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.

Response to: E.B. White: "Death of a Pig"

In this essay, White recounts the events leading up to the death of his pig. He begins his account by stating, “the pig died at last, and I lived.” By putting this bit of information early on, E.B. White gives away the ending. He moves on to compare the act of raising a pig to that of a play. According to White, raising a pig is a clearly written script that one must follow, but if “one of the actors goes up on his lines” “the play would never regain its balance.” In this case, the play has been completely turned upside-down. It is at this point that White decides to return to the beginning of his story. The author first notices a change in his pig’s behavior when it does not appear for its evening meal. White must then assume that there is something significantly wrong with his pig and immediately phones a fellow farmer, Mr. Dameron. Dameron calls upon another friend and they suggest that White give his pig two ounces of castor oil and an injection of soapy water. They are assuming that the pig just has a case of constipation. White proceeds to the pig’s barn with is son and follows Dameron and Henry’s advice. It is at this point he notices a series of small dark spots on the pig’s back. White leaves the pig and goes out to dinner (an activity he claims is “deliberately arranged to coincide with pig failure or some other failure”). Upon his return home he checks on the animal only to find no sign of success with the oil. The next day, White, once again, attempts to feed the beast with no victory. The author finally calls a veterinarian, which, upon hearing of the pig’s spots, assumes the pig to have erysipelas, a disease that can quickly spread to humans. White fears for himself, but the vet sends a colleague over to run tests on the pig, allowing White to rest easy. McFarland refutes the theory of erysipelas after performing his tests. White then reveals to the reader that the pig died twenty-four, “or it might have been forty-eight”, hours later. White finds the pig dead late Friday night, and awakes Saturday morning to Lennie digging a grave for the creature. In conclusion, White notices a worm and an apple while observing the pig’s grave and comments on the directness of an animal’s burial. 

When I was eleven years old, I had to say goodbye to my first pet. His name was Jake and he was a black Labrador retriever. My family had owned him since before I was born, but in his old age, Jake had developed cataracts in his eyes and began to have seizures. Losing my dog was the first real experience I had to face with death and it was a rough one. I remember, my mother picking me up from the bus stop and waiting to drive the rest of the way home to explain to my brother and I that she had found Jake in the woods earlier that afternoon. Although Jake wasn’t a pig being raised for the slaughter, watching him suffer up until the moment of his death was a very difficult and eye-opening incident for the young me.

In contrast to some of his other writings, E.B. White manages to stay much more “on-track” with this account. I would like to know if this story meant more to him or less to him, because he didn’t spend quite as much time dissecting the events as he did giving the facts. I would also inquire if he felt any sorrow towards losing the pig; and whether this sorrow was for the loss of money that must have incurred due to the pig’s death or at the loss of a “pet” or friend.