Just left the Literary Arts Festival and unfortunately I accidentally deleted about 12 minutes of footage I recorded of Junot speaking. Nonetheless, from the very beginning of his speaking, the audience came alive with a multitude of reactions. From heavy laughter to appalled faces from the crowd, references to ābe-nutted condomsā and graphic sexual activities to comments of gratitude like, āThanks for coming out tonight. Itās a Thursday night in Brooklyn thereās about a billion fucking things you can be doing right about now.ā Junot, who is in my opinion very talented from what iāve heard and read so far, held mostly everyones attention throughout.
From my point of view i thought Junot Diaz would have carried himself a bit more professionally. Having already came across a few videos of him doing readings on YouTube I feel that he chose to act the way he did so that he can make us as students feel comfortable with him. Many of his word choices were curse words and raunchy comments at the LAF, though I expected a more professional Junot Diaz that he portrayed on YouTube in other speakings. Honestly I have no issues with his writings. People have the right to write whatever they want and I personally feel that his writings are very realĀ to what goes on in life. Nothing has changed in my view of him or his works after having seen him speak at the LAF, although I don’t think i’ll be getting his next book.