WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.890 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.890 --> 00:00:02.750 align:middle line:90% Hi, thank you. 00:00:02.750 --> 00:00:03.890 align:middle line:90% So this works? 00:00:03.890 --> 00:00:05.048 align:middle line:90% That's all right? 00:00:05.048 --> 00:00:08.330 align:middle line:84% Speak into it and you'll be fine. 00:00:08.330 --> 00:00:11.750 align:middle line:84% Let me play a little bit with it. 00:00:11.750 --> 00:00:14.120 align:middle line:90% So that's all right? 00:00:14.120 --> 00:00:15.860 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:15.860 --> 00:00:18.300 align:middle line:90% Well, Thanks for coming. 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:20.780 align:middle line:90% I love your weather by the way. 00:00:20.780 --> 00:00:22.940 align:middle line:90% I came here from-- 00:00:22.940 --> 00:00:26.900 align:middle line:84% not directly, but from Iowa where we had, I think, 00:00:26.900 --> 00:00:29.730 align:middle line:84% the morning I left, no degrees whatsoever. 00:00:29.730 --> 00:00:33.320 align:middle line:90% 00:00:33.320 --> 00:00:35.930 align:middle line:84% And I was wearing shorts earlier. 00:00:35.930 --> 00:00:38.000 align:middle line:90% This, I think, is fantastic. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:42.590 align:middle line:84% And I'm very happy to be back visiting, 00:00:42.590 --> 00:00:50.330 align:middle line:84% and I want to thank Aurelie and Ander and Alison and Fenton 00:00:50.330 --> 00:00:54.350 align:middle line:84% for letting me come back, as well as the Poetry 00:00:54.350 --> 00:00:58.370 align:middle line:84% Center in this amazing space that you've 00:00:58.370 --> 00:01:01.030 align:middle line:84% built which is, I think, as you know, 00:01:01.030 --> 00:01:07.070 align:middle line:84% incredibly rare in maybe the world. 00:01:07.070 --> 00:01:11.090 align:middle line:84% And thank you as well for coming. 00:01:11.090 --> 00:01:15.770 align:middle line:84% And thank Fenton for saying that. 00:01:15.770 --> 00:01:17.450 align:middle line:84% Well, for writing it first, because I 00:01:17.450 --> 00:01:20.120 align:middle line:84% know that those are difficult to put together 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:23.720 align:middle line:84% and then for saying it and maybe even believing it. 00:01:23.720 --> 00:01:26.300 align:middle line:90% 00:01:26.300 --> 00:01:28.880 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read from this new book exclusively, 00:01:28.880 --> 00:01:34.490 align:middle line:84% and I'm going to do something a little bit risky, which 00:01:34.490 --> 00:01:39.380 align:middle line:84% is I'm going to read only from the end of the book. 00:01:39.380 --> 00:01:44.000 align:middle line:84% In fact, I'm going to read the end of the book. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:46.520 align:middle line:84% And why that might be a little risky 00:01:46.520 --> 00:01:51.200 align:middle line:84% is because I consider this book one long essay. 00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:57.230 align:middle line:84% And, so, by only giving you the ending or the conclusion 00:01:57.230 --> 00:02:04.010 align:middle line:84% of the essay, you're perhaps going to miss the argument 00:02:04.010 --> 00:02:08.090 align:middle line:84% and why we might be arriving where we are arriving in what 00:02:08.090 --> 00:02:09.180 align:middle line:90% I'm going to read to you. 00:02:09.180 --> 00:02:15.890 align:middle line:84% So I'll give you a little bit of background about two 00:02:15.890 --> 00:02:19.760 align:middle line:84% of the main strands in the book, both of which 00:02:19.760 --> 00:02:22.160 align:middle line:84% will appear in what I'm going to read. 00:02:22.160 --> 00:02:25.460 align:middle line:84% The first strand is Yucca Mountain, 00:02:25.460 --> 00:02:29.850 align:middle line:84% which I imagine in this part of the country you know about. 00:02:29.850 --> 00:02:33.650 align:middle line:84% But, just in case, it is, obviously, 00:02:33.650 --> 00:02:39.890 align:middle line:84% in Southwest Nevada, just about 90 miles North of Las Vegas. 00:02:39.890 --> 00:02:46.670 align:middle line:84% And the plan with Yucca, just until recently, 00:02:46.670 --> 00:02:56.510 align:middle line:84% just until last week in fact when the president pretty much 00:02:56.510 --> 00:03:00.950 align:middle line:84% pulled the funding for the site, it's where we were planning 00:03:00.950 --> 00:03:04.520 align:middle line:84% on sending all of America's most toxic, 00:03:04.520 --> 00:03:06.710 align:middle line:90% highest-level nuclear waste-- 00:03:06.710 --> 00:03:11.660 align:middle line:84% all of the stuff that's sitting in temporary storage 00:03:11.660 --> 00:03:17.300 align:middle line:84% at the 108 nuclear power plants scattered across the United 00:03:17.300 --> 00:03:24.470 align:middle line:84% States, waste that I think totals about 70,000 tons 00:03:24.470 --> 00:03:26.120 align:middle line:90% at this point. 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:29.510 align:middle line:84% The idea is that we would truck this waste 00:03:29.510 --> 00:03:33.470 align:middle line:84% to Yucca mountain over a period of about 40 years 00:03:33.470 --> 00:03:40.820 align:middle line:84% because you can only transport a little bit of it at a time. 00:03:40.820 --> 00:03:43.040 align:middle line:84% And, then, once at Yucca mountain, 00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:47.300 align:middle line:84% where we would have carved a series of tunnels 00:03:47.300 --> 00:03:51.860 align:middle line:84% out of the mountain, we would just shove it in there. 00:03:51.860 --> 00:03:56.630 align:middle line:84% And after 40 years, after all 70,000 tons of nuclear waste 00:03:56.630 --> 00:03:59.750 align:middle line:84% was back in the Mountain or in the mountain, we would 00:03:59.750 --> 00:04:03.230 align:middle line:84% seal the mountain shut and return it 00:04:03.230 --> 00:04:05.780 align:middle line:84% to what the Department of Energy called, 00:04:05.780 --> 00:04:08.750 align:middle line:84% which was the government agency put in charge 00:04:08.750 --> 00:04:10.730 align:middle line:84% of Yucca mountain, we'd return it 00:04:10.730 --> 00:04:13.055 align:middle line:90% to its natural, pristine state. 00:04:13.055 --> 00:04:15.760 align:middle line:90% 00:04:15.760 --> 00:04:19.459 align:middle line:84% And while being back in its natural, pristine state, 00:04:19.459 --> 00:04:26.090 align:middle line:84% the nuclear waste inside would be slowly 00:04:26.090 --> 00:04:28.610 align:middle line:90% decomposing or degrading-- 00:04:28.610 --> 00:04:30.680 align:middle line:90% losing its lethality. 00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:32.900 align:middle line:84% And the Department of Energy estimated 00:04:32.900 --> 00:04:36.020 align:middle line:84% that this would take about 10,000 years-- that that 00:04:36.020 --> 00:04:38.390 align:middle line:84% was the average half life of the waste headed 00:04:38.390 --> 00:04:40.070 align:middle line:90% for Yucca mountain. 