David Sedaris speaks at Jesse Hall

Sedaris read an essay he has yet to finish.

By Kelsey MacDonald

Published April 9, 2009

From passing kidney stones to dressing dead bees in aluminum foil armor, David Sedaris always works to find the humor in life.

The University Concert Series brought the essayist to Jesse Hall on Wednesday night to read his work to a sold-out, receptive audience. He read essays and talked about his book tour. He also read some of his new essays in progress, marking each time the audience laughed.

"You don't ever want to get in front of an audience and say 'Oh, I've never read this before and it's probably not going to work out,'" Sedaris said with his recognizably high-pitched voice. "It seems better to read it with confidence and apologize later if you have to."

Sedaris is a humor essayist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and on the Public Radio International program "This American Life." He has also written several books and collections of essays. His latest work, "When You Are Engulfed in Flames," was released last June. Most of his books have been New York Times bestsellers.

Sedaris opened with a reading of one of his essays in progress. He recounted his experiences with book tours.

"Whenever I go to someone else's signing, I stand in line and agonize over what to say," he said. "Then something asinine such as, 'What nice shoes you're wearing' or worse still, 'Do you like tacos?' as if I'm peddling them."

Sedaris continued by detailing his scheme to make money while on one of his own tours: a tip jar. After an ATM more or less told him to "go to hell," he got the idea to raise the money the machine denied him by keeping a cup at his signing table.

"Here's what I learned by the end of my first day," he said. "When your cup is full, people figure that you've got enough money. Therefore, you need to empty it periodically. Better yet, get yourself a bigger receptacle. I don't mean a coffee can, I mean a vase."

The hilarity persisted with his reading of "Laugh, Kookaburra," a story of his visit to Australia, where he met and fed a live kookaburra. His subsequent memory was singing "The Kookaburra Song" like a broken record with sister actress Amy Sedaris by his side.

"'What the hell is going on?'" Sedaris said, quoting his father, whose usual attire consisted of underpants -- and only underpants -- while at home. "The way a baby might pad about in a diaper".

Sisters and recent MU graduates Christina and Andrea Penn said they related to this, especially.

"Kinda sounds a little like our dad, wandering around in your underwear and telling you to go to bed," Andrea Penn said.

Hickman High School sophomore Eva Prost liked Sedaris' interaction with the audience, something she had not heard while listening to his recordings.

"I was sick and my mom gave me a tape of him reading 'The Santaland Diaries,' and so I kind of had heard him speak already and so I knew it was going to be really great," Prost said. "I was really surprised because even though it was really well done and it was so funny, you could tell that it wasn't like he was really interacting with an audience."

Sedaris also personalized his performance. After finishing his readings, he plugged the audiobook "Talking Heads" by Alan Bennett, as well as Tiger Barber Shop, where he had gotten his hair cut earlier in the day.

"This was the kind of barber shop where there was a place for all men," he said. "If you want to talk about kidney stones, like whatever you want, they follow your lead. And for only $12."