Sedaris speaks at Baccalaureate

Ceremonial cap and gown aside, when humorist David Sedaris stepped to the podium this afternoon to deliver the University's 259th Baccalaureate address, he was casual, pithy and, above all else, humble.

"I've always been Princeton-struck," he said at the start of his address to the Class of 2006. "I feel like the Scarecrow in 'The Wizard of Oz' when he gets his brain."

Held in the University Chapel, Baccalaureate is an interfaith worship service that includes readings from various religious traditions and an invited speaker who traditionally offers advice to the graduating class. (See related blog post.)

Sedaris approached the speech to the Class of 2006 by recounting a time before Baccalaureate –– and before Jesus Christ, he noted –– when he was an undergraduate at Princeton.

"When I went to Princeton, things were completely different," he said. "Back then we were on a pass-fail system. If you passed, you got to live. And if you failed, you were burned alive on a pyre that is now the transgender studies building."

He said his freshman year began with a required eight-hour "modesty seminar" to prepare students to answer the question "Where did you go to college?" Inflection, he said, was key to answering, "Umm ... Princeton," before continuing to say that "it's not that great of a school," downplaying the University's reputation.

Sedaris discussed his troubles choosing a major, resisting his parents' desire for him to double major in patricide and matricide and instead choosing comparative literature, noting, though, that there wasn't much literature to compare back when he was in college.

His major, alas, did not lead him on a direct path to employment. "Look at yourself on the day you graduated from college and look at yourself today," Sedaris said. "I did this recently and said, 'What the hell happened?' "

Graduates often take a path completely unforeseen during their college years, Sedaris opined. "The class moron will become President of the United States," he said to strong laughter. "No, that's more likely at Harvard or Yale –– schools that let in anybody."

In her introduction of Sedaris, who actually graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, President Tilghman praised him for "turn[ing] his own life into a canvas everyone can relate to and enjoy –– even if we have never worked in Santaland" at Macy's, where Sedaris was once an elf.

"If laughter is the best medicine for what ails us," she continued, "then David Sedaris is a physician extraordinaire."

Tilghman noted that University presidents once used the Baccalaureate address as an opportunity to preach to undergraduates preparing for life outside FitzRandolph Gate. Traditions have changed, she said, but it is still "a time to take stock ... an opportunity to say thank you for the education."

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Sedaris, author of "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim," "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and "Naked," among other loosely autobiographical books poking fun at himself and his family, was selected to speak by the Class of 2006 officers last winter and was invited by Tilghman.