The best-selling humorist buys a tote bag and teases his fans
On a recent sunny Friday, David Sedaris is the sole customer in Jack Spade, a quirky Newbury Street men's boutique that carries aprons emblazoned with "World's Best Sperm Donor," leather ping-pong racket cases, and an array of handsome earth-toned tote bags. He's here for the bags.
"Whenever a new book comes out, I buy a new tie and a new bag," says Sedaris, in town to promote his latest best-selling collection of funny autobiographical essays, "When You Are Engulfed in Flames."
The bag is a necessity. Boston's only the second stop on a monthlong bookstore tour of the Americas, and he's already loaded down with stuff to tote - a souvenir T-shirt from a recent interview with "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, a bevy of hotel bath products, and a package of multicolored tongue depressors from England - which he'll give to young people who come to his readings. "I'm so honored that they come," he says. Years of touring have taught him that kids like receiving small gifts for the sake of the gift, but their parents inevitably ask him to autograph it. Reluctant to acknowledge his celebrity, he claims to be perplexed. "What are they going to do with an autographed bottle of hotel conditioner?" he says.
Sedaris is staying at the Four Seasons, although he has a sister, mosaic artist Tiffany Sedaris, who lives in Somerville. The two aren't on good terms, due in part to a 2004 Boston Globe story in which Tiffany, who took issue with a story David had written about her, told a reporter, "I don't trust David to have boundaries."
Sedaris concedes that he's more careful than he used to be about protecting the feelings of the characters in his stories, which are often slightly exaggerated but generally based on weird events that really happened. He's hesitant to publish an essay he just wrote for fear of getting the subject in trouble; "It's about a guy who had a teenager's head in a bag," he says.
The new book is arguably more introspective than previous works, including an 82-page diary about his successful effort to quit smoking. The cover of the book features a reproduction of Van Gogh's 1885 painting, "Skull with Cigarette," which has sparked some controversy; military base exchanges are reluctant to display it. "They think the cigarette looks like a joint," he says.
Appropriately, then, "tobacco" is the color of the bag he decides to buy at Jack Spade. Upon learning that it costs a cool $235, he recalls the $500 he donated to WBUR earlier in the day. (In the visitor log at the station's front desk he wrote: "In: 2 p.m. Out: $500.")
"I could have bought two bags with the money I gave to [expletive] public radio," he cries. He kids, of course. He got his big break in 1992, when NPR broadcast "Santaland Diaries," an account of his experience as an elf at Macy's. "I always give them money, A. because I owe them everything, and B. because I can talk about it later," he says.
Bag in hand, he heads down Newbury Street to the brasserie Bouchee, where he orders a cup of coffee and the Tarte Tatin. Asked how it compares with the fare at home in France, he says, "It's good. It's just as Tatin-ny."
Fueled up, he's off to Harvard Bookstore, where he reads a few essays - and then spends more than five hours chatting up a line of some 500 fans, both teasing and listening to them.
"I'm clairvoyant," he says to a college student and her boyfriend. "And when you walked in I said to myself, 'You're going to leave him for a paralyzed man 20 years older than you.' "
One young woman, shy at first but encouraged by Sedaris's disarming closed-mouth smile, would like to knit him "a willy warmer." She says she'll make one for his longtime boyfriend, Hugh, too. "Oh, we can share it," Sedaris says, and scrawls his home address on a scrap of paper. She tucks it gingerly into her book and thanks him. "No, thank you, offering to knit a muffler for my penis," he says. "I should be thanking you."
There's an 8-year-old in the crowd, and Sedaris invites him to the front of the line. "He shouldn't have to wait," he says. The young boy is toting a cloth bag decorated with his own handprints, which he shyly shows to Sedaris.
"Damn," Sedaris says, gesturing to his Jack Spade purchase. "I just spent $235 on this bag, and you have exactly the bag I want."
He offers the boy some hotel shampoo, then reconsiders and proffers a British tongue depressor. "Neat," says the boy, not sarcastically, but not convincingly, either. Sedaris cocks his head. "Let's cut to the chase," he says. "I'm going to give you a dollar." And as Sedaris reaches into his wallet, the boy's mom says, "Get him to sign it!" 