Tansformers, Eyeballs & David Sedaris

P, C, The Boy, and I went to see David Sedaris at the Benedum Center last night, and it was wonderful. P had never seen him before, and I'm pretty sure Sedaris is now one of her Secret Gay Boyfriends. She had to take off her glasses to wipe away tears of laughter, which pretty much guarantees that she's hooked. C cackled through the whole show like a maniac. The Boy . . . fell asleep, just like he did when we saw Sedaris two years ago. It seems that you can't let The Boy get warm and comfortable in the dark any time after 8pm, because he won't be able to keep his eyes open.

It was his loss, though, because DS was in rare form. He talked about being an American in France and traveling the world during the months running up to the election, and told a hilarious and beautiful story about a trip to Australia that made me laugh, got me choked up, and made me happy to be alive. Honestly! The man is a national treasure, and if you don't know him, Google "Sedaris Jesus Shaves" and have a read. It will make your day.

DS also read from his diaries last night, and an entry about how sometimes he doesn't know what to do with his face (as when a cousin told him she and her husband had participated in the World's Largest Tractor Pull, or a fan at a reading plugged his bar and its specialty, the Toe-tini--featuring a floating toe), which killed. And he continued his tradition of recommending a book, but this time served up a sample of the audio book he's been listening to again and again, Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. I acted like a dorky little fangirl because Bennett is one of my Secret Gay Boyfriends, and I love that Sedaris loves him, and I was just in Talented Writerly Secret Gay Boyfriend Heaven.

So that's the Sedaris portion of this entry. The remaining items mentioned in the title appear below:


This is one of many weird eyeball seats that live in Katz Plaza, right in the middle of the Cultural District. The Boy was sitting on the other side of this as I took the picture.

This guy's name is Arch, and he was created as part of the celebration of the city's 250th birthday. He's made of bridges and based on a Transformer, but I can't help but see him as a Steeler.



These two pics are an illustration of why Arch was made of bridges--both pics are taken from the same spot on the 7th Street Bridge over the Allegheny River. The top one looks NE and the bottom one looks SW, towards the Point. See? We really are a city of bridges.

And now I should probably get some work done.