29 min listen
Best of Strange Fruit: David Sedaris on Unwelcome Duck Tongues & Accidental Activism
FromStrange Fruit
Best of Strange Fruit: David Sedaris on Unwelcome Duck Tongues & Accidental Activism
FromStrange Fruit
ratings:
Length:
30 minutes
Released:
Apr 3, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
David Sedaris never liked Chinese food. Then he went to China, and he really didn’t like Chinese food. His essay about it, Chicken Toenails, Anyone? was published in the Guardian and was criticized as disrespectful, xenophobic, and even racist. This week we listen back to our chat with Sedaris, from when he’d just released his book, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. He said if he were worried about keeping his humor PC he couldn’t be an honest about his experiences, and wouldn’t get as many laughs. “I always figure that the thing you can admit that’s most embarrassing is the thing that most people can relate to,” he explained. “Because we’re not that different, really.” We asked whether he considers himself an LGBTQ activist. He told us, “the way I write about my relationship is just about trying to make a life with somebody, and anybody can relate to it. It’s not important that I’m trying to make that life with another man. It’s just important that I’m trying to make that life with another person.” We also spoke more broadly about his life and work, LGBTQ visibility in pop culture, why speech therapy classes are full of gay children, and whether marriage equality will lead to an increase in annoying destination weddings. “I think gay people should get the right to marry,” he said. “And then I think none of us should act on it.” And last week we told you that friend to the show Aisha Moodie-Mills was named Executive Director of the Victory Fund. This week we bring you an excerpt of our conversation with her, and her wife Danielle Moodie-Mills.
Released:
Apr 3, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Strange Fruit #60: Keith McGill Directs Comedy on Sex in Middle Age; Trans Leaders on Katie Couric: Louisville comedian Keith McGill has been one of our favorite people since he was first on the show last year to talk about his work in a local production of TopDog/Underdog. That play explored themes of black masculinity through the fractured relationship of two brothers struggling with instability and poverty. Now McGill is working on another local production, this time as the director, vastly different in tone.[Sex Again](http://wfpl.org/post/louisville-writers-new-play-debunks-myths-about-womens-sexuality) is a comedy by Louisville playwright Heidi Saunders that looks at sexuality during middle age. We spoke to Keith this week, in part, because we wondered how a gay black man approaches work about the waning marriages of straight white folks, and what made him want to direct the piece. "I really think it has a lot to say to _everyone_," he explains. "There's a lot of truth in the pla by Strange Fruit