Today was the day David Sedaris came to Toronto.. YEHHHHH!
After a long trying day at work, I rushed to meet DR at Indigo Bookstore at The Manulife Centre @ Bloor & Bay. We were unlucky enough to get there just as the last chairs were taken but lucky enough to be the 4th and 5th people in the line for the book signing… good enough for me, we had prime view of the stage from there as everyone else was seated. An hour after we arrived, they estimated the crowd to be approximately 800 people, a cool 500 more than when Brian Mulroney was there for his book… ahaha Mulroney, beaten by a gay author, ouch!
Anyway, a few minutes after taking our place in line, an announcement was made that photography was absolutely not allowed during the event, so I had to resort to this pic of me wearing the special shirt DR and I made the night before (there is a story about a big spider named April in the book) and my freshly-read copy of his last book.
The idea was that while he signed our book, I would also ask him to sign my t-shirt, I even brought a Sharpie with me in case. I also brought my very first David Sedaris book (Me Talk Pretty One Day) and hid it because I know they do not want him to sign books that were not purchase on that day as I’m sure they pay a pretty penny for authors to come to their store. I buy a lot of books at that particular store, so I figured that it gives me the right to bring an older one (that I bought there too) for an extra bit of signature.
Just before 7pm when David was to address the crowd and start reading from his book, he noticed that 3 chairs were still empty, so he walked the crowd and found 3 elderly ladies and asked them to join him at the front to fill the chairs, a gentleman through and through. David then read “All The Beauty You Will Ever Need” from his latest book to the delight of the crowd. That story was funny when I read it but it was much funnier when he did, especially when changing his voice for each characters… I really thought his brother Paul had a much “butchier” voice… David then read a few entries from his diary and then previewed a story from his next book… totally fun.
Finally, after some good questions from the crowd, the book signing commenced and we started moving.. a few “important people” had to cut in front of us but it was ok. I decided to address him in French as he has lived in France for a long period of time, he replied in French but by putting a thick Quebec accent just like Jean Chretien, funny guy. I told him we had made my t-shirt special for him and being totally starstruck, I forgot to ask him to sign it. He did sign both my books, the first one with a mention: To Michel, thank you for making the t-shirt for me and the other (the older book) he just signed and then proceeded to apply a stamp on it, which I thought was going to be a funny joke, but turns out it was Greek for “invalid”… which made us laugh even more. He then said he had something for us, he reached in a clear plastic bag and gave us each a little bottle from his hotel toileteries, for DR it was shampoo and for me it was conditioner, noticing we are both bald, he said it was for our beards.
He was a very charming man and I’m glad to count myself as one of his fan.
The End.
Here’s an illegal iPhone picture DR took of David signing some earlier copies before his reading:
