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[Note: "Live from Prairie Lights" is a live, and broadcast, series of public presentations by authors visiting Iowa City, jointly sponsored by Prairie Lights Books and Iowa Public Radio. Usually held at the book store, on this occasion David Sedaris read from his latest book, Naked (Boston: Little, Brown, 1997), and took questions from the audience, in the auditorium of the John Pappajohn Business Administration Building on the University of Iowa campus. This is a brief excerpt from that Q and A session that includes a question put by Nicholas Johnson. David Sedaris' remarks are Copyright © 1997 by David Sedaris.]
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Joan Kirkman: Any more questions from the audience? Yes.
Nicholas Johnson: In terms of the prior question -- "Do you seek experiences?" -- do you have any future jobs in mind, or can you give us any insight into what we can expect from you next?
David Sedaris: Well, job-wise I would like to be an apprentice to a taxidermist. But that's not necessarily so I can write about it. It's just, I own so much taxidermy, and then I thought, "My cat's getting old," you know, and I wouldn't mind [laughter] mastering that skill before it happens. Because then I thought, "Well, what would I like to do?" Like job-wise, what is it that I would like to do? And that seemed, that seemed like a good thing. But, you know, even with the house cleaning people would say, that was interesting, when I was on the last book tour, people would say, "Get this. He's a writer and he cleans apartments." And they would never say, "Get this. You'll never believe this. He writes books and he teaches college!" [laughter] I mean they would never say that. And then people would, you know, they would say, "Well, obviously you have your job looking for material." You know, I don't have to have my hand up to the elbow in someone's toilet to find material. It was just a job for me, but one that the main thing was that it just got me out of the house and got me into the world. And any kind of a job that would get me into the world is a, is good. But mainly, the main thing is just working. It's just, even if you hate your job, I think it is good, for me anyway, to have one. Because then your time is valuable when you're not at work hating your job. [laughter] You know, then you're happy. But otherwise, like I never know what day of the week it is. I don't, you know, when you don't have a job, it's, "who knows?"
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