Marty Rosen, who just interviewed David Sedaris for the Louisville Courier-Journal, had a bunch of stuff cut from his piece. Editor bastards! Oh wait, I'm one of them. Anyway, Rosen was kind enough to send me the full text. I applaud Sedaris' critical perspective on film, which I share: "So I go to the movies just about every day, and I don't have any standards. Yesterday I saw Star Wars. I'll see anything that moves, pretty much." Sedaris backlash or no, and I'm inclined to think no, he's not making his exit anytime soon. Here are the missing Qs and As:

MR: You mentioned that you listen to a lot of books on tape. A lot of people have a condescending attitude toward books on tape—that listening to books is not really reading.

DS: It's not reading, but I can't walk across town reading. I see people doing it. You see them roam back and forth and you can tell from a block away, you think, "That asshole is reading on the sidewalk." I can't iron and read a book at the same time. There are books that I read and books that I listen to, and basically the books I listen to are books that I can get on tape. If I can't get 'em on tape, then I'll read them. Every now and then I come across something that I wish were a book, because I have to stop the CD and rewind it so I can copy down some of the lines and put them in my diary.

MR: You have a reputation for staying at book signings until every last volume is signed. What do you think about Margaret Atwood's new invention that purportedly allows authors to autograph books from a distance?

DS: Every now and then an actress will put out a book, and the actress has had a lot of work done. And I think for them, it would be good, because from a distance they look great, but up close, it's like a freak show. For them, they need a six-foot-long pen, so they can just say to the person, "Stand behind the barricade and I'll sign your book from here." Book signings can be hard. When my first book came out, it went well everywhere, and then I went to Los Angeles, and there were only five people there, and that's hard.

But if you go to a bookstore and there are hundreds of people there, it's the easiest thing in the world. I like to talk to people when I sign books, and I learn a lot. So I'm kind of a pokey signer that way. I was at a bookstore on my last book tour, and they said, "The line's too long and you have to just autograph, just put your name in the books." And I said, "I can't do that." Because when I moved to Chicago there was a bookstore in my neighborhood, and authors came there and they gave readings and signed books. I couldn't believe the people who came there, that I was getting to see them, people like Tobias Wolff and Richard Ford. I could not believe that I could see these people in person, because that just would not have happened in Raleigh. And those people were so nice to me. You stand in line to get a book signed and you think, "Oh, what am I gonna say? He's gonna think I'm an idiot and everything I'll say he's heard before." But they were so nice, and I thought, "Boy, if I ever have a book that's the way I'm gonna be."

That part of it's a pleasure. Being on the plane and stuff, that's a pain in the ass, but the book signing part, I really am so grateful those people are there. I figure there's a type of person who's gonna read your book, but they'd never in a million years go to hear you read or stand in line, It's just not their thing. This is the other group of people that read your book. To me it's a different kind of person who would go through all that, because sometimes it's a pain in the ass. I don't know that I'd wait in line for two hours.

MR: You're living in the epicurean center of the world. Where do you eat?

DS: You know, I never really pay attention. Hugh's a really good cook, so I'd always much rather eat at home, and when I go out to eat I just never really notice where I am. I take a card, and then the name, it just sort of leaves me five minutes after I leave the restaurant. What I like about France is that there are so many places where you can get simple food. In the United States, every town, you open up a little book, you know, like "Here's St. Louis," or "Hello, Cincinnati," and there's a food section and it's got all the tall food that's stacked up into like a pyramid or something like that and it's got like pineapple and pork and maple syrup, and it all feels like the same restaurant to me. So I guess I like to be fairly simple.

MR: Do you go to movies in Paris?

DS: Just about every day. Today I saw a movie called The Bridge of King St. Louis. It was like a costume epic with Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel, and I think F. Murray Abraham, and Kathy Bates, and I just love Kathy Bates. I can't imagine it's coming out in the United States. I can't imagine many people would go see it. It took place in Lima, Peru during the inquisition, and to me Lima. Peru, during the inquisition—I'm there. So I go to the movies just about every day, and I don't have any standards. Yesterday I saw Star Wars. I'll see anything that moves, pretty much.

MR: What do you think of Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation? Some say she sounds like you cranked up to 78 rpm.

DS: Loved it, just finished it. Sarah and I read together a few times on my lecture tour, and I just love the way in that book how one thing led to another, and that she could be talking about her sister for a while, and then she's talking about McKinley, and it all sort of flows. It never seems chunky to me, or forced. I think she's an original thinker, not just about politics, but about everything. I could listen to her all day. Did you happen to listen to Men and Cartoons, Jonathan Lethem's last collection of short stories? I think it's the best-produced book on tape I've ever heard. It's really clever the way they did it. The music is great. There are five different people reading on it, and it really works as a show.

Every now and then I come across something like that Philip Larkin thing that I wish were a book, because I have to stop the CD and rewind it so I can copy down some of the lines and put them in my diary because they're quotable. I do the same thing when I'm reading that Francine Prose book [The Changed Man], I write things down because they're so perfect. One of the things on the [one-man show about] Philip Larkin tape is "It's perfectly monstrous the way people go around repeating behind one's back things that are absolutely completely true."

MR: I'd like to see your dictionary of quotations; that would be an interesting book.

DS: Well, like when I read Runaway by Alice Munro I had to transcribe half the book, because there were just sentences, just passages that just gave me chills reading them. So I like to write those down so I can get chills anytime I want.

MR: Is Hugh coming with you on this tour, since you're visiting Louisville?

DS: No. I went on a German tour last year, and I'm going to Italy for two weeks for the Italian book, and I'm going to Spain. He comes then, but usually in Europe, you're taking a train from the center of one town to the center of the next, and there's stuff for him to do while I'm busy all day. He can go to museums and stuff like that. I was in Champaign, Illinois—which I demoted to Champale, Illinois—and I was located on a highway on the outside of town located between a Hooters and a TGI Friday's, and I thought about Hugh, and I thought, "If he were here right now, he'd kill me."

Plus, he was with me in New York and I caught him putting him putting his clothes in the dresser drawers, and said, "Hugh, you never unpack in a hotel." When you're in a hotel for one night… I mean, I've never lost anything in a hotel. Once I lost a tie in a restaurant, and I went back the next morning and got it. And I've gone on, I don't know, ten book tours and fifteen lecture tours, and you just learn certain things. You don't spread yourself out, cause you've got to get it all together at 5 in the morning and get out of there, and I'm just better on my own on a tour like that, but in Europe it's great having him there.

Update: Emdashes reader Josh Limbaugh, a sharp-eyed cineaste, points out that, of course, Sedaris means The Bridge of San Luis Rey. "It was first a book by Thornton Wilder, and the title is always The Bridge of San Luis Rey. No need to translate it." Readers who send their own links: priceless. The blog: an endlessly fact-checkable document. The nightmare of some, the dream of others.