Original subtitles

DAVID SEDARIS: I love a good five-page essay.

I love it when that works out.

I recently started as a commentator on a show

called "CBS Sunday Morning."

And I'm allowed to write about whatever I want.

It can't be overtly political.

But it can't be longer than two pages.

And it's a really good assignment to write something,

and it's two pages long, that has an ending,

and that doesn't feel like a screed.

But I have a 12-page attention span.

I would not write something that's 20 pages long.

Because I couldn't read it on stage.

And if I can't read it on stage, I

don't see the point in writing it.

There have been a few things that I've written

that are longer than that.

But I think they suffer.

Because I didn't read them on stage.

And so I didn't hone them the way that I went

home one of the 12-page essays.

You know, when you pick up a book,

the author's skill is making you turn the page from 273 to 274.

Because you want to know what happened next, right?

People turn my pages because there's 12 of them.

And they think, uh, might as well.

9 times out of 10, my only comment

is you need to rewrite this 60 times.

And most people, they don't even want to hear you

need to rewrite it one time.

But that's what writing is, it's rewriting.

And sometimes, something's not worth rewriting.

You think, oh, I'm just so bored with this,

it's not worth diving back into.

And that's fine.

Because not everything is worth diving back into.

But I would say, personally, I probably write

something over probably 12 to 18 times

before I give it to my editor.

Because if I were to give my editor a first draft,

knowing that I was going to write 20 drafts, if I were

to give my editor the first draft before I even sort of

am sure of the essay, she's really going to be sick of it

by the third draft.

And by the 20th draft, she's really

going to be sick about it.

So what I personally like to do is learn as much as I can

on my own, and then turn to my editor.

And then say, can you help me here?

This is as far as I have been able to take myself.

If I were to say that my sister was in the basement watching

"I Dream of Jeannie," a lot of young people

now would say, well, I don't know anything about that.

I don't know what that--

but if I said my sister was in the basement watching

a show about a woman who lived in a bottle, that's ridiculous.

And you think, well, that can't be.

What kind of a world would we live in that

would have a show like that?

And it's like, oh, it was called "I Dream of Jeannie."

That's a world we live in.

So sometimes a laugh can come just

from stepping back and describing

something in a cold way rather than taking the easy way out.

And I'm always hesitant to use popular cultural names

and references.

Because when your book gets translated into Korean,

they're not going to know what "I Dream of Jeannie."

Or in Persian, if you said that somebody looked like Jackie

Gleason, someone in Iran might not

have any idea what Jackie Gleason looks like.

So I think being translated in other languages

has really caused me to step back from kind

of pop cultural references.

But also there's a laugh just right there waiting

for you if you can step back and describe something coldly,

I think.

I think if you read your essay over,

it becomes pretty clear where you need

to dig a little bit deeper.

The hard part for me is I don't like writing about my feelings.

I don't like hearing about people's feelings.

I like hearing about people's problems.

I'm happy to hear about anybody's problem.

If somebody breaks up with somebody,

I'm right there, all the details, delighted.

But when people talk about their feelings,

I tend to lose interest.

So there's a difference between digging a little bit deeper

and using it to talk about your feelings,

and digging a bit deeper and using it to touch upon a truth.

Truth is different than your feelings.

It's a truth about everybody.

It's a truth about a human condition.

And it's often really difficult to put into words.

There's a difference between emoting and finding

the truth of the situation.

And it's a difficulty for me.

I think that when I'm emoting, that's when I blush,

and I realize I've failed, and I've been reading my essay,

and all of a sudden, I'm emoting.

And it feels like somebody should be up there

with a little violin playing.

And it's everything that's cheap in the world and everything

that's wrong in the world.

It's every television show where someone says, I got your back.

That's what it becomes.

That's not what you want.

You want that moment that connects all of us.

It's like touching a nerve.

It's more like yanking your heart out of your chest

or pealing your skin off.

So there's peeling your skin off.

And then there's one of those emotional Hallmark cards,

you know?

And you don't want the Hallmark card.

And you do want to peel your skin off.

And you'll know when to do it.

You'll know where it belongs.

But for me, it's a challenge every time.

I mean, I'm delighted when it works.

And I'm profoundly embarrassed when it doesn't work.

If you, let's say, go out to dinner,

and there are 10 people at the dinner table.

And you're at one end of the table.

And so different groups are talking at the table.

And someone in your group tells you

an interesting story, right?

