David Sedaris: Live at Carnegie Hall

by David Sedaris

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Audio CD
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586215647
• ISBN13: 9781586215644
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.4" x 5.4"

Customer Reviews

I needed a Stadium Pal for this cd

I listened to this cd while driving to San Francisco in a torrential rainstorm. It not only made the traffic bearable, but I was laughing so hard, I truly thought I might have to pull over. I've been a fan of Sedaris for years, always enjoying his bits on NPR and This American Life. I've read all of his books and thought about purchasing the super $80 Sedaris boxset with readings from all his tomes. But this cd was a bargain and so hilarious. Several of the readings ended up in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, but I had not read or heard some of the pieces he did from Esquire.

Car audio will never be the same.

I love this cd. So much so that I've kept it in my car cd player since I received it, listening to it over and over while driving to and from work, or doing weekend errands. I'm at the point now where I don't want to listen to droning talk radio or FM stations anymore. All I want to do is listen to David Sedaris relate his stories in the unique way that he does. To hear the stories related by David, in the tone and delivery they were meant to be, is a true pleasure, one that stays with the listener long after the CD has ended. I wish the CD was longer, but I've already ordered the box set. I've read all the stories in the box set, but want to hear them straight from David himself. If there were 100 hours of David reading, I'd be a happy woman.

Thanks for my new ABS OF STEEL!

Forget workout videos. My abdominal muscles took a few days to recover from laughing so hard, but I am noticing a more toned look in my belly. That's because I listened to this CD over and over again. I didn't know I could laugh in great, gulping guffaws like that. I hope my neighbors didn't hear me, but I'm fairly certain that's why they have been giving me funny looks lately. David Sedaris is just that funny. Reading his stories will make you laugh out loud, but actually listening to him read his stories demands a soft place to roll around on the floor and at least 1 half hour in which you might be able to quiet your breath back to a normal rhythm. If you listen with a friend (I listnened with my boyfriend), expect to dissolve into giggles many weeks later when you catch that friend's eye over something that reminds you of a story. This is a 10-STAR cd.

Laugh-out-loudable!

They aren't kidding when they say pull over while listening to this disc in your car!David live is even more fun than David in print - he has a delivery style that is perfectly suited to his material, and has a way with a stutter, a pause and an emphasis that highlights his humorous material. This guy is a natural!Primarily a look at family interactions (the bit with his sister Amy, which opens this reading, works on many levels - the interplay of siblings, the breaches of privacy, and that all too volatile mix of love and bickering), David knows how to play his subjects to the hilt, without forgetting that these are people worth caring about. Another tale involving sister Amy's pet parrot (who is a verbal copy of its owner) is both absurb and heart-warming, especially when the parrot goes on the attack.The funniest tale (involving a device for bladder weary truckers) is gutter humor at its best. Raunchy to the extreme, this piece might be unlistenable if someone besides David delivered it. Instead, he fills the tale with a sense of awe and wonder, and his delight in the device is every infomercial watcher's sense of satisfaction when learning they haven't been ripped off this time.Truly hysterical work from one of America's funniest writers.

Something to Tide You Over Until "Untitled Collection"

As you would expect from David Sedaris, this disc is completely hilarious and should help tide you over until his forthcoming "Untitled Collection" is released in June. I imagine that many of the essays he reads on this disc (most were originally published by Esquire) will find their way into that book.As he proved with Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris is at his best when he's exposing cultural differences, as illustrated through language and tradition (especially religious customs, with all of the associated secular trimmings). From the questions he chooses to ask upon arriving in a new country (his first is always "what do your roosters say?") to his confusion with the languages that humans speak (the French use the same word for chef and boss), his unique perspective shines a different light on some very funny, if not always particularly significant, truths. If you were moved to tears by his attempt, in French, to describe the basic tenets of Easter, you'll certainly feel the same about his description of the practice of Christmas in the Netherlands. Evidently, though the Dutch think the idea of Santa employing elves is freakish and disgusting, they see nothing wrong with a Santa who is assisted on his yearly journey by "six to eight black men" (according to tradition, they were once slaves, but now they're just Santa's close friends).My only criticism is that two of the tracks are rereadings of excerpts from The David Sedaris Box Set (they're bonus tracks, originally taken from the Esquire article "Buddy, Can You Spare a Tie?," but they're on the Barrel Fever disc of the box set). Still, at least they're quite funny, so you don't mind hearing them again. You just might wish that the CD were longer and included only new material.