{"id":14350,"date":"2018-07-22T11:26:44","date_gmt":"2018-07-22T15:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=14350"},"modified":"2018-07-22T11:27:56","modified_gmt":"2018-07-22T15:27:56","slug":"this-ones-a-keeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=14350","title":{"rendered":"This One&#8217;s a Keeper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim<\/em> by David Sedaris<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim<\/em> is not my first collection of essays by David Sedaris. I&#8217;ve read four others.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2010,<em> <a href=\"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=2744\">Me Talk Pretty One Day<\/a><\/em> (Grade: A) and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=1813\">Naked<\/a><\/em> (Grade: A-)<\/li>\n<li>In 2015,<em> <a href=\"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=11635\">Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk<\/a><\/em> (Grade: C+)<\/li>\n<li>In 2017, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=13144\">Barrel Fever<\/a><\/em> (Grade: C+)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I could have given up on Sedaris after <em>Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk<\/em> and <em>Barrel Fever<\/em>, because I disliked both of them. But I had really enjoyed the other two, so I decided to forgive him for the clunkers. Nobody&#8217;s perfect, right?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad that I gave him another chance, because <em>Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim<\/em> is a good collection. Among the essays included are &#8220;Six to Eight Black Men,&#8221; an interesting take on cultural differences, and &#8220;Chicken in the Henhouse,&#8221; a thought-provoking look at what life can be like for a gay man in our country. &#8220;The Girl Next Door&#8221; tells a sad, sort of creepy story of a psychopath in the making. In &#8220;Nuit of the Living Dead,&#8221; Sedaris humorously relates the struggles he had with a mouse caught in a mousetrap in the wee hours while his husband was away.<\/p>\n<p>Not everyone will get his stories or his sense of humor, but I do. For all that he and I don&#8217;t seem to have much in common on the surface, our life experiences haven&#8217;t always been so different. I&#8217;ve had a couple of upsetting mousetrap experiences myself. Misery loves (and laughs at) company. Humorists remind us that we are not alone. They tell us that everyone is unlucky and\/or inept sometimes, and that it&#8217;s okay. We all need this kind of reminder from time to time. Thanks, David, for the reminders!<\/p>\n<p>P.S. I call this book &#8220;a keeper,&#8221; but it is interesting to me that it&#8217;s previous owner didn&#8217;t keep it, even though it had this great inscription:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Sal, Some people are calling this guy the Next Mark Twain. In any event . . . no one should start off the &#8220;Second Half&#8221; without a few belly laughs. Happy 50th. Love, Bert<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I wish every used book came with an inscription, even if they do sometimes have a bittersweet quality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris Grade: A Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is not my first collection of essays by David Sedaris. I&#8217;ve read four others. In 2010, Me Talk Pretty One Day &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=14350\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14350"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14350"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14661,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14350\/revisions\/14661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}