00:04:40.070 --> 00:04:44.180 align:middle line:84% In reality, the average half life 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:45.980 align:middle line:84% of the waste headed for Yucca mountain 00:04:45.980 --> 00:04:50.240 align:middle line:84% is about 28 million years, which also 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:52.790 align:middle line:84% doesn't mean-- half life doesn't mean that it's safe. 00:04:52.790 --> 00:04:56.450 align:middle line:84% It just means it's lost half of its lethality. 00:04:56.450 --> 00:05:00.890 align:middle line:84% But they, the Department of Energy, negotiated with the EPA 00:05:00.890 --> 00:05:04.260 align:middle line:84% and they compromised on 10,000 years, 00:05:04.260 --> 00:05:07.910 align:middle line:90% which is still a long time. 00:05:07.910 --> 00:05:11.780 align:middle line:84% So it's in fact so long that the Department of Energy, 00:05:11.780 --> 00:05:13.880 align:middle line:84% at one point during this project, which 00:05:13.880 --> 00:05:18.620 align:middle line:84% started in the mid '80s, decided that it really 00:05:18.620 --> 00:05:22.550 align:middle line:84% had to figure out a way to mark Yucca mountain. 00:05:22.550 --> 00:05:28.040 align:middle line:84% One of the great things about the project that I actually 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:31.320 align:middle line:84% admired strangely enough was that there 00:05:31.320 --> 00:05:38.340 align:middle line:84% was an implicit acknowledgment that the US government wouldn't 00:05:38.340 --> 00:05:41.520 align:middle line:84% be around 10,000 years from now in order 00:05:41.520 --> 00:05:45.390 align:middle line:84% to actively warn people about the waste in Yucca. 00:05:45.390 --> 00:05:50.310 align:middle line:84% And I kind of admired that the government was acknowledging-- 00:05:50.310 --> 00:05:55.990 align:middle line:84% you know, it's possible we may not be around to do this. 00:05:55.990 --> 00:05:59.340 align:middle line:84% So we need to find a way to mark this site 00:05:59.340 --> 00:06:04.740 align:middle line:84% to let people know that they should stay away 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:08.070 align:middle line:84% from Yucca, that they shouldn't try to get inside it 00:06:08.070 --> 00:06:10.890 align:middle line:84% or bomb it or climb it or drink water coming out 00:06:10.890 --> 00:06:14.910 align:middle line:90% of it, that it was dangerous. 00:06:14.910 --> 00:06:17.890 align:middle line:84% They needed a sign-- a warning sign of some sort. 00:06:17.890 --> 00:06:20.250 align:middle line:84% So the Department of Energy formed 00:06:20.250 --> 00:06:24.720 align:middle line:84% a committee, which they called the Expert Judgment Panel. 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:30.000 align:middle line:84% And the Expert Judgment Panel was made up of 13 people-- 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:33.690 align:middle line:84% a geologist, a hydrologist-- someone from your own 00:06:33.690 --> 00:06:34.380 align:middle line:90% University-- 00:06:34.380 --> 00:06:42.060 align:middle line:84% Vic Baker-- a material scientist, 00:06:42.060 --> 00:06:44.670 align:middle line:84% I think there is a science fiction guy, 00:06:44.670 --> 00:06:46.680 align:middle line:90% there was an astrobiologist-- 00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:49.020 align:middle line:84% folks who look for extraterrestrials. 00:06:49.020 --> 00:06:53.970 align:middle line:90% 00:06:53.970 --> 00:06:59.640 align:middle line:84% And they were charged with designing this marker-- 00:06:59.640 --> 00:07:02.850 align:middle line:84% a marker that needed to remain not only physically 00:07:02.850 --> 00:07:06.150 align:middle line:84% intact for 10,000 years, but whose warning message, 00:07:06.150 --> 00:07:08.460 align:middle line:84% whose keep out sign needed to remain 00:07:08.460 --> 00:07:11.160 align:middle line:90% coherent for 10,000 years. 00:07:11.160 --> 00:07:16.200 align:middle line:84% And, obviously, this is hard because if you think about it, 00:07:16.200 --> 00:07:21.570 align:middle line:84% we don't have a language that is 10,000 years old. 00:07:21.570 --> 00:07:24.030 align:middle line:84% So it's unlikely that any language that we're currently 00:07:24.030 --> 00:07:29.080 align:middle line:84% using or aware of would last 10,000 years from now. 00:07:29.080 --> 00:07:31.950 align:middle line:84% So how do you exactly do that warning? 00:07:31.950 --> 00:07:33.000 align:middle line:90% And that was their job. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:38.370 align:middle line:84% And they came up with a bunch of proposals, some of which 00:07:38.370 --> 00:07:41.730 align:middle line:84% we'll hear about in what I'm going to read. 00:07:41.730 --> 00:07:48.060 align:middle line:84% We'll also hear about the plan that the Department of Energy 00:07:48.060 --> 00:07:52.440 align:middle line:84% ultimately decided it might go with after rejecting 00:07:52.440 --> 00:07:55.890 align:middle line:90% the panel's plans-- 00:07:55.890 --> 00:07:58.540 align:middle line:90% at least for this project. 00:07:58.540 --> 00:08:01.440 align:middle line:84% The second strand, hopefully more briefly, 00:08:01.440 --> 00:08:07.800 align:middle line:84% is suicide and in particular one suicide in Las Vegas-- 00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:11.970 align:middle line:84% the suicide of a young boy who killed himself 00:08:11.970 --> 00:08:16.350 align:middle line:84% by jumping off the tallest building in Las Vegas, which 00:08:16.350 --> 00:08:20.850 align:middle line:84% is also the tallest building west of the Mississippi. 00:08:20.850 --> 00:08:22.950 align:middle line:84% It's called the stratosphere hotel. 00:08:22.950 --> 00:08:27.180 align:middle line:84% And he jumped off the very top, or the observation deck 00:08:27.180 --> 00:08:31.140 align:middle line:84% of The Stratosphere on a Saturday night 00:08:31.140 --> 00:08:33.330 align:middle line:84% and landed on the Strip in Vegas. 00:08:33.330 --> 00:08:36.610 align:middle line:84% And so, as you could imagine, there were a lot of people 00:08:36.610 --> 00:08:37.110 align:middle line:90% there. 00:08:37.110 --> 00:08:40.059 align:middle line:84% He landed into a crowd of people. 00:08:40.059 --> 00:08:44.400 align:middle line:84% And, so, it was very public and obviously quite traumatic 00:08:44.400 --> 00:08:45.990 align:middle line:90% for everybody. 00:08:45.990 --> 00:08:51.150 align:middle line:84% And why he ended up becoming a part of this book 00:08:51.150 --> 00:08:55.560 align:middle line:84% is because, while I was in Las Vegas researching Yucca 00:08:55.560 --> 00:09:00.480 align:middle line:84% mountain and also coincidentally helping my mom settle 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:03.990 align:middle line:84% into the city because she had decided to, 00:09:03.990 --> 00:09:07.080 align:middle line:84% somewhat out of the blue, move to Las Vegas, 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:11.730 align:middle line:84% I started volunteering for the local Suicide Prevention 00:09:11.730 --> 00:09:15.640 align:middle line:84% Hotline, which is something I'd never done before. 00:09:15.640 --> 00:09:18.030 align:middle line:84% So I went through a training program. 