AGENDA:
Sedaris, the Santaland diaries:
https://www.npr.org/2019/12/25/788367771/david-sedaris-reads-from-santaland-diaries
1st Completed draft of Sedaris Humor essay due on Friday. Work on it!
Contests:
ROC the sonnet deadline pushed to the 15th--Write a sonnet if you can.
Through Their Eyes---write a persona poem (see link in previous post)
READING: Select another Sedaris essay (any one we have not read in class. Post a summary and comment on it.
In "Mr. Science" Sedaris illustrates a hyper imaginative world where he cures seemingly incurable diseases like AIDS and Cancer in order to prove his 'enemies' wrong. He even goes as far as curing other diseases and health issues so that the people he finds annoying stops being annoying or just get off of his back entirely. Which is what makes the story humorous because in reality, it's funny to imagine a scientist curing a disease or health issue in spite of someone else.
ReplyDeleteSedaris' essay: "Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist" breaks up his artistic career into 12 scenes. David sees the artistic prowess of his sister Gretchen and desperately tries to be an artist as well. He's not a good painter, so he ends up doing drugs and making art out of trash. This big career falls flat and his father makes fun of him at the art gallery. In the end, Sedaris gets help and learns from his past rejection in the art world.
ReplyDeleteIn "Today's special" Sedaris uses a jacket from the restaurant. The jacket looks familiar it was a uniform from a marching band. Hes at dinner with his boyfriend in New York. Before Sedaris order his food hes given an appetizer that he refers to as a band-aid floating in chocolate. Its actually a silver of swordfish. Sedaris is used to the "traditional fair". So Sedaris isn't satisfied with his food because its not what he imagined from the menu basically.
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ReplyDeleteIn his essay "Today's Special", Sedaris is on a dinner date with his boyfriend, Hugh for his birthday. Sedaris realizes that there isn't any restaurants that he actually likes and doesn't serve over the top, fancy wanna-be meals. His neighborhood seems to make only strange and bad dishes. He complains that he cannot even recognize which dish is his. He doesn't eat during the dinner and leaves with Hugh to have some actual food and hot dogs.
ReplyDeleteIn "Make That a Double" by David Sedaris, it is mainly about his troubles in learning the assigned genders to EVERYTHING in the French language. He exclaims his annoyance and embarrassment of this, as well as having grammar worse than a toddler. His solution to this comes in the end. He decides that using the plural form for everything will do, but it is pretty ridiculous to need 4 pounds of tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteIn Sedaris' essay "A Shiner Like a Diamond", he uses his father's ignorant and sexist views to create an intriguing tell-all about his sister Amy. Sedaris explains his sister's unique personality and the love of portraying herself as others. He pokes fun at his father's idea that a woman's only goal in life is to marry but his daughter Amy defies his views in every way. From Amy's childhood of impersonating her mother's friends and then telling how she wore a fat suit home to antagonize her father, Sedaris does a good job at creating a laugh out of them but still acknowledging his father's stubborn views.
ReplyDelete"Today's Special" is about when Sederis went to a fancy restaurant for his boyfriends birthday and was served food he couldn't recognize. He complains about how the new, modern restaurants that have taken over his neighborhood don't serve normal food. Each dish has 12 ingredients, is displayed in some tall, unrecognizable structure, and the servings are tiny. They do not leave him satisfied so he gets a hot dog instead.
ReplyDeleteI read twelve moments in life of the artist because the title somehow stood out to me in the essay the author pretty much looks at people and sees artistic powers to be specific his sister he breaks the whole essay up into 12 scenes but the thing that got me was that he wasn't a good painter and when he realizes that he turns to drugs and ends up making art out of that but overall he learns from all of this and his father disowned him
ReplyDeleteIn "I Pledge Allegiance to the Bag" by David Sedaris, he touches on the hardships that come with being an American living in a foreign country. While living in France, he discussed how his French teacher and some of his European and Asian classmates felt as though he was responsible for political problems that came from America. Sedaris felt as though they didn't see him as American, but as America as a whole (the country) whenever there was problems that came from the United States. Sedaris explains in the essay that Americans who live in France are often forced to defend their country. Although that can be frustrating to Sedaris and is what he explains as a setback of being an American in France, he also expresses how he is allowed to explain foreign things to his French friends, like why Jodie Foster carries dog poop in a plastic bag on the beach.
ReplyDeleteIn Go carolina sedaris has a speech impediments and starts working with a person to help with his communication because his peers are making fun of him.
ReplyDeleteIn his essay, "Today's Special", Sedaris was at a restaurant with his boyfriend Hugh for his birthday. He wanted food that was good looking and tasted good. He couldn't get that and was complaining that he just wanted high quality food. He could not even tell what the food they were serving was. They leave and Sedaris get's a hot dog instead.
ReplyDeleteIn the essay "The Youth in Asia", Sedaris explores the relationship between his family members, particularly his parents, with pets over the years. He starts the essay describing the many "replaceable" pets over the years, but the main story is about Melina, the Great Dane who changed their lives. It follows his parents obsession with Melina all the way through his mothers death and how his father returns to his default and gets a new a dog. The end is sweet but sad, but the characterization throughout makes it memorable.
ReplyDeleteToday in class I read the hilarious essay titled Genetic Engineering. This was mostly about Sedaris and his siblings relationship to their parents interest. Sedaris and his siblings were not very interested with his fathers job. He would reveal the science behind what they have done boring the kids and making them find interest in their mothers lazy hobbies like tanning.
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