Kiddie Musicians
Lots of kids are driven to try their hand at becoming musicians. For the betterment of all society, of course, most give up long before hitting adulthood. The author uses imagery to show civilization depends upon this circumstance:
“Back at the house my mother had my dinner warming in the oven. From the living room came the aimless whisper of Lisa’s flute. It sounded not unlike the wind whipping through an empty Pepsi can. Down in the basement either Gretchen was practicing her piano or the cat was chasing a moth across the keys.”
“Samsonite Syndrome”
The Sedaris siblings coined a phrase when younger having to do with the effects of too much spent in the sun. Before global warming became a thing to accept on the evidence or deny on the lack of intellect, this was actually a common deal. Though, of course, the descriptive imagery was not known by its coined phrase by, well, anyone else on the planet really:
“On one of those walks, I came across my father standing not far from a group of fishermen who were untangling knots in a net the size of a circus tent. A lifetime of work beneath the coastal sun had left them with what my sisters and I referred to as the Samsonite Syndrome, meaning that their enviable color was negated by a hard, leathery texture reminiscent of the suitcase my mother stored all our baby pictures in.”
Creepy Acquaintances
Throughout the boom, the author describes a number of acquaintances who are, well, let’s just say eccentric and leave it at that. Okay, eccentric does not really do trick here. Thankfully, Sedaris is quip-worthy when it comes to imagery, so rather than going further into this, do the judging for yourself, remembering this is just of many—many—eccentric weirdos in the text:
“His living room contained nothing but an enormous nest made of human hair. It seemed that he drove twice a week to all the local beauty parlors and barbershops, collecting their sweepings and arranging them, strand by strand, as carefully as a wren.”
Amy Sedaris is Weird
The author’s sister is equally famous, if not more so. She’s also pretty weird—not as weird as the guy mentioned above, perhaps, but her humor is definitely eccentric. Brother manages to illustrate the depth of her weirdness through comical imagery after Amy has requested that a makeup artist make her up to look like someone had just beaten her up:
“The makeup artist did a fine job. The black eyes and purple jaw were accentuated by an arrangement of scratch marks on her forehead. Pus-yellow pools girdled her scabbed nose, and her swollen lips were fenced with mean rows of brackish stitches…she wore her bruises to the dry cleaner and the grocery store. Most people nervously looked away, but on the rare occasions someone would ask what happened, my sister would smile as brightly as possible, saying, `I’m in love. Can you believe it? I’m finally, totally in love, and I feel great.’”
