WEBVTT

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So this is interesting too,
because this other thing,

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the thing that I have
really been working on,

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at least the last
this week, I guess.

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Maybe see, that's
why I was like,

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this is what made me think
I would do a Q and A,

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but now I don't think
I want to do a Q and A.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Because I almost like--

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so because I'm working it out.

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As I said, this is
the newest thing.

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And it's like anyway, we'll see.

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We'll talk about it.

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How about that?

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You can ask me about it
maybe, and I'll be like,

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I don't know what
you're talking about.

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OK.

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I had said to the kids,
who maybe are here,

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some of the best moments
for me is just really

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just keeping record.

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I was like that's what
Frank O'Hara showed us.

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You could just have lunch and
you can have a whole career.

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Lunch poems.

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So that idea of just sometimes
you catch a thing in a poem

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and it's like almost
completely contained.

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The only thing that's different
is that we were actually

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hearing this story
in a pizza parlor,

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but I was like, I'm
going to set a party.

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It's almost like what you were
talking about with the Dustin

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Hoffman inside of the thing
inside that was very cool,

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that thing you were doing.

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So I was like, I'm going to
put it in a party about a party

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or something.

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So otherwise,
everything else is true.

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So the person who's telling
this, the storyteller

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is telling us about
having seen the picture.

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So I didn't ever
see the picture,

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but I heard about the picture.

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So anyway, as I say, who knows?

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I might get halfway
through it and be like,

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God damn it, I need to
make these poems shorter.

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But let's see how this one goes.

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This is all I really
wanted to read today.

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The Woman Wearing
Human Teeth Earrings.

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In a photograph taken of
the party at the party,

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the woman wearing
human teeth earrings

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smiles with a black hole
where her mouth is half open,

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as if in the middle of a
laugh or an explanation.

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The woman at her
shoulder will bite

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into something, an olive
pit or baby carrot,

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somehow chipping a front
tooth before the party ends.

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The person closest to
her will stumble, as if

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over the foot of a
ghost descending stairs,

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losing several tipsy teeth and
several gauzy hours in the ER

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later that night.

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Teeth are exposed by
everyone, except those

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who smile without showing
teeth in the photograph,

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but we hardly notice given the
woman wearing teeth purchased

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in a part of New Orleans far
from the fake witch doctors

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and fortune tellers
of Bourbon Street.

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No one remembered what the woman
said of who sold her the teeth.

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One is always interrupted
telling stories at a party.

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You suggested they
could have come

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from a mother who kept her
child's teeth like diamonds.

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But I said, these
were adult teeth--

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as if an adult could
not have a mother

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still moonlighting
as a tooth fairy.

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We were at our last party.

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Did the teeth hang like
stalactites, apples or fangs?

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asked someone who had
not seen the photograph

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on the storyteller's phone.

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A husky, sweaty bar
singer some claimed

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was Etta James was said
to have worn giant molar

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earrings the night she
sang all her old ballads,

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but never more bewitchingly,
before vanishing.

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The photograph of
the party was taken

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on the phone of the host
near the end of the night.

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Several party
attendees experienced

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terrible,
unprecedented cavities.

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OK, I'm making all this up.

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I'm sorry.

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I'm like, everything is true.

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This is my going.

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I'm making this up now.

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Yeah, where was I?

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The photograph of
the party was taken

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on the phone of the host
near the end of the night.

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Several party
attendees experienced

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terrible,
unprecedented cavities.

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The person who danced with the
woman whispering into her ear

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lost three bottom teeth
in a glass of cold milk

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the next morning.

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The rim of the
glass was bleeding.

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For many of us, teeth
appear in the mouth

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as if the bones of the skull
broke free of the body to speak.

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For most of us, the mouth
voices whatever takes

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shape in the heart or brain.

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But for some at the
party, the mouth

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was empty as a newborn's,
except grain stained the breath,

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the tongue was lonely.

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Of course, the first to
start contacting people

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after the party was the woman
who'd worn the teeth earrings.

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She essentially wanted to know
how to discard the things.

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She couldn't speak.

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Her text claimed she woke with
no teeth after a terrible dream,

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but she sent no
pictures as proof.

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She dreamed of exes
who believed wearing

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the wisdom teeth of your enemy
bestowed the wearer with wisdom.

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The scent of regret
remained on their fingers

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after setting the teeth in gold
or silver, their hands waving

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off ghosts disguised
as horseflies.

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What happened to the
rest of the party?

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The storyteller got a
drink or a toothache.

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And you told me
there was an island

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of widows who wear the jawbones
of their dead as jewelry.

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And I asked where?

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How?

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[APPLAUSE]

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