00:09:18.030 --> 00:09:22.620 align:middle line:84% And my very first night on the hotline, 00:09:22.620 --> 00:09:26.910 align:middle line:84% I received a fairly disturbing call-- 00:09:26.910 --> 00:09:29.760 align:middle line:84% a call from a young-sounding person 00:09:29.760 --> 00:09:37.080 align:middle line:84% who didn't really say very much and ultimately hung up on me. 00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:40.830 align:middle line:84% And I probably would have been able to dismiss this. 00:09:40.830 --> 00:09:48.150 align:middle line:84% But later that same night while at home with my mom 00:09:48.150 --> 00:09:50.790 align:middle line:84% watching the news, there was a report 00:09:50.790 --> 00:09:55.770 align:middle line:84% of a boy who had jumped off the Stratosphere tower. 00:09:55.770 --> 00:09:59.310 align:middle line:84% And possessing the kind of brain I have, 00:09:59.310 --> 00:10:04.080 align:middle line:84% I immediately convinced myself that I had spoken to this kid. 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:07.800 align:middle line:84% And, so, all while in Vegas trying 00:10:07.800 --> 00:10:11.850 align:middle line:84% to research Yucca, which is why I was ostensibly there, 00:10:11.850 --> 00:10:15.630 align:middle line:84% I was also secretly on the side trying to figure out 00:10:15.630 --> 00:10:19.710 align:middle line:84% who this boy was and trying to figure out whether, in fact, I 00:10:19.710 --> 00:10:21.280 align:middle line:90% had spoken to him. 00:10:21.280 --> 00:10:26.170 align:middle line:84% And in the process learned quite a bit about him, 00:10:26.170 --> 00:10:32.850 align:middle line:84% but also, more importantly, or more shockingly, about suicide 00:10:32.850 --> 00:10:36.510 align:middle line:84% in Las Vegas because there are more suicides in Vegas 00:10:36.510 --> 00:10:39.750 align:middle line:84% every year than anywhere else in America-- almost one 00:10:39.750 --> 00:10:41.880 align:middle line:84% per day, about one every 28 hours. 00:10:41.880 --> 00:10:45.180 align:middle line:90% 00:10:45.180 --> 00:10:48.750 align:middle line:84% And, so, we'll hear about his suicide as well. 00:10:48.750 --> 00:10:51.810 align:middle line:84% And we'll hear the tail end of that investigation 00:10:51.810 --> 00:10:53.400 align:middle line:90% into his death. 00:10:53.400 --> 00:10:57.030 align:middle line:84% And the only thing that you may need 00:10:57.030 --> 00:10:58.980 align:middle line:84% to know about him because it'll be referenced 00:10:58.980 --> 00:11:01.260 align:middle line:90% is that he was an art student. 00:11:01.260 --> 00:11:05.400 align:middle line:84% He attended a high school for the visual and performing arts. 00:11:05.400 --> 00:11:10.630 align:middle line:84% And he also did Taekwondo and was pretty good at it. 00:11:10.630 --> 00:11:13.390 align:middle line:84% And, lastly, because we are in school, 00:11:13.390 --> 00:11:17.310 align:middle line:84% I will say something about the form. 00:11:17.310 --> 00:11:22.500 align:middle line:84% There is no white space in this book, which is, I suppose, 00:11:22.500 --> 00:11:24.210 align:middle line:90% not very remarkable. 00:11:24.210 --> 00:11:28.320 align:middle line:90% 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:30.510 align:middle line:84% But there are, you'll probably hear, 00:11:30.510 --> 00:11:35.160 align:middle line:84% some fairly abrupt transitions between paragraphs. 00:11:35.160 --> 00:11:39.420 align:middle line:84% And that is intentional, whether it's effective or not. 00:11:39.420 --> 00:11:40.510 align:middle line:90% It is intended. 00:11:40.510 --> 00:11:43.650 align:middle line:84% And so I'll leave it up to you to figure out 00:11:43.650 --> 00:11:47.670 align:middle line:84% whether it interests you and why the transitions may 00:11:47.670 --> 00:11:48.405 align:middle line:90% be so abrupt. 00:11:48.405 --> 00:11:52.520 align:middle line:90% 00:11:52.520 --> 00:11:54.260 align:middle line:90% I will say one last thing. 00:11:54.260 --> 00:11:55.520 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry. 00:11:55.520 --> 00:11:58.460 align:middle line:84% I hesitate, also, to say it because it sounds really weird. 00:11:58.460 --> 00:12:04.970 align:middle line:84% But in this section in which we're dealing 00:12:04.970 --> 00:12:08.960 align:middle line:90% with this boy's suicide-- 00:12:08.960 --> 00:12:10.490 align:middle line:84% I know this sounds incredibly weird, 00:12:10.490 --> 00:12:15.540 align:middle line:84% but I want to give you permission to laugh 00:12:15.540 --> 00:12:17.840 align:middle line:90% if you feel like laughing. 00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:19.700 align:middle line:84% I know that sounds incredibly bizarre, 00:12:19.700 --> 00:12:24.590 align:middle line:84% but I was told after a reading that I needed to give audiences 00:12:24.590 --> 00:12:28.460 align:middle line:84% permission to laugh at places because, obviously, 00:12:28.460 --> 00:12:35.930 align:middle line:84% given the subject matter, that would be very inappropriate. 00:12:35.930 --> 00:12:39.560 align:middle line:84% But some of the absurdity is intentional. 00:12:39.560 --> 00:12:43.260 align:middle line:84% And, in fact, he was surrounded by a lot of absurd things. 00:12:43.260 --> 00:12:45.680 align:middle line:84% And, so, if you feel like laughing, no one, 00:12:45.680 --> 00:12:50.520 align:middle line:84% I hope, will I look meanly at you. 00:12:50.520 --> 00:12:54.740 align:middle line:90% 00:12:54.740 --> 00:13:02.300 align:middle line:84% "10,000 years from now, Vega not Polaris will be our North Star. 00:13:02.300 --> 00:13:06.890 align:middle line:84% The space satellite Voyager, which was launched in 1979 00:13:06.890 --> 00:13:08.570 align:middle line:84% and which has since been traveling 00:13:08.570 --> 00:13:11.810 align:middle line:84% 40,000 miles per hour, will be closer 00:13:11.810 --> 00:13:14.450 align:middle line:84% to the absolute emptiness of space 00:13:14.450 --> 00:13:17.060 align:middle line:90% than it will be to our home. 00:13:17.060 --> 00:13:19.220 align:middle line:84% Even the Earth's continents, which 00:13:19.220 --> 00:13:23.030 align:middle line:84% have been slowly migrating since they initially were formed 00:13:23.030 --> 00:13:27.260 align:middle line:90% will be 850 feet farther apart. 00:13:27.260 --> 00:13:31.520 align:middle line:84% There will be also a new axial tilt in our planet. 00:13:31.520 --> 00:13:35.000 align:middle line:84% It will temporarily shift us away from the sun, 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.830 align:middle line:84% lowering global temperatures by as much as 50 degrees. 00:13:39.830 --> 00:13:44.420 align:middle line:84% Around Yucca at that time, there will be a grassy plain. 00:13:44.420 --> 00:13:47.060 align:middle line:84% Most of Russia won't be inhabitable. 00:13:47.060 --> 00:13:49.400 align:middle line:90% Iran-- a ski resort. 00:13:49.400 --> 00:13:52.610 align:middle line:84% A new volcanic island will appear beside Hawaii. 00:13:52.610 --> 00:13:56.540 align:middle line:84% Plastic will be extinct because petroleum will be too. 00:13:56.540 --> 00:13:59.480 align:middle line:84% And while we won't be living longer than we currently 00:13:59.480 --> 00:14:03.920 align:middle line:84% are living, Frank Tipler's book, The Physics of Immortality, 00:14:03.920 --> 00:14:05.990 align:middle line:84% says that if we're wealthy, we'll 00:14:05.990 --> 00:14:09.620 align:middle line:84% be able to buy the brains of younger body-donors, 00:14:09.620 --> 00:14:12.300 align:middle line:84% download our memories into their minds, 00:14:12.300 --> 00:14:14.900 align:middle line:84% and then live through them vicariously 00:14:14.900 --> 00:14:18.830 align:middle line:90% until we need another donor." 