Interesting....memoir-like with a dash of columnist. Humorous and satirical, but definitely for a specific audience. Sort of a Sedaris lite?

David Rakoff is my hero (and one of my many, many gay Canadian boyfriends). He's hilariously funny, but there's real meat to this volume, too. My favorite essays are the one exploring Rakoff's mixed feelings upon deciding to become an American citizen, and the chapter about the Log Cabin Republicans. In the latter Rakoff presents himself as sympathetic to their plight yet understandably completely baffled by gay Republicans' attempts to earn a place inside "the big tent" (the essay's called "Beat Me, Daddy"—and for good reason). There's a humanity to his political commentary that's increasingly rare these days.

-i imagine this is what a high brow, liberal gossip magazine would read like
-it's super fun and funny, quite bite-y and cynical;; it's whipsmart and engaging
-ultimately though i cant stand how white/western/upper middle class it is,, like people just live like this?? damn :/
-the author is gay tho, and that was fun to read!! lots of cool observations/experiences abt heteronormativity that we might not have had if the author had been straight
-i picked it bc it reminded me a lil bit of andy warhol's from a to b and yes, id say they are similarities in terms of content and consumerism vibes
-but still i think this couldve done with being more heartful - it doesnt need to be earnest but it could have had more connections to what makes us human and the sheer ridiculousness of the systems we engage in - i guess more observations into human psyche?? i think bc this book can seem a bit superficial at time,, if the books fucks up/annoys you it's super hard to take it in good faith at certain times
- my fave essays were the one on fashion couture, on gay republicans, on shopping and on martha stewart

With Rakoff's passing I thought it appropriate to revisit this Canadian expat. I've given him short shrift in the past, he the second fiddle to the other nebbish, homosexual New Yorker named David. (Turns out it was that same David Sedaris that helped propel Rakoff's early career.)

Don't Get Too Comfortable is a collection of essays. It becomes clear that you can take the Canadian out of Canada but you can't get the Canada out of the Canadian. Rakoff seems to be the outsider looking in. Starting with his experience becoming an American he mines his fascination with the first world, outsized experience of the "typical American" ...or at least the American other countries might sniff at. (As a Canadian I should apologize for any slight that might be implied by that statement)

Maybe it's all shooting fish but Rakoff can still skewer with scathing precision.

"How better then to show a nobility of spirit than by broadcasting your capacity to discern the gustatory equivalent of a hummingbird's cough as it beats its wings near a blossom that grows by a glassy pond on the other side of a distant mountain? No surer proof that one is meant for better things than an easily bruised delicacy. Such a perfectly tuned instrument can quickly suss out the cheap and nasty. So, the bitterness at the back of the throat; the polite refusal of the glass of whiskey marred by those (shudder) domestic ice cubes; the physical and psychic insult that are sheets of anything short of isotopic density. What is the thread count, Kenneth? We have become an army of multiply chemically sensitive, high-maintenance princesses trying to make our way through a world full of irksome peas."

Amusing book of non-fiction essay writing. I liked it so much that I was distressed to discover that the author passed away in 2012. He had such a unique perspective.

If you read this, don't miss my favorite: "I can't get it for you wholesale: the $20,000 skirt that was also a defibrillator! Just kidding, it's only a skirt". It's an insider's view of the fashion industry and it's awesome. It made me wish that I had been there with him, laughing at the ridiculousness of the scene but simultaneously enthralled by all of the fashion geniuses.

An author read alike for Rakoff is David Sedaris but Sedaris is more out-right funny while I'd say Rakoff is more sarcastically subversive. I wasn't laughing out loud while reading Don't Get Too Comfortable but I was quietly amused. Sometimes that's just what I'm looking for in a book.

I'm more of a Sedaris fan for the self-deprecation and blunt family humor. Rakoff is so darn witty, I'm afraid I can't always keep up.

