WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.030 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.030 --> 00:00:05.940 align:middle line:84% Well, this is really an amazing night. 00:00:05.940 --> 00:00:13.140 align:middle line:84% And actually, I love my job, and I had to say to myself, 00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:16.110 align:middle line:84% Aurelie, do not cry when you go up 00:00:16.110 --> 00:00:18.600 align:middle line:84% to the microphone, about how much 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:20.820 align:middle line:84% you love your job and these people, 00:00:20.820 --> 00:00:27.390 align:middle line:84% and this incredible way of living where we share 00:00:27.390 --> 00:00:30.010 align:middle line:90% each other's words and stories. 00:00:30.010 --> 00:00:31.155 align:middle line:90% No, don't cry. 00:00:31.155 --> 00:00:32.460 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:32.460 --> 00:00:37.440 align:middle line:84% Just laugh instead, because it's just quite a great thing. 00:00:37.440 --> 00:00:41.100 align:middle line:90% 00:00:41.100 --> 00:00:45.210 align:middle line:84% The narrator of Natasha Stagg's first novel, 00:00:45.210 --> 00:00:50.400 align:middle line:84% Surveys, works at the Tucson Mall, a place that had not 00:00:50.400 --> 00:00:53.460 align:middle line:84% previously been properly scrutinized, 00:00:53.460 --> 00:00:57.450 align:middle line:84% and certainly not by a razor-sharp cultural critic 00:00:57.450 --> 00:01:00.090 align:middle line:90% and prose stylist. 00:01:00.090 --> 00:01:03.450 align:middle line:84% Colleen, a survey taker in her early 20s, 00:01:03.450 --> 00:01:08.010 align:middle line:84% is dangerously bored, frequently hung over, and poised 00:01:08.010 --> 00:01:09.540 align:middle line:90% for an extreme makeover. 00:01:09.540 --> 00:01:13.140 align:middle line:90% 00:01:13.140 --> 00:01:15.990 align:middle line:84% She is as ruthlessly observant as she 00:01:15.990 --> 00:01:20.130 align:middle line:90% is lonely and dissatisfied. 00:01:20.130 --> 00:01:22.590 align:middle line:84% This is a quote from the book, "When teenagers 00:01:22.590 --> 00:01:26.640 align:middle line:84% walked by and scoffed, looking like mermaids on ships, 00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:29.310 align:middle line:84% encrusted with rhinestone barnacles, 00:01:29.310 --> 00:01:32.100 align:middle line:84% their neon-accented phones and crap 00:01:32.100 --> 00:01:36.390 align:middle line:84% from Claire's, their banded braces and their piercings, 00:01:36.390 --> 00:01:40.050 align:middle line:84% they looked out of reach, even though I was only a couple 00:01:40.050 --> 00:01:40.935 align:middle line:90% of years older." 00:01:40.935 --> 00:01:43.510 align:middle line:90% 00:01:43.510 --> 00:01:46.270 align:middle line:84% The intersection of personal architecture, 00:01:46.270 --> 00:01:49.540 align:middle line:84% the building of self, and its context, 00:01:49.540 --> 00:01:53.740 align:middle line:84% in this case, an apparently mundane retail venue, 00:01:53.740 --> 00:01:58.210 align:middle line:84% is precisely explored in this gorgeous novel, which 00:01:58.210 --> 00:02:02.110 align:middle line:84% also serves as a feminist reassessment of image 00:02:02.110 --> 00:02:06.280 align:middle line:84% and commodity, and a bold rethinking 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:11.270 align:middle line:84% of the psychological paradigm and literature. 00:02:11.270 --> 00:02:16.910 align:middle line:84% Some of the strongest forces in a life can be invisible. 00:02:16.910 --> 00:02:19.490 align:middle line:84% Colleen soon busts out of the land 00:02:19.490 --> 00:02:24.350 align:middle line:84% of mermaids, Victoria's Secret dreamers, and sicko old men 00:02:24.350 --> 00:02:30.980 align:middle line:84% neighbors to emerge as a disconcerting new personage, 00:02:30.980 --> 00:02:36.260 align:middle line:84% a figure of no fixed address and no fixed identity. 