00:14:18.830 --> 00:14:19.700 align:middle line:90% Excuse me. 00:14:19.700 --> 00:14:22.190 align:middle line:84% "We will be living underground, or we 00:14:22.190 --> 00:14:24.230 align:middle line:90% will be living in giant domes. 00:14:24.230 --> 00:14:27.320 align:middle line:84% Or we will be living in a single networked city 00:14:27.320 --> 00:14:31.610 align:middle line:84% that sprawls across the planet called equmonopolis. 00:14:31.610 --> 00:14:34.550 align:middle line:84% Physicist John Fremlin believes, in fact, 00:14:34.550 --> 00:14:37.940 align:middle line:84% that the human population by the year 12,000, 00:14:37.940 --> 00:14:40.820 align:middle line:90% will be 61 trillion strong. 00:14:40.820 --> 00:14:42.830 align:middle line:84% Our food will have to be harvested 00:14:42.830 --> 00:14:46.670 align:middle line:84% from algae and cadavers and pumped into our homes 00:14:46.670 --> 00:14:49.280 align:middle line:90% as daily liquid rations. 00:14:49.280 --> 00:14:53.180 align:middle line:84% Rodney Brooks, the director of MIT's artificial Intelligence 00:14:53.180 --> 00:14:55.910 align:middle line:84% Laboratory believes, however, that humans 00:14:55.910 --> 00:14:59.360 align:middle line:84% are going to have such exquisite control over the genetics 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:02.750 align:middle line:84% of living systems that instead of growing a tree, 00:15:02.750 --> 00:15:06.320 align:middle line:84% cutting it down, and then building a table from it, 00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:11.870 align:middle line:84% we ultimately will be able to just grow a table from scratch. 00:15:11.870 --> 00:15:15.620 align:middle line:84% Yet, as Warwick Collins explains in his book Computer One, 00:15:15.620 --> 00:15:19.460 align:middle line:84% most of the work on the planet by the late 21st century 00:15:19.460 --> 00:15:23.330 align:middle line:84% will be conducted by a giant, global supercomputer that 00:15:23.330 --> 00:15:27.290 align:middle line:84% will relegate humans to the role of pampered pets. 00:15:27.290 --> 00:15:31.070 align:middle line:84% It will control the water supply, the food supply, 00:15:31.070 --> 00:15:33.920 align:middle line:90% electricity, transportation. 00:15:33.920 --> 00:15:36.440 align:middle line:84% It will be programmed to repair itself 00:15:36.440 --> 00:15:38.600 align:middle line:84% and to anticipate situations that 00:15:38.600 --> 00:15:40.760 align:middle line:90% might necessitate more repairs. 00:15:40.760 --> 00:15:44.900 align:middle line:84% And this is the reason why, 500 years after we invest 00:15:44.900 --> 00:15:48.680 align:middle line:84% in building it, computer one will calculate the chances 00:15:48.680 --> 00:15:51.410 align:middle line:84% that human beings might interfere with the work it's 00:15:51.410 --> 00:15:52.820 align:middle line:90% programmed to do. 00:15:52.820 --> 00:15:54.980 align:middle line:84% It will reason that interferences 00:15:54.980 --> 00:15:56.930 align:middle line:90% are a threat to its efficiency. 00:15:56.930 --> 00:15:58.940 align:middle line:84% And it will logically conclude that it 00:15:58.940 --> 00:16:03.380 align:middle line:84% would raise its productivity if humans were not around. 00:16:03.380 --> 00:16:06.440 align:middle line:90% It will be quiet on the Earth. 00:16:06.440 --> 00:16:09.140 align:middle line:90% There will be a lot of wind. 00:16:09.140 --> 00:16:11.150 align:middle line:84% From the ridgeline of Yucca mountain, 00:16:11.150 --> 00:16:13.880 align:middle line:84% we might look down at Black Hole-- 00:16:13.880 --> 00:16:17.660 align:middle line:84% one of the designs for a warning marker from the expert judgment 00:16:17.660 --> 00:16:18.710 align:middle line:90% panel. 00:16:18.710 --> 00:16:22.880 align:middle line:84% 90,000 square feet of black basalt stone 00:16:22.880 --> 00:16:26.990 align:middle line:84% irregularly carved and cobbled on to the sandy ground. 00:16:26.990 --> 00:16:31.460 align:middle line:84% 'A crazy quilt of parched land' the panel describes it as. 00:16:31.460 --> 00:16:34.250 align:middle line:84% Cracked, hard to walk on, projecting 00:16:34.250 --> 00:16:37.550 align:middle line:84% the image of nothing, a void, uselessness, 00:16:37.550 --> 00:16:40.820 align:middle line:84% a place that would seem unwelcoming and uninhabitable 00:16:40.820 --> 00:16:42.800 align:middle line:84% because the region will absorb so 00:16:42.800 --> 00:16:46.040 align:middle line:84% much heat through these stones that an intruder will simply 00:16:46.040 --> 00:16:49.460 align:middle line:84% not be able to stand being there. 00:16:49.460 --> 00:16:51.800 align:middle line:84% Or we might stand on Yucca mountain 00:16:51.800 --> 00:16:54.740 align:middle line:90% and listen to the moans-- 00:16:54.740 --> 00:16:58.880 align:middle line:84% an echoing aural effect from a series of stone sculptures 00:16:58.880 --> 00:17:03.260 align:middle line:84% that would be carved to admit a single pitch in the wind-- 00:17:03.260 --> 00:17:07.069 align:middle line:84% 'a minor D,' writes the panel because that note usually 00:17:07.069 --> 00:17:09.950 align:middle line:84% signals to our brains that it is sad. 00:17:09.950 --> 00:17:14.150 align:middle line:84% They will fill Yucca's basin with a mournful constant cry, 00:17:14.150 --> 00:17:16.760 align:middle line:84% scaring off intruders through an effect 00:17:16.760 --> 00:17:19.010 align:middle line:84% that some theorize can be supported 00:17:19.010 --> 00:17:22.579 align:middle line:84% by biology since pitch extraction from music 00:17:22.579 --> 00:17:26.359 align:middle line:84% is accomplished in the inferior colliculus of the brain, which, 00:17:26.359 --> 00:17:30.290 align:middle line:84% itself, is situated in close proximity to other midbrain 00:17:30.290 --> 00:17:33.860 align:middle line:84% centers known to be part of mammalian reward systems 00:17:33.860 --> 00:17:36.650 align:middle line:84% according to a study by neuroscientist Martin 00:17:36.650 --> 00:17:40.370 align:middle line:84% Braun entitled Inferior Colliculus As Candidate 00:17:40.370 --> 00:17:43.370 align:middle line:90% For Pitch Extraction." 00:17:43.370 --> 00:17:44.780 align:middle line:90% He goes on. 00:17:44.780 --> 00:17:46.640 align:middle line:84% "The pitches found in major chords 00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:49.790 align:middle line:84% may, therefore, have a direct or indirect influence 00:17:49.790 --> 00:17:53.180 align:middle line:84% on these reward nuclei, which could be one of the reasons 00:17:53.180 --> 00:17:56.330 align:middle line:84% why music can have so strong and emotional impact 00:17:56.330 --> 00:17:58.130 align:middle line:84% and why major chords are regarded 00:17:58.130 --> 00:18:02.550 align:middle line:84% as joyful and minor chords as mournful. 00:18:02.550 --> 00:18:05.310 align:middle line:90% Or we may see forbidding blocks. 00:18:05.310 --> 00:18:08.070 align:middle line:90% Or we may see rubble landscape. 