Condition of Mr. Segundo: Ready to party in the Biblical sense.
Author: Amy Sedaris
Subjects Discussed: The lost art of hospitality, Martha Stewart, party theme taxonomy, entertaining old people, profiting from party guests, having a first date in your apartment, how to manage shy people, unexpected guests, remembering guests and logging menus, working with artists, Sedaris’s fear of computers, homemade art, children’s books, opposition to brunch, observing party hosts, the safety of counters, hosting vs. guesting, hosting vs. performing, Jonathan Rauch’s “Caring for Your Introvert,” ruminating vs. writing, communication difficulties, solutions for potheads with bad cases of the munchies, on being misinterpreted, shaking off the Jerri Blank persona, hosting for everyday people, indices, organizing cerebral chaos, being in control vs. delegating, on having too many ideas, the atmosphere within Sedaris’s apartment, and operating by instinct.
EXCERPT FROM SHOW:
Sedaris: I don’t normally have gimmicks and I don’t normally have themes for my parties, but, for the book, I came up with what I thought would be challenging for hostess. Like a hot lunch. And I thought who eats hot lunches? Lumberjacks and grips. So I thought, oh, I’ll have a lumberjack for lunch. Or, you know, if you have a bunch of old people over, just what the hostess has to think about. Or children. Or someone grieving or a depressed person.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
what is the song that is playing at the end of the interview?
love the show!
paul