Your new book has a painting by Vincent Van Gogh on the cover of a skeleton smoking a cigarette. How'd you pick that?
DAVID SEDARIS: I got a postcard of it when I was in Amsterdam. I kept that postcard for a long time, and I kept pulling it out and looking at it.
Did you go see the actual painting itself in Amsterdam?I like museum gift shops, not the museums themselves.
Why?
Because in the gift shop you can walk out with something. In the museum you can't. [Laughs] Anyway, I think people will be shocked to know that it's a Van Gogh painting. Best thing he ever did. Army bases don't want to carry the book, or don't want to display it. Because they think it's a joint the skeleton is smoking. The publisher at Little Brown had to explain to them that this was before joints. This is just what cigarettes looked like. What's funny is the idea, Oh, we don't want to corrupt those Army men. [Laughs raucously]
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