00:18:08.070 --> 00:18:12.810 align:middle line:84% We may see irregular grid, spikes in a field, landscape 00:18:12.810 --> 00:18:15.390 align:middle line:90% of thorns, tall leaning stones. 00:18:15.390 --> 00:18:19.860 align:middle line:84% We may see a whole catalog of visceral warning markers. 00:18:19.860 --> 00:18:22.350 align:middle line:84% Artificially-built environments we'll 00:18:22.350 --> 00:18:27.000 align:middle line:84% be meant to enter into to help make their warnings work. 00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:29.910 align:middle line:84% But these will be environments, writes the panel 00:18:29.910 --> 00:18:33.330 align:middle line:84% in its report, that will exist without transmitting 00:18:33.330 --> 00:18:39.960 align:middle line:84% any gestalt for the intruder without perceivable foci, 00:18:39.960 --> 00:18:44.410 align:middle line:84% without the possibility of being understood. 00:18:44.410 --> 00:18:46.090 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:18:46.090 --> 00:18:48.340 align:middle line:84% We must find ourselves, the panel 00:18:48.340 --> 00:18:52.570 align:middle line:84% says, having an experience an assaying 00:18:52.570 --> 00:18:56.170 align:middle line:84% into the purpose of what's apparently purposeless 00:18:56.170 --> 00:18:58.510 align:middle line:84% an assaying that tries desperately 00:18:58.510 --> 00:19:00.850 align:middle line:84% to cull significance from the place 00:19:00.850 --> 00:19:06.220 align:middle line:84% but an assaying says the panel, that must ultimately fail. 00:19:06.220 --> 00:19:09.460 align:middle line:84% All human cultures, writes the panel in its report, 00:19:09.460 --> 00:19:11.710 align:middle line:84% have tried marking spaces that they 00:19:11.710 --> 00:19:13.990 align:middle line:90% have wanted to call the center. 00:19:13.990 --> 00:19:16.060 align:middle line:84% It is an impulse to create order out 00:19:16.060 --> 00:19:19.690 align:middle line:84% of the chaos that surrounds us-- the tribal fire, the village 00:19:19.690 --> 00:19:22.570 align:middle line:90% temple, the city's clock tower. 00:19:22.570 --> 00:19:25.930 align:middle line:84% But this is why we must invert the symbolic logic 00:19:25.930 --> 00:19:26.980 align:middle line:90% of this site. 00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:29.200 align:middle line:84% Establish a sense of meaninglessness 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:31.810 align:middle line:84% around the entire mountain suggests 00:19:31.810 --> 00:19:35.230 align:middle line:84% that there is no single place of value at the site-- 00:19:35.230 --> 00:19:41.560 align:middle line:84% that the land itself is shunned, devastated by the Earth. 00:19:41.560 --> 00:19:44.020 align:middle line:84% But what we are likely to see instead, 00:19:44.020 --> 00:19:48.040 align:middle line:84% according to recent reports from the Department of Energy, 00:19:48.040 --> 00:19:51.070 align:middle line:84% is a small series of 20-foot-high monuments 00:19:51.070 --> 00:19:52.510 align:middle line:90% at the site. 00:19:52.510 --> 00:19:54.910 align:middle line:84% They'll be carved in the shape of pyramids 00:19:54.910 --> 00:19:57.220 align:middle line:90% and made from local granite. 00:19:57.220 --> 00:19:59.530 align:middle line:84% On their surfaces will be inscriptions 00:19:59.530 --> 00:20:03.700 align:middle line:84% in English about the site plus the date the waste was buried, 00:20:03.700 --> 00:20:07.510 align:middle line:84% the date it will be safe, and a small engraved image 00:20:07.510 --> 00:20:11.890 align:middle line:84% in the apex of each stone that reproduces the anguished face 00:20:11.890 --> 00:20:15.280 align:middle line:90% from Edvard Munch's The Scream. 00:20:15.280 --> 00:20:18.430 align:middle line:84% Quote, 'it's the most recognizable painting 00:20:18.430 --> 00:20:22.090 align:middle line:84% in the world,' said a Department of Energy spokesman when I 00:20:22.090 --> 00:20:24.220 align:middle line:90% called to ask about it. 00:20:24.220 --> 00:20:26.860 align:middle line:84% 'Human culture will probably change dramatically 00:20:26.860 --> 00:20:29.890 align:middle line:84% over the next 10,000 years but human emotions 00:20:29.890 --> 00:20:32.500 align:middle line:84% won't, so anyone who comes in contact 00:20:32.500 --> 00:20:34.690 align:middle line:84% with this face over the next 10 millennia 00:20:34.690 --> 00:20:37.120 align:middle line:84% is going to understand what's up with this site-- 00:20:37.120 --> 00:20:40.180 align:middle line:84% that there's something about it that's dangerous, scary, 00:20:40.180 --> 00:20:42.460 align:middle line:90% and likely to make them sick. 00:20:42.460 --> 00:20:46.120 align:middle line:84% I like the idea of a design that just gives the viewer a mood, 00:20:46.120 --> 00:20:48.520 align:middle line:84% but we're dealing with life and death here. 00:20:48.520 --> 00:20:51.490 align:middle line:84% The most responsible thing we can do in this case 00:20:51.490 --> 00:20:54.340 align:middle line:84% is give easily-interpretable information. 00:20:54.340 --> 00:20:57.220 align:middle line:84% We're trying to help these people,' end quote. 00:20:57.220 --> 00:21:00.000 align:middle line:90% 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.620 align:middle line:84% What we know is that he probably left his house by 5 o'clock. 00:21:04.620 --> 00:21:08.610 align:middle line:84% Down the block on Pilderstritch, around the corner to the tram, 00:21:08.610 --> 00:21:10.890 align:middle line:84% or down the block on Pilderstritch by 00:21:10.890 --> 00:21:13.110 align:middle line:90% foot to call Johan. 00:21:13.110 --> 00:21:14.700 align:middle line:84% He would have passed the place that's 00:21:14.700 --> 00:21:18.900 align:middle line:84% now a bar called Edvard's Bar and Grill and then 00:21:18.900 --> 00:21:23.400 align:middle line:84% the all day slices shop called Edvard's Oven Fresh and then 00:21:23.400 --> 00:21:28.020 align:middle line:84% a store across the street called Scream If You Like Sweets. 00:21:28.020 --> 00:21:30.270 align:middle line:84% He could have cut through grazing place 00:21:30.270 --> 00:21:33.120 align:middle line:84% where every citizen could keep cattle and then 00:21:33.120 --> 00:21:36.990 align:middle line:84% walk across a bridge that linked the city to its shore. 00:21:36.990 --> 00:21:39.600 align:middle line:84% But Edvard says he liked to walk. 00:21:39.600 --> 00:21:41.700 align:middle line:90% I need to walk to think. 00:21:41.700 --> 00:21:46.530 align:middle line:84% A new, a longer path up Ekberg hill and through its forest. 00:21:46.530 --> 00:21:51.540 align:middle line:84% This was 1883, and it was very likely August. 00:21:51.540 --> 00:21:53.670 align:middle line:84% Up the hill as Edvard walked, he passed 00:21:53.670 --> 00:21:57.480 align:middle line:84% couples stretched on blankets-- dozens of slanting bodies 00:21:57.480 --> 00:21:59.670 align:middle line:90% on the city's lover's lane. 00:21:59.670 --> 00:22:03.510 align:middle line:84% Then he reached the forest, once the meadow hillside leveled. 00:22:03.510 --> 00:22:05.820 align:middle line:84% And then he walked inside the woods 00:22:05.820 --> 00:22:08.250 align:middle line:90% despite his father's warnings. 