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♪ethereal ambient music♪

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[lock clicking]

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[heels clacking]

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[car engine revving]

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♪♪♪

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[Miranda VO] Risk, in general for me, is
really such a comfort zone.

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I was the kind of kid who was just like,

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"Dare me to do something."

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I loved the high of that.

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♪♪♪

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(plastic rustling)

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(mellow music)

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I am remembering when I was
maybe seven or something

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playing at the park, and there was...

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You know those really
intense basketball games

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with men playing, and
they're just shouting,

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and like, "I'm open, I'm open!"

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You know, like,
[chuckling] um...

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And my friends dared me to join the game.

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(mellow music)

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[Miranda] Do you mind holding that for a sec?

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You can let go whenever
you need to let go.

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Thank you.

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[Miranda VO] And I just jumped right in,

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and just was like, "I'm open, I'm open!"

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You know, just, like, doing
the [chuckling] stuff I saw them doing,

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and I was,
like, floating on air,

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you know, because I'd
done it and I'd survived.

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[Miranda] Do you mind just holding this?

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You can let go whenever
you need to let go.

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[Miranda VO] I guess I learned if you're not afraid --

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and why
should you really be afraid? --

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then it's like you can fly

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You have this superpower.

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♪curious electronic music♪

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Now, I usually say I'm a
writer, filmmaker, and artist.

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So within that,

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I perform

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and I work in these different mediums.

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♪♪♪

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- Some things are hidden for a reason,

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and if you see them,
you'll be changed forever.

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But I wanted to be changed forever.

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♪♪♪

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[Miranda VO] It feels like there's
a million sub-genres

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of all those things,

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Like, "filmmaker"
-- you know,

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that, to me, includes feature films.

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[Miranda] And, cut!

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And things you might make really quickly

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and in an afternoon.

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So I'm not really a purist.

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♪lush ethereal music♪

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I started so young.

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I started when I was 16

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writing and directing my first play.

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[heels clacking]

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I had started a correspondence
with a man in prison.

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There used to be lists of prison pen pals

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in the back of magazines,

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and I really just chose him at random.

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It wasn't romantic

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because I was, thank
God, a hardcore feminist,

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but it was very intimate
once that boundary was set.

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Dear friend, this is legal paper.

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I wish it was the opposite.

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How has your day been so far?

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You make me wish we could meet.

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Perhaps we can someday.

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[Miranda VO] I think he and I were in it

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for similar reasons in that
we loved the attention.

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What teenage girl doesn't love...

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Like, literally, I was
the only person --

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like, free person
-- in his life.

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Like, he hadn't gotten
a letter in 12 years.

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And, like, I became alienated
from my friends

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and high school ''cause I couldn't
get this across.

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And so I wrote a play.

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[man VO] You see, you're making me remember,

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but I'm not remembering who I was,

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I'm remembering who I wanted to be,

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[whispering] and there's a difference.

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- I shouldn't be able to
know you as well as I do

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because I know-
- I mean I guess one reason

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I do these projects with people

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who are so far out of my world

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is that I am thrown out
of my own assumptions

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about how things work or what things mean.

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Even just very basic things,
like even friendship, like:

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Is this a friendship?

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My parents are writers.

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So from them, I learned how
to be intimate with my work.

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And I guess my great hope
was that through my work,

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I could have intimacy with other people.

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Based on what I saw growing up,

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I wasn't sure how else to connect.

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I don't know, the idea of the...

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you know, the...

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the found family or the...

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or the friend that kind of saves you, like, I...

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those are sometimes in my
work, and it's-- you know,

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and I know it's a kind of common theme,

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but I can't-- you know, it...

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[chuckling] never gets old!

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[panting] How
about this, right?

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You think that was the big one?

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-I don't think that--
-It was.

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That was it. [laughs]

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Thank you.

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[typing]

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- I dropped out of college,
and did wanna make movies,

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and was surrounded by women in bands.

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And we started a recording
studio in our basement,

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and there was very much the sense

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that you could just
figure it out yourself.

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So I started this thing first
called "Big Miss Moviola"

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and then Moviola tried to sue me.

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Welcome to "Big Miss Moviola."

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My name is Miranda July
and I'll be your host.

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[Miranda VO] The premise was, if
you send me your movie,

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I'll put it on a VHS tape

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with nine other movies
made by nine other women...

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-Hi, Vanessa!

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[Miranda VO] And send the tape back to you,

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so we can all see each other's work.

