Elysha, some friends, and I saw David Sedaris perform last night at The Bushnell.
We’ve seen Sedaris perform before, and as we’ve come to expect, he was excellent.
I’ve read all of Sedaris’s books and listened to many of them, too. Last year, after I wrote to Sedaris, he wrote back to me.
It was quite exciting.
I adore the man.
But one portion of last night’s reading left me uninspired. Early in the evening, Sedaris read a series of limericks he’d written for an event in New York City.
I don’t love limericks.
In fact, I typically hate them for a few reasons:
First, they tend to be laden with puns, and boy, do I despise a pun. Puns are the lowest form of a joke — a pathetic attempt to make people laugh via a play on words.
There’s nothing insightful about a pun. No attempt to make me see the world in a new way or think a little differently. Nothing about a pun reveals a hidden truth I’ve never before realized or offers me a glimpse into a life unlike mine.
A pun is just an attempt to surprise me by making a word represent a different.
Bah.
But equally annoying, limericks have a consistent rhyming structure, meaning that if you’re paying attention and can think ahead, you can often predict the essence of the last line, as I did with many of Sedaris’s puns last night.
I couldn’t tell you his last lines with precision, but I knew the limerick’s final word and, therefore, the essence of that final line.
If the first two lines of the limerick end with the words “stick” and “trick,” I’m pretty sure I know where the limerick is going, particularly because of the third reason I don’t like puns:
They are often dirty.
In fact, Sedaris said that limericks were supposed to be dirty, and his limericks were especially filthy.
I’m not a fan of most dirty jokes because they tend to circle the same drain that a million jokes have already circled, making their concepts trite and unoriginal.
They are also rarely repeatable in mixed company.
Sedaris recited some filthy limericks last night, and he could do so because he was onstage with a microphone, reading his work. I suspect many people in the audience, including Elysha and my friends, didn’t like the limericks very much, but Sedaris didn’t risk offending us because it was a performance.
He can get away with a lot when you’re standing in front of an audience, attempting to entertain them. A lot of leeway is offered, and risk-taking — within reason — is often welcomed.
Sedaris wasn’t reciting his limericks at a dinner party, on the sidelines of a soccer game, or in line at Starbucks. I suspect he wouldn’t under those circumstances.
This places dirty jokes in the realm of the performer and people who aren’t worried about walking through life, offending vast swaths of people.
I don’t love this about limericks, either.
But other than the five minutes of puns, I loved the show. Brilliant as always.
And admittedly, as much as I didn’t like the limericks, the audience laughed after each one, and when it comes to comedy, the audience tells you if you’re winning.
If they aren’t laughing, you aren’t funny.
If they are roaring with laughter, you’re doing something right.
Despite my feelings about the limericks, Sedaris was winning last night as he was reading them.
Sadly, there’s no accounting for taste.
