WEBVTT

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Now, I have another
career that I've just

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begun in the last two years.

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That's as a humorist.

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I'm going to read two stories.

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Maybe more.

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One is very short.

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Let's see how long
it goes on here.

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Well, a couple of
them are pretty short.

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This is called The Tiny Baby.

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Even before the
tiny baby was born,

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its mother hired a sitter
to prepare for the days

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when she'd need one.

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She told the sitter,
it's real small.

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So if you don't see
it, don't worry.

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Then the mother pretended to
leave and hid in the bushes

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outside the living room
window watching the sitter's

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every move.

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The tiny baby was so tiny
that its mother never

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looked pregnant.

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And when it was born, it took
a long time for the doctor

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to find it.

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If it had wings,
it would have been

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a goldfinch or a chickadee.

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Primitives in the community
who heard of the tiny baby

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joked that it was small because
its father was far away.

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Like a dot on the
horizon, they would say.

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The mother feared
for the tiny baby,

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feared it would see
every carpeted room

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as a prairie strewn
with monuments,

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huge and upholstered,
every tree as a green net

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of frangible light, every
flower as a wound in the air.

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So she dressed the
baby in a catsuit,

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in the soft gray
stripes of a tabby,

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and sat in the afternoon
sun watching it bound

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and roll on the lawn.

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Soon, she doubted
that such a deception

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would ensure the baby's
safe passage into adulthood.

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She worried about the blades
of grass, the thorns of bushes,

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the tumultuous
advances of weather,

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to say nothing of those
other advances, caterwauling,

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indiscreet, brutishly fickle
of the neighborhood toms.

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The tiny baby's
mother shuddered.

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She thought of
removing the catsuit

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but did nothing until
the baby killed a mouse.

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Then the suit came off.

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As everyone knows, a
mother's love for her child

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lives in that lush conjunction
of selfless concern

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and undisguised identification.

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It rises above chance and its
easy and expert acceptance

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of duty.

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Its destiny extends beyond
the mute scrutiny of eros.

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Nothing compares with it.

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By contrast, the
formal shenanigans

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that pass between
a man and a woman

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are the mere stuff of comedy.

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The mother of the
tiny baby obeyed

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the transcendent
obligations of her sex

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with unalterable devotion.

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She tied the baby to
the tail of a kite

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but never let go of the string.

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She kept the baby in her
purse, so she wouldn't lose it.

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At home, she put the
baby in a little chair

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on the dining room table
surrounded by roses.

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Would the tiny baby
become a Hollywood star,

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spreading its light
in every room?

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Would it rise to the top
of Australian society?

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Would it join the Mormon church,
sit in the celestial room

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and be reproduced by
mirrors into eternity?

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It is well to consider
the fortunes of the loved.

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They move through the
glitter of hotel lobbies.

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They hang around pools
and desert resorts.

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They read best sellers
in subways and trains.

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They are never alone.

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Now, consider the
tiny baby years hence,

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a woman with blue,
beady eyes watching

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the street for a sight
of her favorite hairdo.

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When she sees it, the
long black tresses

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forming a castle of hair, she
will imagine it on herself.

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She sits in a
flower print dress,

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her thin legs crossed,
the tips of her shoes

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hardly reaching the ground.

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She suddenly, in
barely audible tones,

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sings a song about rain falling
and a man on a bicycle hurrying

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home.

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The man's wife leans from
a window watching him

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but is distracted by the
noisy appearance of seagulls.

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The smallest woman gets up.

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The train has left.

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The day keeps
echoing around her.

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It is priceless, she thinks.

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Death will not have me.

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That is the story
of the tiny baby."

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