00:22:08.250 --> 00:22:10.950 align:middle line:84% There is evil there his father said-- 00:22:10.950 --> 00:22:15.450 align:middle line:84% long forgotten curses from Norway's pagan past. 00:22:15.450 --> 00:22:20.520 align:middle line:84% Edvard turned 19 that year and was living still at home. 00:22:20.520 --> 00:22:22.590 align:middle line:84% He would have needed his dad's permission 00:22:22.590 --> 00:22:24.750 align:middle line:90% to have been out past 6:30. 00:22:24.750 --> 00:22:26.850 align:middle line:84% He would have needed to miss his dinner, 00:22:26.850 --> 00:22:29.820 align:middle line:84% retired early to his room, established 00:22:29.820 --> 00:22:33.000 align:middle line:84% two days earlier that he was feeling kind of ill. 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:35.130 align:middle line:84% He would have needed, three years earlier, 00:22:35.130 --> 00:22:38.760 align:middle line:84% to have had rheumatic fever and needed 12 years earlier 00:22:38.760 --> 00:22:41.520 align:middle line:90% to almost die on Christmas day. 00:22:41.520 --> 00:22:44.160 align:middle line:84% And then he would have needed a low window 00:22:44.160 --> 00:22:46.260 align:middle line:90% he could climb through. 00:22:46.260 --> 00:22:49.290 align:middle line:84% There was a gray straw hat he wore every single day 00:22:49.290 --> 00:22:51.630 align:middle line:84% that I knew him from the time that he was 15 00:22:51.630 --> 00:22:54.150 align:middle line:84% until he left home for Berlin according 00:22:54.150 --> 00:22:57.120 align:middle line:84% to a memoir by Edvard's closest friend. 00:22:57.120 --> 00:22:59.500 align:middle line:84% He would have needed that straw hat, 00:22:59.500 --> 00:23:03.060 align:middle line:84% some good walking shoes, the light wool brown coat 00:23:03.060 --> 00:23:05.160 align:middle line:90% that all middle class boys wore. 00:23:05.160 --> 00:23:08.310 align:middle line:84% He would have needed 40 minutes to pass through Ekberg's 00:23:08.310 --> 00:23:12.060 align:middle line:84% forest, and would have needed to understand its ancient pagan 00:23:12.060 --> 00:23:12.750 align:middle line:90% history-- 00:23:12.750 --> 00:23:17.850 align:middle line:84% the 3,000-year-old practice of bringing infants there to die, 00:23:17.850 --> 00:23:22.170 align:middle line:84% digging narrow graves over which boulders were then laid so that 00:23:22.170 --> 00:23:26.640 align:middle line:84% the child didn't suffocate but rather starved to death-- 00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:30.360 align:middle line:84% a practice that was so common by the early 11th century 00:23:30.360 --> 00:23:33.240 align:middle line:84% that St. Olaf, the Christian Bishop who 00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:37.170 align:middle line:84% arrived to baptize pagans, wrote a letter to Norwegians 00:23:37.170 --> 00:23:40.290 align:middle line:84% enforcing three new Christian laws. 00:23:40.290 --> 00:23:43.680 align:middle line:84% One-- there shall be no more folk singing 00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:46.260 align:middle line:84% in God's northern kingdom, for these are not 00:23:46.260 --> 00:23:49.670 align:middle line:84% the sounds our Lord and Savior wants to hear. 00:23:49.670 --> 00:23:52.560 align:middle line:84% Two-- there shall desist immediately 00:23:52.560 --> 00:23:54.750 align:middle line:90% all the eating of horse mean. 00:23:54.750 --> 00:23:56.910 align:middle line:84% And three-- because all Christian 00:23:56.910 --> 00:24:01.830 align:middle line:84% lives begin with holy baptism, no longer may any child be left 00:24:01.830 --> 00:24:04.470 align:middle line:90% exposed if it's unwanted. 00:24:04.470 --> 00:24:07.950 align:middle line:84% The last of which proves so controversial for the pagans 00:24:07.950 --> 00:24:12.270 align:middle line:84% that one decade later in the famous Gulating's Law, 00:24:12.270 --> 00:24:15.060 align:middle line:84% a revision was applied in which, quote, 00:24:15.060 --> 00:24:18.960 align:middle line:84% "no healthy child may be exposed if it's 00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:24.390 align:middle line:84% unwanted except if his toes are in the place of his knees, 00:24:24.390 --> 00:24:26.880 align:middle line:84% whose chin is turned around and connected 00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:29.610 align:middle line:84% to the shoulder, the neck upon his breast, 00:24:29.610 --> 00:24:33.210 align:middle line:84% the skin on those legs turning scaly in complexion, 00:24:33.210 --> 00:24:36.540 align:middle line:84% his two eyes on the sides of the poor child's head, 00:24:36.540 --> 00:24:40.320 align:middle line:90% or goat horns, a dog's tail. 00:24:40.320 --> 00:24:42.660 align:middle line:84% The child must be brought to the forest, 00:24:42.660 --> 00:24:46.410 align:middle line:84% therefore, and buried where neither men nor cattle ever 00:24:46.410 --> 00:24:47.670 align:middle line:90% go." 00:24:47.670 --> 00:24:51.930 align:middle line:84% Conditions which were apparently not uncommon at the time 00:24:51.930 --> 00:24:55.920 align:middle line:84% for, as Jenny Jochens explains in Women in Old Norse 00:24:55.920 --> 00:25:00.150 align:middle line:84% Society, "the low valley villages and the high walls 00:25:00.150 --> 00:25:03.480 align:middle line:84% of mountains confined the majority of Norwegians 00:25:03.480 --> 00:25:06.460 align:middle line:84% to their homes, forcing upon the culture 00:25:06.460 --> 00:25:09.030 align:middle line:84% a certain amount of inbreeding and thus 00:25:09.030 --> 00:25:13.530 align:middle line:84% resulting in increasingly deformed infants at birth." 00:25:13.530 --> 00:25:16.500 align:middle line:84% He would have needed to know the phrase "I Christen 00:25:16.500 --> 00:25:21.330 align:middle line:84% Thee at random John or Joanna--" the spell St. Olaf 00:25:21.330 --> 00:25:24.000 align:middle line:90% wrote to ward off any utburd-- 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:28.590 align:middle line:84% the wide-eyed, pale and hairless ghosts of Norway's exposed 00:25:28.590 --> 00:25:31.770 align:middle line:84% children, the thin, hairless, shrieking 00:25:31.770 --> 00:25:35.160 align:middle line:84% souls who haunted Ekberg's forest looking 00:25:35.160 --> 00:25:36.840 align:middle line:90% for their parents. 00:25:36.840 --> 00:25:40.080 align:middle line:84% He would have needed to know that night if one mistook him 00:25:40.080 --> 00:25:42.840 align:middle line:84% for its father clinging to his back 00:25:42.840 --> 00:25:47.040 align:middle line:84% with a black and gaping jaw, that the only way 00:25:47.040 --> 00:25:50.040 align:middle line:84% to rid oneself at that point of an utburd 00:25:50.040 --> 00:25:55.630 align:middle line:84% is to convince the child to kill itself and then bury it again. 00:25:55.630 --> 00:25:58.600 align:middle line:84% But what he wouldn't have ever known during his walk 00:25:58.600 --> 00:26:02.920 align:middle line:84% there as a teen is that his childhood friend in 15 years 00:26:02.920 --> 00:26:05.350 align:middle line:90% would kill himself in Ekberg. 