"Us and Them" and "Mick Jagger Wants Me"

In David Sedaris memoir “Us and Them”, Sedaris is obsessed with spying on the Tomkey’s his neighbors. The Tomkey’s attracted Sedaris’s attention when his mother tells them that the Tomkey’s do not believe in television. Sedaris starts to analyze the word belief and cannot grasp the idea of the Tomkey’s not owning a television, he believes that they are ignorant and up to no good. So Sedaris begins to gradually spy on the Tomkey’s but notices that they are rather boring and could not possibly be up to no good. He still continues to spy on them because he feels sorry for them since they are not well educated without a television but his spying is interrupted when the Tomkey’s start going to the lake every weekend. Halloween falls on a Saturday this year and Sedaris is disappointed to know that the Tomkey’s would be out of town and he would not be able to disguise himself and go to the door trick-or-treating. Instead the Tomkey’s came to Sedaris’s house after Halloween to trick-or-treat but Sedaris’s mother is out of candy so she asks Sedaris and his two sisters to go them some candy. Sedaris does not want to share is candy though but his mother forces him to give it up. By doing this Sedaris learns that he is actually a generous person by giving the candy he had collected to his neighbors.

“Mick Jagger Wants Me” by Susan Jane Gilman is a very interesting memoir. I just love the all the attention grabbing details in this memoir, “people were taking speed, smoking grass, dropping acid, making out with whoever was around”, and this just keeps the attention of the reader very involved. Besides the interesting details, I like the way Michelle and Susie are just infatuated with the Rolling Stones. I adore Susie’s sincere obsession with Mick Jagger. She always dreams about how beautiful she would be if she was his girl and how life could not be anymore self satisfying. Even though he obsessed with him, she will not promote herself as being overly obsessive fans “who would wait all night on a urine-drenched sidewalk wait for him with a carnation and autograph book”. Susie was going to be more classy than that, so she decides to go home and I commend her that.