WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.490 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.490 --> 00:00:05.280 align:middle line:84% Kelsi made reference to Spit Temple, 00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:09.090 align:middle line:90% which was published in 2012. 00:00:09.090 --> 00:00:15.120 align:middle line:84% And those are transcriptions of performances of Cecilia Vicuña, 00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:20.820 align:middle line:84% which are ephemeral, as many performances are. 00:00:20.820 --> 00:00:23.340 align:middle line:84% But there are also just performance notes. 00:00:23.340 --> 00:00:25.890 align:middle line:84% So the only way to really capture 00:00:25.890 --> 00:00:29.080 align:middle line:84% them besides making them available online-- 00:00:29.080 --> 00:00:30.540 align:middle line:90% and some of them are now-- 00:00:30.540 --> 00:00:32.610 align:middle line:90% was to transcribe them. 00:00:32.610 --> 00:00:35.530 align:middle line:84% And I wanted to read part of a transcription. 00:00:35.530 --> 00:00:37.110 align:middle line:84% So this performance was in English. 00:00:37.110 --> 00:00:40.080 align:middle line:84% So it's not that it's translated from Spanish to English. 00:00:40.080 --> 00:00:41.160 align:middle line:90% But it's transcribed. 00:00:41.160 --> 00:00:44.700 align:middle line:84% And in some cases, notes are given when there 00:00:44.700 --> 00:00:46.080 align:middle line:90% are multilingual elements. 00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:52.740 align:middle line:90% 00:00:52.740 --> 00:00:57.240 align:middle line:84% So I'm going to start midway in the performance 00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:03.150 align:middle line:90% when she says, "you know"-- 00:01:03.150 --> 00:01:06.810 align:middle line:84% so this is 2001, September 29, 2001. 00:01:06.810 --> 00:01:09.150 align:middle line:84% "You know, the towers disappeared, 00:01:09.150 --> 00:01:11.460 align:middle line:84% and they became this white light going up. 00:01:11.460 --> 00:01:14.070 align:middle line:84% And I didn't realize, of course, any of this. 00:01:14.070 --> 00:01:16.440 align:middle line:90% But poetry has this bad-- 00:01:16.440 --> 00:01:20.910 align:middle line:84% abit-- how do you pronounce, habit, hmm-- 00:01:20.910 --> 00:01:22.680 align:middle line:84% of saying things before they happen. 00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:25.020 align:middle line:90% You know, it's a scary thing. 00:01:25.020 --> 00:01:26.190 align:middle line:90% And you try not to. 00:01:26.190 --> 00:01:28.150 align:middle line:84% But in any case, it's not up to you. 00:01:28.150 --> 00:01:29.770 align:middle line:90% It's up to something else. 00:01:29.770 --> 00:01:32.550 align:middle line:84% And so I want to read you some poems that 00:01:32.550 --> 00:01:37.650 align:middle line:84% were written, here it says '97, so that I hope it must be true. 00:01:37.650 --> 00:01:40.170 align:middle line:84% And one of them is a very sad story. 00:01:40.170 --> 00:01:42.960 align:middle line:84% And at a few blocks from my place-- actually, 00:01:42.960 --> 00:01:46.620 align:middle line:84% only a block and a half, this story actually happened. 00:01:46.620 --> 00:01:51.300 align:middle line:84% An Ecuadorian migrant worker was digging 00:01:51.300 --> 00:01:56.250 align:middle line:84% a hole for Con Edison, hmm, and apparently he felt very tired. 00:01:56.250 --> 00:01:58.860 align:middle line:84% And he took a little nap at the end of the hole. 00:01:58.860 --> 00:02:02.640 align:middle line:84% And one of his coworkers came with this huge machine 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:03.990 align:middle line:90% with tons of rubble. 00:02:03.990 --> 00:02:06.390 align:middle line:84% And nobody took notice of the little migrant 00:02:06.390 --> 00:02:11.970 align:middle line:84% worker sleeping under and threw all the rubble on top of him. 00:02:11.970 --> 00:02:13.410 align:middle line:90% Nobody noticed. 00:02:13.410 --> 00:02:14.820 align:middle line:90% And he had been gone. 00:02:14.820 --> 00:02:18.960 align:middle line:84% Nobody-- none of his work, none of his coworkers-- missed him. 00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:21.990 align:middle line:84% They closed the hole, put cement on it. 00:02:21.990 --> 00:02:26.160 align:middle line:84% Night came, and he was missed at home by his brother. 00:02:26.160 --> 00:02:29.585 align:middle line:84% And his brother came to the workplace and said, 00:02:29.585 --> 00:02:31.860 align:middle line:90% 'where is my brother Luis?' 00:02:31.860 --> 00:02:33.810 align:middle line:90% 'Your brother Luis?' 00:02:33.810 --> 00:02:36.420 align:middle line:90% Nobody even remembered him. 00:02:36.420 --> 00:02:38.010 align:middle line:90% And this is very telling. 00:02:38.010 --> 00:02:40.500 align:middle line:84% Because this is like our position, 00:02:40.500 --> 00:02:43.410 align:middle line:84% the position of the little dark ones. 00:02:43.410 --> 00:02:48.150 align:middle line:84% Nobody even notices whether we are or we are not there. 00:02:48.150 --> 00:02:50.580 align:middle line:84% And this man, the brother insisted, 00:02:50.580 --> 00:02:57.480 align:middle line:84% 'here, he was here in this hole.' 00:02:57.480 --> 00:03:00.480 align:middle line:84% And they fought him and said, 'no, he's not. 00:03:00.480 --> 00:03:02.190 align:middle line:90% He probably disappeared. 00:03:02.190 --> 00:03:03.960 align:middle line:90% He went somewhere else. 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:08.670 align:middle line:84% If he was here, we don't remember,' denying the whole 00:03:08.670 --> 00:03:12.990 align:middle line:84% thing until he pressed, he pressed, he pressed. 00:03:12.990 --> 00:03:15.900 align:middle line:84% And finally, they opened the hole 00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:21.240 align:middle line:84% and there he was, Luis, crushed like this. 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:24.330 align:middle line:90% Of course, he was dead." 00:03:24.330 --> 00:03:28.680 align:middle line:84% So this poem is in memory of Luis Gomez. 00:03:28.680 --> 00:03:34.860 align:middle line:84% "Escombro y olvido, sueño malderido-- 00:03:34.860 --> 00:03:39.570 align:middle line:84% perdón-- el enterrado vivo, el hombre deshecho, sin cuerpo, 00:03:39.570 --> 00:03:40.785 align:middle line:90% ni abrigo. 00:03:40.785 --> 00:03:43.710 align:middle line:84% Viajando en el ruido, el hombre deshecho, 00:03:43.710 --> 00:03:46.080 align:middle line:90% viajando en el ruido." 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:51.810 align:middle line:84% "Forgotten rubble, wounded dream, you are discarded alive. 00:03:51.810 --> 00:03:56.010 align:middle line:90% Man undone, no body, no warmth. 00:03:56.010 --> 00:04:02.790 align:middle line:84% Noise in transit, discarded man, undone you are." 00:04:02.790 --> 00:04:04.743 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:04:04.743 --> 00:04:12.110 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:12.110 --> 00:04:15.890 align:middle line:84% So the end part of that transcription is a translation 00:04:15.890 --> 00:04:22.940 align:middle line:84% of a poem of Vicuña's that I translated. 00:04:22.940 --> 00:04:25.940 align:middle line:84% And then she wove it into the performance, which is something 00:04:25.940 --> 00:04:27.902 align:middle line:90% that she often did. 00:04:27.902 --> 00:04:28.402 align:middle line:90%