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I was providing a service that I needed

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in order to conceive of
myself as a filmmaker.

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And I did that for 10 years.

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I did it until...

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until I made "Me and You
and Everyone We Know."

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Man: What are you doing in my car?

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[laughs]

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I don't know you

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and you certainly don't
know anything about me.

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I mean, what if I'm a killer of children?

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-Woman: [chuckling] Yeah, well, that
would put a damper on things,

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wouldn't it?

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Miranda: I remember actually
after that movie came out,

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and I remember performing
and realizing, like,

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"They just wanna see the
girl from that movie."

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That actually was a bit
of a crisis at first.

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And that was actually the point
when I started making pieces

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that asked a lot of the audience.

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[Miranda] When I signal you,

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if you could just walk
towards me very, very slowly.

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♪tender piano playing♪

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I noticed her immediately

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when I walked out on
stage that first night.

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[laughter]

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She seemed to radiate light.

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♪tender piano playing♪

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I've been in two relationships
with women before, but...

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they were more...butch.

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[laughter]

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[ambient music]

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[Miranda VO] So right now, I am finishing a book,

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a kind of long novel...

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[footsteps thudding]

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about the second half of a woman's life.

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And it's a romance.

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There's also dance in my book.

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So, this is my novel.

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[chuckling] No one's
supposed to see this ever,

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but, um, so don't
maybe get too close but...

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Or it's fine, whatever, who cares?

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This is the first half of it.

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This is the second half.

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When I can't write anymore --
like it's diminishing returns --

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then I come to this rack.

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It's, like, [chuckling]
costumes to dance in?

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Or...

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just to make things in if I want
to become aware of my body in a

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different way.

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And then I'd be like,
"Well, this was a costume,

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but-- but who is
this," you know?

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♪cool percussive
music playing♪

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And I started actually buying things

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that make no sense in real life,

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but are great for this sort of thing.

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Like, what is...

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what is this?

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♪chipper triangle music♪

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[Miranda VO] For me, it's always about energy,

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and excitement, and mystery.

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And one way it exists is in these mediums,

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like, simply working in a form

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with materials you haven't used before

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is novelty and mystery
in a quite physical sense

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and sometimes in a collaborative sense.

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[typing]

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So day one of the pandemic,

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the phone rings and it's
an unfamiliar number,

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and I answer it, and it's
clearly like a solicitor.

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[dogs barking]

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- Miranda's phone number
was assigned to me

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but she wasn't a typical customer

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that will immediately hang up
the phone or drop the call.

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- Maybe I'd somehow ended up on a list

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for self-published authors, which I'm not,

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and so I answered all their
questions and then I said,

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"Can I ask you some questions?"

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Where they were, they
were in the Philippines.

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How old they were, 27.

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I couldn't tell what gender they were.

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They were a trans woman.

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[Jay VO] Here in the Philippines,

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most of the religion is Roman Catholic.

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It's very hard for you to be accepted,

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to belong in a community.

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So I started to share my background

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and she thought of a project
that we can collaborate.

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This is the edition --
the limited edition --

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that I made
out of the project with Jay.

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- She said that she's gonna
be sending me assignment

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and then I'm going to
respond it in pictures.

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This is the first assignment

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where Miranda asked me to bow to something

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that is also important to
me, which is money and a bed,

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because I love to sleep.

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So, in this picture, this is
where all my suffering happens.

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- The best feeling is when
you throw down a challenge

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and then the person comes back
with something much bolder.

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I mean, that is what really
makes it a collaboration,

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and that happened so regularly with Jay.

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♪calm ethereal music♪

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[Jay VO] This is me.

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So sharing that to Miranda
was really kind of risky,

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but at the same time happy

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because I was able to express everything.

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Like, every pain,

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every truth that happened to
my life is all in this project.

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♪♪♪

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- I mean, I'm full of my own...

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trust, abandonment issues,

235
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like all kinds of things that make it hard

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to get close to people.

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So it's a real miracle

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when something like that
connection can happen.

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It becomes very beautiful,
and emotional, and light,

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which is so, so incredible

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because it's not very light inside me.

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[chuckles]

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♪♪♪

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I think that's part of the risk thing

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is literally anything is
possible in the moment.

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♪♪♪

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It's kind of like being
in a dream or something.

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♪♪♪

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But a shared dream, not a
lonely in-my-head dream.

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♪♪♪

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And the reward of working this way

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is creative freedom

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on every level.

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♪♪♪

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♪ethereal ambient music♪

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♪♪♪