Junot Diaz , the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," says that D&D was my apprenticeship in storytelling.
Junot Diaz : Thank you.
Junot Diaz : So it's a real pleasure to be here.
Junot Diaz : Okay, just a little brief reading, I think, nothing- Rick Kleffel: It's three pages, should take a couple minutes.
Junot Diaz : Yeah.
Junot Diaz : That's highly doubtful but thank you.
Junot Diaz : Highly doubtful.
Junot Diaz : This is weed smoking, the consequences.
Junot Diaz : Young people, stay away from it.
Junot Diaz : For real this is what happens.
Junot Diaz : This is like a banal second person voice.
Junot Diaz : Oh, I thought you meant men.
Junot Diaz : Men, even those of us who are men know that we are like an alien unto ourselves which is sort of an outcome of our encourage
Junot Diaz : Come on man.
Junot Diaz : Sure.
Junot Diaz : No, it's a really great observation, Rick.
Junot Diaz : Where in Jersey?
Junot Diaz : That's cool, that's cool, man.
Junot Diaz : We're always, there's always one of us.
Junot Diaz : , man.
Junot Diaz : So I realized that the part of what I knew so well I had to render it, you know, I had to create it and, again, the
Junot Diaz : Yeah, no, thank you.
Junot Diaz : No question.
Junot Diaz : that neither of them have mentioned an artist?
Junot Diaz : Yeah I know!
Junot Diaz : That was like, I don't know about you but I literally had one of those weird moments where I was watching that and
Junot Diaz : My God.
Junot Diaz : You know, I think it's no accident that Yunior is completely blithely unaware of what his masculinity in his relationships
Junot Diaz : Well we're gonna fuckin' do the worm on you guys.
Junot Diaz : That's you, sir.
Junot Diaz : Oh, that's what you were doing.
Junot Diaz : They got you- Rick Kleffel: Oh, here we go.
Junot Diaz : Oh, Newark.
Junot Diaz : I spend a lot of time in Newark.
Junot Diaz : Yeah, that's a wonderful question.
Junot Diaz : It is.
Junot Diaz : Without any question.
Junot Diaz : But I think it's very important for us to have a starter course on white supremacy because we tend to think that-
Junot Diaz : Yeah. Junot Diaz : But we also tend to think that white supremacy is a discussion of white people.
Junot Diaz : Sure, yeah, do I have any, like, stupendously unhelpful generalizations Junot Diaz : It's really what it is because,
Junot Diaz : I'm like; Franzen is the whitest white, white, white, white, white.
Junot Diaz : He wants to return to what, the 70's when it was white, white, white, white, white, white?
Junot Diaz : I mean, I don't know, I don't know what utopian past there is where things are better.
Junot Diaz : Enough said.
Junot Diaz : Yeah.
Junot Diaz : No, I think it's a wonderful question and I think, you know, what's funny about MIT is that MIT for me is just emblematic of the larger culture.
Junot Diaz : Yeah.
Junot Diaz : Yeah, I wrote and published a science fiction story like a couple months ago called "Monstro" which appeared in the New Yorker, it's kind of an alien virus giant
Junot Diaz : But I wouldn't mind doing it, you know, you'll always have, if you have a young love, if you like love tennis there's
Junot Diaz : But I keep reading it, I keep reading it.