Sarah Silverman reads at BookPeople, offends no one
Sarah Silverman, comedian, creator, and star of The Sarah Silverman Program, appeared at BookPeople Wednesday evening to read from and sign her memoir, The Bedwetter.
Many members of the crowd had been waiting at BookPeople since 4:00pm, three hours before showtime, when store employees began handing out wristbands for the signing. Though largely comprised of twenty- and thirty-somethings, there were a few senior fans and at least one elementary-schooler in attendance. While we waited for Ms. Silverman to appear, employees circulated post-its on which book-buyers’ names and personalized messages could be written for her to copy into their books (to avoid spelling mistakes and speed the signing process). I caught a peek at two: “Kandace – a non-smelly Mexican” (a reference to Silverman’s frequent and controversial use of race-based humor), “Eddie Vertigo – XOXO : )” and — my favorite — “Dear [name], I would be a lesbian for you if I didn’t like penis. – Sarah Silverman.”
Silverman walked down to the second-floor event space from the third-floor signing room, where guests are typically hidden before their entrances. She wore her standard uniform: T-shirt, hoodie, denim skirt and sneakers, with her hair in pigtails. She also wore a great deal of makeup — unsurprising, given her age (39) and extremely youthful comedy style and aesthetic.
Silverman greeted the crowd warmly, saying (in response to the child in the audience), “Oh good, I was hoping people would bring babies, secretly.”
Without much preamble, she began a brief reading of, as she put it, “the only part of the book I didn’t write.” It was a series of transcribed voicemail messages from her father, mainly illustrating his love for her, his disdain for the conspicuously wealthy tourists in his New Hampshire hometown, and his struggles with technology. More than one message ended with, “Now how do I turn this thing off?”
It was brief and surprisingly sweet, absent any of Silverman’s standard race-, sex-, or scatological humor.
After she finished reading, an extremely old man sporting a lengthy beard handed Silverman a thin file folder. She opened it and stared for a long moment, finally saying, “Wow, I’m not sure what to say or feel … and you’re how old?” She held the gift up for the audience: It was a print-out of her name, spelled out in what seemed to be hundreds of tiny birds and skeletons.
The line for the book-signing portion of the evening wound all the way down the third-floor stairs and through the second-floor stacks. Despite its length, it moved quickly, and even with my place near the end, I got to the signing table in about 20 minutes.
While I took pictures, she made pleasant conversation with my fiancé, Seth, and even got a bit excited when he mentioned a shared acquaintance (he went to high school with an actor who occasionally appears on The Sarah Silverman Program). Silverman, it seems, can please crowds even without shocking them.
Published April 29, 2010 on The Horn and The Austin Literary Scene Examiner.
Meghann Gordon 
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