00:26:05.350 --> 00:26:09.310 align:middle line:84% Wouldn't have ever known once he had reached the other side 00:26:09.310 --> 00:26:13.090 align:middle line:84% looking down the hill to the city's ancient shore 00:26:13.090 --> 00:26:15.490 align:middle line:84% that his sister would be committed, 00:26:15.490 --> 00:26:18.910 align:middle line:84% that he would never visit her, and that eventually she 00:26:18.910 --> 00:26:22.870 align:middle line:84% would die along the city's shoreline through the forest 00:26:22.870 --> 00:26:26.380 align:middle line:84% down the hill in a loud and red asylum 00:26:26.380 --> 00:26:29.980 align:middle line:84% from which the screams that were heard were so consistently high 00:26:29.980 --> 00:26:32.080 align:middle line:84% pitched that local residents never 00:26:32.080 --> 00:26:35.500 align:middle line:84% forgot that it had been a slaughterhouse. 00:26:35.500 --> 00:26:39.100 align:middle line:84% Wouldn't have ever known that this view he now walked toward 00:26:39.100 --> 00:26:43.180 align:middle line:84% would eventually be the city's most famous for postcards, 00:26:43.180 --> 00:26:47.920 align:middle line:84% most famous for drug arrests, most infamous for rape. 00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:51.100 align:middle line:84% Wouldn't have ever seen as he brushed off the forest 00:26:51.100 --> 00:26:54.310 align:middle line:84% leaves the stone marker that the city will never 00:26:54.310 --> 00:26:57.850 align:middle line:84% place upon that spot commemorating where Edvard 00:26:57.850 --> 00:27:00.190 align:middle line:90% first felt that he was hurt. 00:27:00.190 --> 00:27:02.470 align:middle line:84% Won't see the bench that's there-- 00:27:02.470 --> 00:27:05.320 align:middle line:84% the one turned the wrong direction. 00:27:05.320 --> 00:27:07.690 align:middle line:84% Wouldn't need to cross the highway where 00:27:07.690 --> 00:27:10.300 align:middle line:84% there is no crossing walk approaching 00:27:10.300 --> 00:27:13.660 align:middle line:84% the metal guardrail, which no longer is a railing. 00:27:13.660 --> 00:27:16.990 align:middle line:84% Wouldn't need to glimpse below to where the tracks are running 00:27:16.990 --> 00:27:19.570 align:middle line:84% now to the service road, the power 00:27:19.570 --> 00:27:23.500 align:middle line:84% grid, the industry of concrete ports and forklift trucks 00:27:23.500 --> 00:27:27.970 align:middle line:84% and corrugated terminals for Unocal and Exxon and BP 00:27:27.970 --> 00:27:29.380 align:middle line:90% and Shell. 00:27:29.380 --> 00:27:33.730 align:middle line:84% Didn't have to reach the bottom of that hill among the rocks. 00:27:33.730 --> 00:27:35.980 align:middle line:90% Didn't need his parents dead-- 00:27:35.980 --> 00:27:38.320 align:middle line:84% favorite sister, younger brother, 00:27:38.320 --> 00:27:40.390 align:middle line:90% older sister to be dead. 00:27:40.390 --> 00:27:42.310 align:middle line:84% To help bleach their bloody sheets 00:27:42.310 --> 00:27:45.340 align:middle line:84% to light-brown mottled spots with urine. 00:27:45.340 --> 00:27:47.260 align:middle line:90% Didn't need to hate his father. 00:27:47.260 --> 00:27:49.900 align:middle line:84% Love with fear his smiling mother. 00:27:49.900 --> 00:27:53.770 align:middle line:84% Never needed to kiss a boy before he'd ever kissed a girl. 00:27:53.770 --> 00:27:58.030 align:middle line:84% And then to go on living without anyone to kiss. 00:27:58.030 --> 00:28:00.130 align:middle line:84% Didn't need those critics saying that he'd 00:28:00.130 --> 00:28:02.500 align:middle line:84% invent something brand new, that he 00:28:02.500 --> 00:28:05.920 align:middle line:84% would feel an ancient emptiness at the center of the world 00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:09.100 align:middle line:84% and then gather up that emptiness into something 00:28:09.100 --> 00:28:13.450 align:middle line:84% that had borders, a face, the chance to see what's wrong. 00:28:13.450 --> 00:28:17.380 align:middle line:84% Never needed someone saying that God is not in every detail, 00:28:17.380 --> 00:28:19.990 align:middle line:84% that God is sometimes inexperience, 00:28:19.990 --> 00:28:23.770 align:middle line:84% someone to write letters to, from whom he could get letters 00:28:23.770 --> 00:28:27.160 align:middle line:84% back, take train trips with, and snuggle with 00:28:27.160 --> 00:28:29.590 align:middle line:90% and then never to have met. 00:28:29.590 --> 00:28:34.840 align:middle line:84% He didn't need the Earth 10 million years ago 00:28:34.840 --> 00:28:39.220 align:middle line:84% to rumble from the bottom of its ocean floor a mountain-- 00:28:39.220 --> 00:28:42.980 align:middle line:84% a 4,000 acre island in Indonesia called 00:28:42.980 --> 00:28:47.980 align:middle line:84% Rakata, one of 13,000 islands in the narrow Sunda Strait 00:28:47.980 --> 00:28:50.290 align:middle line:90% on which the fabled Krakatoa-- 00:28:50.290 --> 00:28:55.270 align:middle line:84% a mountain on the mountain, a volcano whose eruption in 4,500 00:28:55.270 --> 00:28:59.830 align:middle line:84% BCE is said to have caused tsunamis that were so big they 00:28:59.830 --> 00:29:04.360 align:middle line:84% sank Atlantis, a volcano whose eruption in 537 00:29:04.360 --> 00:29:08.320 align:middle line:84% is said to have clouded skies so thoroughly that summer that it 00:29:08.320 --> 00:29:12.460 align:middle line:84% snowed in Rome in June, that crops in Europe failed, 00:29:12.460 --> 00:29:14.860 align:middle line:84% that floods appeared in deserts, that 00:29:14.860 --> 00:29:18.580 align:middle line:84% wandering Mongolians retreating from the weather fled 00:29:18.580 --> 00:29:21.490 align:middle line:84% with tribal families west into Eurasia, 00:29:21.490 --> 00:29:25.690 align:middle line:84% ended the Persian empire, and started modern Islam. 00:29:25.690 --> 00:29:29.860 align:middle line:84% A volcano that locals called the pulsing heart of all the world. 00:29:29.860 --> 00:29:32.800 align:middle line:84% Never needed to erupt with so much power 00:29:32.800 --> 00:29:37.240 align:middle line:84% once again that on August 25, the week preceding Edvard's 00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:41.560 align:middle line:84% walk, it practiced an eruption at 5:30 in the evening 00:29:41.560 --> 00:29:46.120 align:middle line:84% then practiced at 6:40 then 8:21 then 10:00, 00:29:46.120 --> 00:29:48.700 align:middle line:90% 10:50, midnight, and 1:00. 00:29:48.700 --> 00:29:52.030 align:middle line:84% And then finally at 3:30 on August 26, 00:29:52.030 --> 00:29:54.040 align:middle line:84% it erupted with a force that raised 00:29:54.040 --> 00:29:57.850 align:middle line:84% 160 villages, killed 40,000 people, 00:29:57.850 --> 00:30:00.700 align:middle line:84% burst so loudly that radiometrists have called 00:30:00.700 --> 00:30:04.000 align:middle line:84% the mountain's blast the second loudest noise ever 00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:08.350 align:middle line:84% heard by human beings, sending out concussive waves seven 00:30:08.350 --> 00:30:12.610 align:middle line:84% times around the world and exploding up a mile high, 00:30:12.610 --> 00:30:15.790 align:middle line:84% and then exploding out, blanketing 00:30:15.790 --> 00:30:21.040 align:middle line:84% the atmosphere with 227 million tons of new debris-- 00:30:21.040 --> 00:30:24.880 align:middle line:84% over 2/3 of the island's entire rocky mass, 00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:28.840 align:middle line:84% dust that drifted across the Earth so thoroughly and fast 00:30:28.840 --> 00:30:32.470 align:middle line:84% that by August 28, British offices in Delhi 00:30:32.470 --> 00:30:36.310 align:middle line:84% were reporting having seen a bank of yellow clouds at night. 