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Thank you.

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James Allen Hall
has said that he

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loves the idea of the
essay as a kind of museum.

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And the subject being both
static, suspended, looked at.

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And then having energy and
motion in the mind, the memory.

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All of James' work masters
this curatorial mode.

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Often he dwells on a
single object and captures

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with often alarming
precision the multitude

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of emotion and depth.

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The complications of
time and space between we

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or he or you and
the object itself.

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James begins his
essay, Adventures

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in Old Lady Land, a
rumination on the queer body

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and the aged body--

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or as he said in an interview,
an answer to the question

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of why is my grandma
so freaking fabulous?--

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with the description
of a photograph.

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His grandmother in a hideous
tablecloth-like dress

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holds his two-year-old self.

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His baby face looking
royally pissed

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because his oversized
nightcap has partially

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covered his forehead.

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But then he admits that
he doesn't, in fact,

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and doesn't seem even to care,
why exactly toddler James was

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so red-faced writhing in
his grandmother's lap.

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Perhaps, he speculates,
someone in the room

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was preventing him from watching
The Sonny and Cher Show.

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Or maybe he was upset about the
recent death of Pope John Paul

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I being covered on the news.

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Or, he confesses, maybe
grandma just reeked.

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His speculations are
a source of humor,

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yes, but they also
serve as a preface

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to an essay that celebrates
his love for old lady regalia.

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Just as it meditates on the
hefty themes of shame and pain.

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Queer pain, human pain.

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The pain of words.

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One word often.

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Of body pain and brain pain.

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This preamble
articulates, I think,

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one of the things I appreciate
so much about James' work.

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A reminder and a
tolerance of the fact that

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just like the body and
its actions, the mind

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and its memories can be
and are deeply flawed.

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But as Rigoberto González
says of James' work,

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his personal essays are more
than an expression of pain.

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They're testaments to
perseverance shaped

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by the acceptance
of a flawed self,

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love for a complicated family,
and then unflappable wit.

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All true.

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His essays are simultaneously
hilarious and heartbreaking.

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Let's pretend that
James' essays are

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that which is hung on museum
walls and let's stop and stare.

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Please welcome James Allen Hall.

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[APPLAUSE]