The whole middle section on models and fashion shows were... what can I say? I'm very CIS midwestern, I guess, so I skipped a lot.

Though his Bush-era angst is on full display here and it's interesting in light of just how far (or low?) the GOP have come since then. Also, his final essay on transhumanism and the Singularity is really prescient and timeless.

DNF just horrible. Author reading audiobook was so boring.

Mildly entertaining at times but overly political. Who knew that the hysteria of the 2000s could have matched the Trump era! If only they knew then what would be... Seems like a miserable person who intentionally embellishes his writing to seem more interesting and intellectual, but more a boring trope of a person who does things to be able to write about them. A few interesting stories but otherwise a hard pass for David Sedaris instead.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, this collection of essays is sold as a funny critique of American opulence. The reality is that it comes off as a upper middle class New Yorker complaining about rich people. The essays don’t really have much of a narrative flow, and some of them aren’t critiques of anything. Some of the essays are just about fun stuff he has done.

That being said, all of the essays are well written and some of them are even thought provoking. The essay about the life extension society, a group dedicated to freezing their bodies after death, is an interesting piece about what money can try to buy but can’t.

The question that I kept coming back to: is David Rakhoff actually funny? A lot of his humor relies on the irony of being a man of prose willing to talk about penises and vaginas. Admittedly, I got a good chuckle and anything becomes unfunny if you deconstruct it enough. In the end though, Rakhoff has a pretty funny inner monologue. The hypocrisy of complaining about rich people while being flown to Paris for fashion week and having a personal attendant at a Playboy photo shoot are not lost on me. Rakhoff’s inner monologue and ability to appreciate the absurdity of the situation make it palatable though.

Don't Get Too Comfortable is a collection of unrelated witty essays written in the mid 2000s by David Rakoff, who sadly died almost 10 years ago.

Rakoff is perhaps best known for his work on This American Life. I have always loved his pieces there. His acerbic wit in often unexpected situations combined with his tone made a great addition to that show. When I read this book I find myself hearing it in my head in his voice, even many years later.

Each of these pieces is quite like a long magazine article (remember magazines?) or This American Life piece. Rakoff is artificially inserted into something (a puzzle game, working at a hotel, a playboy photoshoot, ...), and he brings his wry take to the situation. The writing quality and editing are great, and the use of words and metaphors is super.

Some of the pieces were quite funny, others failed to land for me and I skipped forward on a couple half way through. It was pleasant to remember Rakoff who I hadn't thought about for a while and how much I had enjoyed his radio work.

Reading all this work together was significantly less satisfying than hearing these as part of a broader show. This is concentrated Rakoff, who has just one tone, and doesn't ever seem to find joy in anything (or at least, anything he writes about here). I also feel there is often a lack of empathy or curiosity, which stands out more as you read lots of these essays at once.

I recommend this book, and am glad I read it, but it wasn't great, and would have been better had I come back to it one essay at a time.

2012 ought to go down in history as one of the great tragic affairs of human existence, akin only to the fall of the Roman Empire or the day NSYNC broke up (a joke, don't throw rocks). Rakoff's death truly marked the end of an era. His gorgeous prose fiction, a veritable source of SAT vocabulary, wit, criticism, and earnest thoughtfulness, ought not have been claimed by cancer. Don't Get Too Comfortable, as with all of Rakoff's books, comprises a compendium of nonfiction short stories from his life, each more hilarious and heartbreaking than the last. From plastic surgery to 9/11 to Playboy in South America, Rakoff elegantly weaves together brutal criticism of consumer culture and his own personal failings and triumphs. Rakoff's beautiful, poignant, and definitively pleonastic writing have spoiled me. All other books now feel like the brainchildren of dumb dumb idiots. A toast to Rakoff and to never, ever, getting too comfortable.

witty and often subtle, full of strange details about everything from exotic playboy shoots, Concord flights, fasts, and frozen human heads. a fun, interesting, and short read.