The Man Behind The Voice - David Sedaris at Royce Hall

The most flattering photograph of David Sedaris has him in profile, a cigarette kept in reserve behind his ear. Thick smoke hangs in the air above his lips. He looks, and this is obviously the point, like a writer, fascinated and fascinating.

But Sedaris has given up smoking, so his latest official photograph is the one from his book jacket, a thumbnail headshot in which he looks like a kindly bank manager.

The two young writers who won a contest for the prize of introducing the noted author and humorist at Royce Hall on Wednesday night certainly didn't know what to expect. One refused to speak his name, referring to him instead as 'this individual;' the other introduced him as "See-dar-io-us," which rang out like the name of a Roman conqueror.

But the cheers that reverberated Royce Hall would have come whether Sedaris walked out a smoker or a banker, an American or a Roman conqueror. As is often the case, Sedaris looked like none of these. From the 7th row, he resembled a young Gene Hackman in plainclothes, ready to chase down a perp. In the time it took for the audience to register this, Sedaris walked to the podium and introduced his voice.

Yes, that voice. The voice that has become the signature voice of National Public Radio, standing at odds with every drive-time baritone rumble that has sounded out over AM and FM since the beginning of radio. Sedaris' voice that has come to define This American Life, both literally and in program. It is impossible to divorce Sedaris' voice from his writing, just as it is (almost) impossible that the same voice could be real, or could come from such a regular-looking man.

As Sedaris began to read a new piece about the 2008 election, I witnessed another marriage. To many, listening to Sedaris on public radio is, like reading, a necessarily private affair. Laughter at a well-known piece like 'Nobody Fucks With The Rooster' usually stays within the confines of one's car or cubicle. And if you closed your eyes while Sedaris read, it was just like listening to the radio in your car. That is, of course, if your car was a school bus.

Laughter rolled toward the stage from the upper balcony, along the way gathering row after row of polite chuckling from the more expensive seats. It was like watching a very erudite stand-up comic performing a one-night-run at Club Ivory Tower. Like the unsavory personalities that are Sedaris' radio competition, any time Sedaris pushed one of several keywords ("conservative," "homosexuals," "penis") the crowd, wound-up and ready for the next laugh, exploded.

But unlike the radio shock jocks, Sedaris' most impressive moments were his quiet ones. The end of a new story about an Australian Kookaburra bird turned a raucous audience silent with satisfaction at the clean craft of a well-written, well-spoken story from a now real storyteller. A face finally to accompany the voice.

Originally in Los Angeles Magazine at: http://www.lamag.com/do/blog.aspx?dt=04/30/2009