When David Sedaris walked toward the podium on the Irvine Auditorium stage and started reading aloud in a high-pitched southern drawl -- his tiny frame just barely reaching the microphone -- he looked a bit like a math teacher preaching the multiplicative property.
One would not expect such an unassuming man to wreak comical havoc on a seated crowd of 1,200.
But that's what he did Wednesday night, when Sedaris, a best-selling author and National Public Radio humorist, whose works includes Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day, stopped at Penn for a sold-out appearance on his 27-city tour.
Weary from traveling, Sedaris took the stage a little after 8 p.m. but didn't miss a beat reading from his new material.
"I may reinvent myself to strangers, but as far as my family is concerned, I am still the most likely to set the house on fire," Sedaris said.
"He has a slicing type of humor," said George Welch, a Villanova University senior, who drove into Philadelphia to see Sedaris at Penn. "He makes you laugh and cringe and cry all at once."
Sedaris's clincher, as evinced by hysterical laughter throughout Irvine, involved the essential questions one must ask cab drivers when traveling abroad.
"What do your roosters say?" was one perfect example he provided.
Before opening the floor up to questions, Sedaris presented his take on the Sept. 11 aftermath.
"It is your patriotic duty to leave huge tips, fly on airplanes and buy shit," Sedaris said. "If you're broke, then you're broke, but if you're not, just joyride. Get on a plane and joyride!"
After suggesting that rednecks band together and march across Afghanistan checking caves for Osama bin Laden, Sedaris proposed another wartime strategy.
"Give Florida to Israel and then write off that part of the world because we are smart people and we can make our own heroin," he said.
The audience approved.
"He certainly struck a chord here," said Andy Diller, who works for Information Systems and Computing Network Systems at Penn. "He got a great response from the audience and I hope he keeps coming back to Philly."
Sedaris is no stranger to Penn. He visited last March, as a fellow at the Kelly Writers House.
"David Sedaris is one of the funniest writers I have ever read," College sophomore Kate Jay said. "Whenever I read his work, I start to laugh out loud."
A proud nicotine addict who moved from New York to Paris in 1998, "just for the smoking," Sedaris went outside for a quick cigarette break following his lecture, and then headed back into Irvine to autograph copies of his books.
Sedaris' appearance was sponsored by Clear Channel Entertainment.
