Talent Family worth reading

Being the youngest of three children, most of the interaction I experienced with my siblings growing up involved me being tricked, forced to tears or first being beaten and then forced to tears.  

While the routine wrestling matches were mainly my brother's doing, my sister and I would usually have our fights about after-school television. I would come home starving to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or something of the like, she would be more concerned with what guests were on Ricki Lake.  

Eventually our daily TV fights were solved with a little bit of logic and the advent of a black and white screen in another room. Kicking and screaming about a television remote was about all the collaboration my sister and I were ever able to muster, although we did master the fine art of changing a channel and taking a punch.  

So when a brother and sister tandem such as David and Amy Sedaris, also known as The Talent Family, are working so well together, it is even more enjoyable to see what they have in store. 

Under the name of The Talent Family, the brother and sister combination have been creating plays in the New York area and The Book of Liz has been published in book form.  

This is probably the only way to see the play, outside of traveling to New York, for no shows outside of New York have ever been made. But the play is definitely worth a read, especially for fans of Amy. 

Younger sister Amy is most recognizable from her role as Jerri Blank, a 46-year old high school freshman, in Comedy Central's short-lived series Strangers with Candy. Although the main character is not very aesthetically pleasing (her face tends to look like a moccasin in a smokehouse) the show never ceases to provide the kind of vicious, side-splitting humor that makes its cancellation seem to be much of a surprise.  

Also starring The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert, Strangers with Candy lasted only 30 episodes before it went to join the cast's former series Exit 57 in the Comedy Central boneyard. 

David, however, has earned much more popularity through his essays and multiple appearances on National Public Radio. What really started his career was reading "Santaland Diaries" on NPR's Morning Edition, detailing his experiences working as an elf at Macy's during the holidays.  

His eloquently dry and sardonic manner of telling his life stories have lead Sedaris to become one of America's best humorists. With books such as Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day, mostly all compilations of essays, Sedaris has won over readers with his entrancingly addictive autobiographies.  

He publishes aspects of his life, such as being expelled from a French class for quoting horribly butchered English, thus the title of Me Talk Pretty One Day. Also in the same collection of essays, Sedaris holds nothing back, discussing even his drug problems. 

"After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of the these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations," he wrote. 

His newest book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, is set for release at the beginning of July. 

What this brother and sister combination can do well, though, is write plays. So until David's newest essays hit the shelves, checking into the Sedaris family's, Naked by David and Wigfield by Amy will definitely tide you over.