This is no joke: Humor writer David Sedaris' appearance at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts is sold out. After Sedaris, the 2010-11 Distinguished Speakers series winds up with Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., head of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Studies at Harvard University,

Sedaris' talk is set for 8 p.m. Thursday, April 28, in Jackson Hall.

Gates' talk is scheduled for 8 p.m. Monday, May 9, also in Jackson Hall. He had been scheduled to appear at the Mondavi Center earlier this year, but postponed his talk due to the death of a faculty colleague.

In a talk titled "African American Lives — Genealogy, Genetics and Black History," Gates will address research and DNA analysis and poignant family stories in a lively discussion on individual lineage and African American history, according to the Mondavi Center.

Beyond his academic work, Gates, you may recall, made the news in connection with a July 2009 confrontation with a Cambridge, Mass., police officer.

Tickets are available online, or by visiting or calling the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787. Box office hours: noon-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Check with the box office about the Sedaris waiting list.