WEBVTT

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Hi, thanks for that
awesome reading.

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I'm Ariel, I'm an undergrad,
and I'm double majoring

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in creative writing and law.

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Yeah.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I was wondering if you
could elaborate a little bit

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about where you see
those two fields overlap

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for you in the little middle
part of the Venn diagram,

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because I'm always
curious to know?

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Yeah, that's a great question.

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I think they overlap
in a lot of ways.

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I mean, just at a very--

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kind of at the
level of language,

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I think both creative
writing and law,

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as we were talking about in
the linguistics course today,

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are interested in those moments
of ambiguity and possibility

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of multiple meanings, and
thinking about how the way

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we use language in one context
might differ in other contexts.

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It might mean something
profoundly different

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and have profound consequences.

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And I also think,
at a larger level,

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there's a lot of similarity
between the two fields in terms

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of how we tell ourselves
stories about ourselves,

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and how we organize the
ways in which we live,

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and what we believe in.

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So for me, it's many
of the same inquiries,

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just branching out
into different texts

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and different directions.

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So I'm excited to hear
that you're doing both.

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Hi, I'm also Natalie.

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I did a project on Hard Child
in my 209 intro to poetry class,

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so I'm excited to see you.

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Oh, that's awesome.

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And I had a question, because
when I was reading your book,

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I really loved the way
that you convey humor,

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because it didn't
seem like you were--

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at least, I know when I write,
I struggle to write humor,

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because I feel like I'm either
coming across too strong,

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or it's not enough
and I'm just kind of

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left lacking a punch line.

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How do you write humor?

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Do you just find
that it comes easily,

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or do you feel like you're
trying to push it sometimes?

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But either way, I think
yours comes across very well.

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I love your sense of humor.

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Thanks.

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Yeah, so a lot of the
jokes that are in my poems,

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they're jokes that I tried
to make in conversation

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and they were flops.

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So there's actually
a poem in Hard Child

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that's called "Person's Ocean,"
that was like this joke--

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I hadn't written it
for a poem, I just

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wrote it because I thought
it'd be hugely entertaining

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for my friends.

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And this is-- do you
want to hear the joke?

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OK.

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So it's like, Oh,
you know how when

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you're walking on the beach
and you pick up a seashell

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you can hear the ocean?

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Well if you are
walking on the beach

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and there's a person there,
and you go close to them,

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you also can hear the ocean,
but only the parts of the ocean

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that humanity destroyed.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And everyone was like, what?

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[LAUGHTER]

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And so, I feel like
I try to find jokes

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for the poem that are--

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for poems that are-- there's
something off about them,

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because I think if all
the moving parts work,

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and the joke
totally makes sense,

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it doesn't have that kind
of element of disquiet

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that's behind it.

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So I am always interested in
those jokes that almost miss.

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What's a Staten Island divorce?

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Oh, it's when one spouse
kills the other one.

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[LAUGHTER]

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That was a great question.

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[LAUGHTER]

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OK well, thank you so
much for your questions,

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and thank you so much
Natalie for a great reading.

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And we have some books here
for you to buy, and for--

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[LAUGHTER]

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I'll take them, sold.

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Yes, thank you very much.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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