00:02:36.260 --> 00:02:39.590 align:middle line:84% She moves to LA to be with this famous guy 00:02:39.590 --> 00:02:42.080 align:middle line:90% that she hooked up with online. 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:44.270 align:middle line:84% And together, they build the semblance 00:02:44.270 --> 00:02:47.900 align:middle line:84% of a relationship, a virtual fairytale kingdom 00:02:47.900 --> 00:02:52.280 align:middle line:84% to live in or near, and to share, most of all, 00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:57.360 align:middle line:84% with tens of thousands of followers on social media. 00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:02.540 align:middle line:84% We're asked to consider, where does life itself dwell? 00:03:02.540 --> 00:03:06.620 align:middle line:84% Conventionally, we might say it is within the self. 00:03:06.620 --> 00:03:11.440 align:middle line:84% But Natasha storms this particular castle. 00:03:11.440 --> 00:03:14.800 align:middle line:84% It's not that there's no there there, 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:16.930 align:middle line:84% but that the there and the not there 00:03:16.930 --> 00:03:21.220 align:middle line:84% unite and realign the parameters of love and identity. 00:03:21.220 --> 00:03:24.150 align:middle line:90% 00:03:24.150 --> 00:03:28.500 align:middle line:84% Surveys came out this year with Semiotext(e) press, 00:03:28.500 --> 00:03:31.920 align:middle line:84% a press called by Rick Moody, "The leading edge 00:03:31.920 --> 00:03:33.990 align:middle line:84% of the most incendiary and exciting 00:03:33.990 --> 00:03:37.080 align:middle line:84% intellectual revolution in the West," by the way. 00:03:37.080 --> 00:03:38.460 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:38.460 --> 00:03:41.130 align:middle line:84% It's been reviewed widely, and with acclaim, 00:03:41.130 --> 00:03:44.040 align:middle line:84% in The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times, 00:03:44.040 --> 00:03:46.650 align:middle line:90% The LA Times, and elsewhere. 00:03:46.650 --> 00:03:50.070 align:middle line:84% Natasha wrote the first draft while she was at the U of A 00:03:50.070 --> 00:03:51.990 align:middle line:90% in my novel-writing class-- 00:03:51.990 --> 00:03:52.810 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:52.810 --> 00:03:57.450 align:middle line:84% --in fact, [CHUCKLES] back in 2010. 00:03:57.450 --> 00:03:59.550 align:middle line:84% I was so impressed by those first pages 00:03:59.550 --> 00:04:02.280 align:middle line:84% by Natasha's unique visionary style, 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:06.210 align:middle line:84% and also by the conceptual framework of the narrative. 00:04:06.210 --> 00:04:10.500 align:middle line:84% Reading the book in final form blew me away. 00:04:10.500 --> 00:04:12.270 align:middle line:84% Natasha lives in New York, where she 00:04:12.270 --> 00:04:15.220 align:middle line:84% was an editor for V Magazine for four years. 00:04:15.220 --> 00:04:18.540 align:middle line:84% She writes about fashion, art, music, and culture 00:04:18.540 --> 00:04:22.830 align:middle line:84% for Artforum, Paris Review, and other venues. 00:04:22.830 --> 00:04:28.500 align:middle line:84% Her fiction and essays are magnetic, oracular, erudite, 00:04:28.500 --> 00:04:30.810 align:middle line:90% and pleasurable. 00:04:30.810 --> 00:04:35.160 align:middle line:84% Look up her Ask Natasha column for micro-trends 00:04:35.160 --> 00:04:39.930 align:middle line:84% such as dying armpit hair or memes of impossible heels. 00:04:39.930 --> 00:04:43.440 align:middle line:90% 00:04:43.440 --> 00:04:46.470 align:middle line:84% Read her essay, Trends and their Discontents, 00:04:46.470 --> 00:04:51.060 align:middle line:84% written for the 9th Berlin Biennale. 00:04:51.060 --> 00:04:53.100 align:middle line:84% The bottom line is that every era 00:04:53.100 --> 00:04:55.620 align:middle line:90% needs a guide and a translator. 00:04:55.620 --> 00:04:58.500 align:middle line:90% Natasha Stagg is here for you. 00:04:58.500 --> 00:05:00.350 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]