If you begin by saying, I went to a dinner party.

And there was Jerry.

And there was Phillip.

And there was Latrice.

And there was another guy named Phillip,

not the same as the first one.

And there was Jordan.

And there was Mark.

And there was Tanisha.

And there was Kimberly.

And there was Martin.

[SNORING] Your listener, they can only

hold so many characters in their head.

And so if somebody wasn't pertinent to it, you could say,

I want your dinner party.

There were 10 people.

At my end of the table were Latrice and Phillip.

And Latrice started telling this story.

That's OK.

We don't need to know who all the other people are.

I think, sometimes, especially when you're young,

you want to throw your friends a bone.

And it's like, oh, my god, you mentioned me in your story.

Thank you so much.

But it's not an Academy Award speech.

It's actually hurting your story to mention

names that aren't going to be pertinent unless it's

the names are ridiculous.

And you are doing it ironically, or you're making a whole bet

about names of people, or when you're a character who's

a name dropper.

But I think this is something I learned

from being on the radio, was that you can't overwhelm

the listener, and you can't put too many characters

on the stage of their mind.

I write for "The New Yorker."

And so "The New Yorker's" fact-checking department

is really, really rigorous.

And a number of years ago, I had an essay

in which I was at Costco in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

with my brother-in-law.

And I was buying condoms.

Because at that time, when I would go on tour,

I liked to have a little something to give out as gifts,

you know, if it's somebody's birthday.

And I always have gifts for teenagers, right?

So I thought, condoms, perfect gift

to give to teenagers, right?

So I needed a gross of condoms.

So I was with my brother-in-law.

It was a Sunday at Costco.

And all we had in our grocery cart was a box of condoms

the size of a cinder block.

And I said, we got to get something else in this grocery

store, in this grocery cart.

Because people were looking at us.

And I felt very self-conscious.

And so we put a box of strawberries in there,

which just made us look gayer.

Really, when you think about--

you've got a big box of condoms, everything you put

with it is going to be suspect.

Like, oh, we need rubber gloves.

Or, oh, we need bleach.

Anything you put in there is--

so I turned this essay in.

And it was ultimately about being on a book tour,

the essay was.

And the fact checker said, I contacted Costco.

And the biggest box they sell is 36.

So that would not be the size of a cinder block.

And I said, you've got to give this to me.

Because when you're in a small town, in North Carolina,

on a Sunday, with another man, and all

you have in your grocery cart are these condoms,

it feels like it's the size of a cinder block.

And really, you have to give this to me.

And I really fought for it.

Again, if I were writing an essay about Costco,

or if I were writing an essay about condom sales,

if I was reporting, that's a completely different thing.

But I'm trying to get a laugh.

And I'm trying to paint a mental picture in a reader's head.

So that was something that I fought for, again,

because I felt like it was my right writing humor.

Similarly, I was watching a television show.

And it mentioned a camel.

It was a nature program, and the camel and his girlfriend,

right?

So the fact checker looked at the video

and then said, that's his friend, not his girlfriend.

And I said, you--

camels don't even have friends, I mean, really.

I mean, here's a camel.

And here's a camel next to it.

But they're not friends.

But if we're going to say they're friends,

we might as well say it's his girlfriend.

It's not like the camel had a wife

and then he's cheating with the girlfriend.

It's two camels.

I need to be able to say the camel's girlfriend.

And again, I really had to fight for it.

So, technically, the fact checker had a point.

But again, I'm trying to get a laugh.

And that's a really good way to get one.

And I was going to throw away a perfectly good laugh when

I could get one.

Similarly, I wrote an essay that was also in "The New Yorker"

about feeding spiders.

When we lived in Normandy, the house was full of spiders.

And there's one kind in particular that

build horizontal sheet webs.

And they're pretty big spiders.

They can go months without eating.

But I was feeding them several flies a day.

I had like 20 spiders that I was feeding several times a day.

And there was this one particular spider

who was my favorite.

And her name was April.

And I said that she got so obese that she was tearing holes

in her web with her feet and that her thighs were

chafing together.

And the "New Yorker" fact checker said,

I talked to someone at the Natural History Museum.

And there's no way that the spider would get fat and tear

holes in it's web.

And it's like, no, of course not.

And her thighs aren't going to chafe either!

But again, I'm writing a humorous article

about feeding spiders.

And you have to allow me this.

Because if you take all those things out of the tool box,

how are you supposed to get laughs?