Posted on 04/26/2006 11:57:33 AM PDT by Caleb1411
A story about you and your siblings convincing your littlest sister to sit in a road covered with snow to be run over by a car can't be "true enough" or "essentially true" or "embellished." It either happened or it didn't.
Iwas out of town during the David Sedaris performance at the DECC last week, but I wouldn't have gone anyway. I don't mean to sound egotistical, but I have far more interesting stories of my own. And unlike Sedaris' tales, all of mine are true.
If you've spent more than five minutes with me you'll agree my life has been pretty unusual. I'm black and Jewish. Our family pet was an ocelot, which is like a small jaguar. And I grew up with members of the Vice Lords and Cobras in our Chicago living room when my mother decided to turn our house into a gang outreach center.
Oh. Did I mention we buried my mother in a pet cemetery? In accordance with her wishes, of course.
So you'll excuse me if I get more than a little irritated when I hear about people making a living telling stories about themselves that play fast and loose with the truth. Last fall, the regional literary world was rocked when angry relatives of Nicole Helget charged that large portions of her Minnesota memoir, "The Summer of Ordinary Ways," were fabricated. Her dad did not kill a cow with a pitchfork, her mother and two sisters said. Helget's defense was she remembered things differently.
An even bigger ruckus ensued after James Frey's tearful admission on Oprah that his alleged hard-luck life story, "A Million Little Pieces," was largely fiction. Yet even after his mea culpa, thousands flocked to buy his book, which remains near the top of the New York Times best-seller list under the "nonfiction" heading.
Then there's Sedaris, the National Public Radio and New Yorker magazine wunderkind with no end of autobiographical elaboration. I, too, thought he was entertaining until two years ago, when I heard NPR interviewer Steve Inskeep ask him: "How much of this is true, exactly?"
"I think I changed things around a bit, but they're just story considerations," Sedaris replied, going on to laud the benefits of memory-erasing drugs his family had taken lest they dispute his fancy. "This is all to say that I exaggerate. A lot."
In his interview with News Tribune arts reporter Sarah Henning last week, Sedaris elaborated, saying, "What does it matter if it's true or not? It's a story."
I'm sorry, David. It does matter. A story about you and your siblings convincing your littlest sister to sit in a road covered with snow to be run over by a car can't be "true enough" or "essentially true" or "embellished." It either happened or it didn't. And your assertion that all families elaborate at the dinner table is ridiculous. Mine did not and had no need to.
If Sedaris somehow thinks it's OK to lie because he's telling funny stories (and Frey because his are deadly serious), how are readers and listeners supposed to know what's fake and what's real? Especially troubling are Sedaris' offerings in the New Yorker, a magazine that rests on its integrity when presenting investigative pieces such as Seymour Hersh's damning exposes of the excesses of the Bush administration. The magazine also includes fiction, but Sedaris' stories aren't run under that heading. That dishonesty only confuses readers more.
It's too bad for Sedaris, Helget and Frey that they didn't know my family growing up. They could have stayed at our house during the riots of 1968, like our friends from the Cabrini Green housing projects did, to avoid the snipers and National Guard gunshots a half mile away. They could have met some real Vice Lords. And they could have met El Gato the ocelot who, as you can see from the photograph, made himself quite at home in our Chicago kitchen.
Real enough for you?
I bump into that on the radio dial, and it's like walking through a minefield. You get ten minutes of interesting bio or fascinating slice-of-life, and all the time you are waiting for the moment the show careens off the road into homoland, as they slip a subtle little reference in to remind you that you are a horrible bigot from the Flyover states.
It's much like "Prairie Home Companion" is in the political realm, anymore. I tune in a desperate hope that I can get a laughable and endearing folksy story or a good fiddle tune, and have to bail two minutes in when the host bashes the President in a bitter, Sophomoric way. Sad really.
"Does this bus go to Duluth?" "No, this bus goes 'toot-toot'."
(sorry)
Driving along without a care in the world, then right off a cliff.
In fact the cow he killed was totally unarmed.
This article in a nutshell: "READ ME! LISTEN TO ME! I'M INTERESTING TOO! MEEEEE!!"
Many times the lies are a way of getting back at people she went to school with, and her son is permanently angry at the world on his mom's behalf because he believes her to have been, and be, generally mistreated by everybody in ways big and small. Both mother and son think of themselves as victims (he is homosexual too, surprise, surprise.)
My sister is half of a successful business and makes lots of money. Both she and my nephew have had pretty much everything anyone could want, yet both feel constantly mistreated by the world in general.
Both are strongly antiChristian, too, and I have put myself beyond their understanding by finding my Savior. I finally heard so many lies about the past so many times that I had to ask my sister to stop. That made me popular, I assure you.
I don't know Sedaris from any of the other plagiarists dotting the landscape these days (haven't read any of their memoir-fabrications), but I did tune out His Prairie Home Highness about a decade ago when the program started taking regular shots at Gingrich, Republicans, and conservatives.
Wait 'til the sequel. Embellishment never sleeps.
Mapes has some up-close, personal knowledge about the abuse of power.
I was going to mention how funny Amy is, too. I love her stories about her imaginary boyfriend. He's the Perfect Man, LOL!
The father of lies (cf. John 8:44) does tend to stir up anti-Christian sentiments in those he (temporarily, we'll pray) influences.
"I think I changed things around a bit, but they're just story considerations," Sedaris replied, going on to laud the benefits of memory-erasing drugs his family had taken lest they dispute his fancy. "This is all to say that I exaggerate. A lot."
Notice how I worked in that blatant commercial ad for myself?
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