WEBVTT

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OK, you're getting
a bit of a preview.

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So this book is called
Letter to a Future Lover.

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And it comes out in two weeks.

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And a word about
it-- it's like these

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are essays that I wrote in
libraries of various sorts,

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including the Poetry
Center, which, I mean,

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is the one that gets kind
of epigraphed in the card

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that you have in front of you.

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And so what I would do is
I would go to a library--

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and I find myself thinking
a lot about ebooks.

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Everyone asks me about ebooks.

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Aren't ebooks the future, man?

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I'm like no, ebooks
aren't the future.

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I mean, ebooks are fine.

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Like, they're helpful.

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They're searchable.

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It's great to teach with.

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They're portable.

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But what they don't
have is history.

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And there's a lot of
things they don't have.

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They also don't
have cool end papers

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and like beautiful
bindings and so on.

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But I really-- I mean, I found,
though I'm kind of a techno

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dude, like I really--

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it turns out the
book is a technology.

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And it's a great technology.

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And I love that technology.

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And I'm pretty sure
it's not going to die.

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So what I would find
is I would find myself

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in these libraries,
including the Poetry Center,

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and I would find stuff.

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And then kind of
write about them

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or try to ingest
them in some way.

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And then publish them back
on the card like the one

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that you have.

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Put it back in the
book where I found it.

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And then the book is a
compilation of some of the ones

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that I wrote.

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I wrote about 100.

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I think there's like maybe
75 that are in the hardcover

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that you guys are doing.

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And the original plan was to
do them all in like this box,

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like uncollected, sort of
unbound, just loose leaf.

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And I try really,
really hard to get

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Graywolf to bite on this idea.

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And Kate-- I think
I convinced Katie,

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but I think we came up into
some logistical difficulties,

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such as like in order
to do this right,

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you really have to
get it done overseas.

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I mean any kind of
economies of scale.

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And Graywolf's whole
ethos is like, no,

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it's got to be done
in North America.

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It has to be print and bound
in North America, which

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I understood.

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So I did like my own kind
of like crazy Kickstartered

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edition, which is this is
like the super edition.

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And there's three left of
the other limited edition,

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which has more essays.

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And they're up here if
you're interested in them.

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If you're like a real nerd
for the book like I am,

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then that's the one you want.

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But there's only three left.

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So hopefully, there's
only three of you.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So a word about this.

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I'm going to read
a couple of these.

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So these are things.

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And this is like maybe
the most spectacular one,

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which is, the University
of Arizona libraries

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had this problem with
this dude over the last

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like five or six years
who would deface books.

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And he'd deface
over 200 of them,

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including this one up here.

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And these are--

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I found a copy of the Gay
and Lesbian Encyclopedia,

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in which there's a series
of people who are discussed

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for their gayness.

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And this guy's really
upset about this.

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But I mean, it's
a 500-page book.

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And he would deface something
like 300 or 400 pages of it,

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just go crazy in it.

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And it wasn't just him
just like being an asshole.

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I mean, it was him being
an asshole, but it also--

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I found it really
fascinating because it really

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began to reveal things
about himself as I

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think this starts to.

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And I'll sort of talk a
little bit about that.

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I'm only going to
read one of those.

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But there's a whole series
of these defacer ones.

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They didn't catch the guy.

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I mean, they know who he is, but
they wouldn't tell me his name.

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He wasn't arrested because
they never caught him

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actually defacing books.

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They know who he was.

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He's been banned, apparently,
but my librarian sort of

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refused to actually tell me the
name, which is probably good.

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So this is one he defaced
among other things.

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This is the Greta Garbo one.

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And you could see for yourself.

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He's really upset.

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I'll read a little bit.

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You've got to-- I'm not going
to try to stick everything here.

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"You've got to be
fucking kidding me.

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No.

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Greta is a lesbian."

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He's really upset about this.

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"I could never," and he uses
this elaborate use of quotes,

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"have imagined.

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Oh, my.

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I've seen dozens of her movies.

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She's always in love
scenes with men.

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What?

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If she was alive, I
bet she would certainly

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dispute this as rubbage
and sue this author."

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And then below, he's like
really upset about Greta Garbo

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being a lesbian.

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He also gets upset later on
about like Ma Bell and Oscar

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Wilde.

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He's really upset that
Oscar Wilde is gay.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So "Dear Defacer."

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In truth I too defaced--

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books, surely, variously,
furiously, before I

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understood their
worth, but also--

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walls, homes, computer
systems, above ground pools,

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school buses, schools,
school desks and lockers,

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bathroom stalls, urinals,
garage doors, a bus station,

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car glass, cars, glass
block windows, wine

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glasses at parties.

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Mr. Millenbach's shed.

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The list embarrasses me a
little, but I need to say it.

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My name or my words are
carved in or written all over,

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in margins of all sorts, on
borrowed sports equipment,

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even in the evening.

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Was this an evening
out of anything

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restoring a sense of balance,
of scoring, of settling?

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Was it about power?

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Feeling my breath, my reach,
effect linked to cause,

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a pausing of the world in
order to press myself into it,

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adolescent, and leave it marked?

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Dear Defacer, this is a
book about the margin,

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so while the librarians
surely won't, I

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welcome your marginalia,
since it starts to arc,

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suggest your story, growing
worry about gender and sex.

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It starts in stutter--

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bitchassery, a variety of
slurs, faggot this, lesbo that,

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a yawn, you burring
anyone you can.

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You pathological, uncontrolled.

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A hundred pages
later your shriek

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against how easy it must be to
come out when you're already

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rich betrays a shadow self.

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The pool's shallow end is
not so shallow as it seems,

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or else you're drowning
there regardless.

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They say it only takes an inch.

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So on a later page your
confession of your age--

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he says he's in his 60s--

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makes the action even weirder.

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Then, quote, 'Should I really be
aware that Oscar Wilde--' which

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he misspells-- 'is queer?'

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Yes, you should, if you're
in your 60s, as you say,

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if you've read,
it's pretty obvious.

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'If I had never known Oscar
Wilde' quote, 'was a faggot,

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why the fuck does someone need
to tell me after 100 fucking

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years?'

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unquote.

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You may have noticed we're in
the Gay and Lesbian Biography.

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Why else were you here?

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So I'm not sure it's fair to
pair the two of us, Defacer--

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16 is a life away
from 66, but I still

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want to understand your
small, weird heart.

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Our anger suggests our
sadness that the sum

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of us in misdirected screeds
is greater than the part.

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Don't we all wear
our faces loosely?

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Is it sad to say
our eyes are masks?

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Garbo's face a mask.

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Emily Dickinson's,
as you complain.

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Wilde's, Ma Bell's,
you note, though you

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know she's even less real
than the rest of these.

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Your face a mask.

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My face a mask.

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This book a mask.

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Your marks in it are masks.

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Each mask a mask.

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These sentences a
mask, red death,

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a self-photographed
macaque, a walk

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through the history of our
error-prone approach to sex,

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desire, to gender,
to fashion, to film.

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These things are kilns in which
we bake the masks of self anew.

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These things are
stones upon which

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we are asked to dash each
mask each evening in order

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to keep breathing.

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