Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

Paris
Yesterday afternoon I opened my Pariscope and there it was: Planet of the Apes was playing at
the Action Écoles. “The original,” the ad read. “The one, the only.” When the movie first came out, I
saw it seventeen times. I’ve seen it since, on TV and video, but I don’t really count TV and video.
Watching it last night on the big screen I found myself laughing at the spaceship computers, big bulky
things with dials and switches. The sleep capsules had once seemed sophisticated, but now they
looked like props from an old game show. Before turning in, Charlton Heston stubs out his cigar and
places it in his pocket. It’s relit later, on the barren desert, and I thought to myself that, though it was
stale, it must have felt good to smoke again. After a few moments, his shipmate discovers plant life,
and, following a brief examination, Charlton Heston throws his unfinished cigar on the ground and
crushes it with his boot.
Well, that’s not right, I thought. Why would he throw away his only cigar? Later on, I wondered
why he didn’t offer his silver fillings as evidence that he had, in fact, come from another planet. You
saw them, gleaming, every time he opened his mouth, yet they were never mentioned. I noticed lots of
little inconsistencies, but that’s to be expected when you’re watching something for the eighteenth
time.
June 21, 2002
Paris
Peggy Knickerbocker is in town and took me yesterday afternoon to see Paintings by Doctors, an
exhibit at the École de Médecine. It was the last day of the show and several of the cardiologists had
come down on their prices. “Look!” the gallery director said. “Twenty percent off!” I’d expected a
high level of quality, but it looked much like an exhibit of prison art or paintings done by mental
patients. The one exception was a group of still lifes, deft and moody and very accomplished. “Oh,
those,” the gallery director said. “Those are by a doctor’s wife.”
After the medical school we walked to the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes and examined the
ostriches’ assholes. They’re very complicated and involve what looks like a retracting tongue. When
together, Peggy and I always come across some type of interesting assholes. On her last visit, they
belonged to prizewinning cows. Yesterday they were ostriches and, later, monkeys. “If mine looked
like that I think I’d kill myself,” Peggy said. “I mean it.”
June 26, 2002
Paris
At some point early this week Paul stopped thinking of the Esquire article as a tribute and began
thinking of it as a five-page advertisement for himself. Then again, maybe it’s my fault. He’s been
working on a website and I mentioned to him last month that perhaps they could print the address
alongside my bio on the contributors’ page. I didn’t realize he was looking for a way to sell things: T-
shirts, baseball caps, and, now, barbecue sauce.