Dave Eggers, Sarah Vowell talk and sing at 826 Bumbershoot benefit

Dave Eggers's oeuvre has always been characterized by a particular brand of smugness: coffee shop witticism meets geekier-than-thou hipness. But when Eggers took the stage Friday night at "People Talking and Singing," the Bumbershoot benefit for 826 Seattle, to talk about the work his nonprofit writing centers do in our town and five other cities, none (OK, very little) of his usual stylized self-satisfaction was evident.

This may be due in part to his decision to let a short, Sesame Street-esque film (narrated by Eggers's fellow geekster Sarah Vowell) do most of the talking. But as he read from a series of precociously wacky collages created by an 826er (one collage, for example, asked the all-consuming question, "What would happen if a gingerbread man married a peanut?"), it became apparent that Eggers' disarming sincerity was also undoubtedly a result of his earnest commitment to the incredible 826 centers.

Inspired by the tremendous success of a fundraiser at last year's Bumbershoot, Eggers and the 826 team created a six-city national tour of similar events, featuring indie-rock and literary luminaries culled from Eggers's enviable cadre of eminent buddies. The singing portion of this year's Bumbershoot event included local indie-pop enfant terribles, Smoosh, plus acoustic sets from: hipster balladeers the Decemberists' Colin Meloy; Zach Rogue of Bay Area outfit Rogue Wave; and wee ennui artiste Stephin Merritt, who, joined by frequent collaborator Daniel Handler on the accordion, strummed a ukulele and dragged his exaggerated basso through a short set of his hyperbolically jaded songs.

Among the talkers was Vowell, who flaunted her trademark tongue-in-cheeky-ness in an essay about her "favorite explorer," Charles Preuss, a cartographer described by Vowell as "one of us — a crabby, city-slicker sissy" and voiced Friday night with whiney world-weariness by writer-musician Handler.

Handler himself, aka Lemony Snicket, offered a three-act play performed by the "Daniel Handler Players" — Vowell, Meloy, and surprise guest Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, whose appearance as the "Voice of Daniel Handler" was met with frenzied hoots from his hometown crowd. Handler's play, which lionized its subject — Daniel Handler — with deadpan arrogance, was indicative of the meta-mockery for which Eggers and his cronies are infamous — epic, "This American Life"-sanctioned inside jokes that lampoon their tellers in the process.

In fact, the entire evening was populated by so many Eggers-esque literary types (be they smug satirists or sincere singer-songwriters) that it began to feel like an evening of variations on the same theme by the overwhelmingly whitebread NPR-inati. That's not to say that each performer wasn't disturbingly talented and infinitely pleasant in his or own right. But a little diversity would have been nice. The resounding WASPishness of the lineup was particularly jolting when juxtaposed with the video images of 826ers, who are predominantly low-income and/or kids of color.

That said, Eggers the fundraiser knows his audience. McCaw was packed (if not quite sold-out) and a round of pass-the-hat that touted hugs from Eggers for a $20 donation and a "jovial, buddy punch" from Vowell for $5 raised an unfathomable $10,000 — certainly something to talk and sing about.