Listening to Barry was pure ecstasy

When it comes to reading poetry, Rob Carney is as good as they come. No one could have started off Saturday night’s Get Lit! event at the Davenport Hotel better than he, running though poem after poem — all from memory — ranging from tales of “the old songs of Washington” to a Raiders-Saints football game featuring Cain (Abel’s brother) as the Raiders quarterback.

And no one could have finished it as well as Lynda Barry, the writer-artist-cartoonist who had virtually every one of the 100 or so audience members sitting with a silly grin on his or her face. Barry began with a cheer — “Eastern Washington University Press!”— and ended with a party trick in which she sang “You Are My Sunshine ”without opening her mouth. No kidding.

In between, she sang her autobiography to the tune of “Coalminer’s Daughter,” danced in (then out) of the groove, read an anti-war piece she recorded for National Public Radio in 1991 and delivered a long-delayed love letter to a junior high school geek.

David Sedaris is the Get Lit! 2003 headliner. Tickets to his Sunday evening concert, which is sold out, were priced at $30 a pop. Whatever he does can’t be any better than what Barry gave us on Saturday. And she did it for free.