rub some Tiger Balm on the area and he obliged.

            There is this woman, her name is Carol, and I have been performing in shows with her since I was a sophomore in high school. While reading David Sedaris’s essay, all I could think of was this woman and they way I felt about her. It is uncannily similar to Sedaris’s relationship with Helen. No, Carol is not an eighty-year-old senile woman, although she shares many characteristics with Helen. She is so very stubborn. She is also a complainer. Oh my, I could go on for hours about how negative Carol is. She is about sixty-years-old, and therefore, is always cast as the mother or grandmother in all the show’s I have been in with her. Every time, without fail, Carol will feel the need to complain how the director sees her as old or doesn’t think her acting capabilities are good enough for a more “important” role. Deep down, I believe, Carol understands why she is given these roles, but she enjoys the complaining regardless. Although, I am not a big fan of negativity (especially in the theatre), I still find myself loving Carol as if she were a close family member of mine. I feel I can speak for the rest of our past casts by saying each of us has had an encounter with Carol and her complaining, and each of us has just stood there, listened intently and enjoyed our conversations with Carol. She has an infectious and engaging personality.

            I would like to ask the author why he felt the need to explain so many similar anecdotes to the audience instead of just describing the woman in detail. Sedaris seemed to let the audience make their own judgments of Helen, based on the stories he told. Did he mean to use so much negative connotation? Or were those the honest descriptions of the events? I cannot pinpoint how the author managed to make the reader still have a fondness for Helen, despite the annoying stories he told about her. I must also always ask why the author found Helen a significant person to write about.