ARTFULLY SPEAKING
WHAT’S NEW IN THE ARTS THIS WEEK
HUMORIST DAVID SEDARIS TO TICKLE THE FUNNY BONE IN TWO BOOK-RELATED VISITS
It’s getting to be that time when colleges and universities across the country, including those in our own midst, hold graduation ceremonies. Graduation ceremonies mean commencement speakers, people highly credentialed with academic, economic or political gravitas guaranteed to speak solemn, well-rehearsed encouragement to an audience of relieved parents and restless graduates in mortarboards and gowns.
I had, many years ago, such a commencement speaker as this — someone from the Library of Congress whose droning oratory was no match for the swelter of an overcast June day in USC’s Alumni Park. If I could do it all over and graduate today, I’d have David Sedaris.
Sedaris, who’s touring behind his latest book “Happy Go Lucky,” will read from it and impart the kind of wry wisdom he customarily provides at the Balboa Theatre, here in San Diego, on Tuesday night. That show is sold out, but he’ll return for another book visit at 7:30 p.m. June 14 at Warwick’s Books in La Jolla.
A writer, a humorist, a satirist, a sneaky-great performer who can read to an audience like he’s not reading at all, Sedaris should be regarded as one of our national treasures. He’s smart but no smug intellectual, witty as hell but no wise guy. He speaks truth in sometimes strange and always wonderful ways.
Imagine what he could share with college graduates if given the chance. They’d of course ask each other, “Who is he?” Then they’d actually find themselves paying attention because he’s funny, he doesn’t talk down to anybody, and he’s real. I don’t know if he’d wear an honorary cap and gown for the gig, but if he did he’d do honor to them. warwicks.com