00:30:36.310 --> 00:30:40.270 align:middle line:84% By August 29, they were orange in Madrid. 00:30:40.270 --> 00:30:44.110 align:middle line:84% And by August 31, they mixed with moisture over London 00:30:44.110 --> 00:30:47.650 align:middle line:84% from where a cold front pushed the dust and rain westward 00:30:47.650 --> 00:30:50.650 align:middle line:84% over Norway where the nights were very windy 00:30:50.650 --> 00:30:53.830 align:middle line:84% and where light revealed that dust as red in skies 00:30:53.830 --> 00:30:54.775 align:middle line:90% that bled already. 00:30:54.775 --> 00:30:57.280 align:middle line:90% 00:30:57.280 --> 00:31:01.180 align:middle line:84% His name was Levi Presley, the Vegas paper 00:31:01.180 --> 00:31:07.250 align:middle line:84% said, 16-years-old and from the North edge of town. 00:31:07.250 --> 00:31:11.600 align:middle line:84% I tried to call his parents, but their number wasn't listed. 00:31:11.600 --> 00:31:16.310 align:middle line:84% I tried to go to his funeral, but his service wasn't public. 00:31:16.310 --> 00:31:19.910 align:middle line:84% I even called an ad that I had found in the yellow pages-- 00:31:19.910 --> 00:31:23.930 align:middle line:84% Venus Investigations-- a private investigation firm 00:31:23.930 --> 00:31:27.140 align:middle line:90% for sensitive local cases. 00:31:27.140 --> 00:31:31.430 align:middle line:84% Venus had a smoker's voice, a barking dog and screaming kids, 00:31:31.430 --> 00:31:33.650 align:middle line:90% and Jeopardy in the background. 00:31:33.650 --> 00:31:38.720 align:middle line:84% "$400 cash," she said for vital information. 00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:41.060 align:middle line:90% I sent the money wired. 00:31:41.060 --> 00:31:44.900 align:middle line:84% Five days later, Venus called with Levi's middle name. 00:31:44.900 --> 00:31:48.470 align:middle line:84% She told me Levi's parents had first met in Arizona. 00:31:48.470 --> 00:31:51.680 align:middle line:84% She told me Levi hadn't ever committed any crimes. 00:31:51.680 --> 00:31:54.020 align:middle line:90% She told me where they lived. 00:31:54.020 --> 00:31:56.930 align:middle line:84% And then she said, "and there's a tape." 00:31:56.930 --> 00:31:58.820 align:middle line:90% "A tape," I asked. 00:31:58.820 --> 00:32:01.640 align:middle line:90% "A security tape." 00:32:01.640 --> 00:32:02.360 align:middle line:90% Excuse me. 00:32:02.360 --> 00:32:05.720 align:middle line:84% Every incident in a hotel in the city of Las Vegas 00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:07.940 align:middle line:84% is recorded by thousands of cameras that 00:32:07.940 --> 00:32:10.100 align:middle line:90% are embedded in the ceilings. 00:32:10.100 --> 00:32:11.960 align:middle line:84% So if someone's cheating at cards, 00:32:11.960 --> 00:32:13.940 align:middle line:84% Venus said over the phone, or if there's 00:32:13.940 --> 00:32:17.000 align:middle line:84% a fight somewhere, a murder, or any kind of shit, 00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:19.820 align:middle line:84% the hotel can edit together all the relevant footage 00:32:19.820 --> 00:32:21.770 align:middle line:90% and send it to the Vegas police. 00:32:21.770 --> 00:32:23.750 align:middle line:90% It limits their liability. 00:32:23.750 --> 00:32:26.480 align:middle line:84% "And they made one of these of Levi," I asked. 00:32:26.480 --> 00:32:28.880 align:middle line:84% "That's what I'm hearing, man, yeah." 00:32:28.880 --> 00:32:31.130 align:middle line:90% I wonder if I could see it. 00:32:31.130 --> 00:32:34.020 align:middle line:84% Now, why the fuck would you want that? 00:32:34.020 --> 00:32:36.980 align:middle line:90% Levi liked going to Applebee's-- 00:32:36.980 --> 00:32:41.330 align:middle line:84% in and out and a place that's now out of business. 00:32:41.330 --> 00:32:45.530 align:middle line:84% He wore a lot of white, sometimes a silver chain 00:32:45.530 --> 00:32:48.740 align:middle line:90% and purple tinted glasses. 00:32:48.740 --> 00:32:52.910 align:middle line:84% He liked a girl named Mary, also Eminem. 00:32:52.910 --> 00:32:56.150 align:middle line:84% Was called by his mom, my little booper. 00:32:56.150 --> 00:32:59.270 align:middle line:90% His Chrysler LeBaron was Goose. 00:32:59.270 --> 00:33:01.280 align:middle line:90% He said that he was sad. 00:33:01.280 --> 00:33:03.020 align:middle line:90% I asked about what. 00:33:03.020 --> 00:33:05.160 align:middle line:90% He said some stuff. 00:33:05.160 --> 00:33:06.920 align:middle line:90% I asked, like what? 00:33:06.920 --> 00:33:08.120 align:middle line:90% Doesn't matter. 00:33:08.120 --> 00:33:09.230 align:middle line:90% Why not? 00:33:09.230 --> 00:33:10.580 align:middle line:90% Just sucks. 00:33:10.580 --> 00:33:12.200 align:middle line:90% Hung up. 00:33:12.200 --> 00:33:16.040 align:middle line:84% I sat beside the Presleys on a green leather La-Z-Boy 00:33:16.040 --> 00:33:19.400 align:middle line:84% sectional recliner with the ceramic black urn 00:33:19.400 --> 00:33:22.620 align:middle line:90% of Levi's ashes in my lap. 00:33:22.620 --> 00:33:25.380 align:middle line:84% We were beneath their cathedral ceiling. 00:33:25.380 --> 00:33:27.900 align:middle line:90% We were watching TV land. 00:33:27.900 --> 00:33:29.790 align:middle line:84% We had nuts and we had tea triscuits 00:33:29.790 --> 00:33:32.220 align:middle line:90% and we had spinach dip and Coke. 00:33:32.220 --> 00:33:36.780 align:middle line:84% We ate soup and then a salad and then chicken and then brownies. 00:33:36.780 --> 00:33:41.160 align:middle line:84% We looked for several minutes at his art in their new den. 00:33:41.160 --> 00:33:44.910 align:middle line:84% We drove across the valley to Taekwondo For Kids-- 00:33:44.910 --> 00:33:50.370 align:middle line:84% the studio Levi practiced at and coached others after school. 00:33:50.370 --> 00:33:55.050 align:middle line:84% We sat in his coach's office among piles of trophy pieces. 00:33:55.050 --> 00:33:57.120 align:middle line:84% We helped screw the golden kickers 00:33:57.120 --> 00:34:00.960 align:middle line:84% into braided sequined pillars and then dark wooden bases that 00:34:00.960 --> 00:34:04.110 align:middle line:84% read "achievement" on their plaques. 00:34:04.110 --> 00:34:07.830 align:middle line:84% We learned that taekwondo only has nine levels. 00:34:07.830 --> 00:34:12.909 align:middle line:84% There is white, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, red, 00:34:12.909 --> 00:34:17.100 align:middle line:84% and brown, and then a whole series of advanced black belts, 00:34:17.100 --> 00:34:20.699 align:middle line:84% each with its own complexity of reticulated levels-- 00:34:20.699 --> 00:34:23.310 align:middle line:84% nine tiers of nine grades in nine 00:34:23.310 --> 00:34:27.510 align:middle line:84% stages without end because Korean culture does not 00:34:27.510 --> 00:34:30.090 align:middle line:90% believe we can be perfect. 00:34:30.090 --> 00:34:32.460 align:middle line:84% We agreed this was significant because he 00:34:32.460 --> 00:34:35.500 align:middle line:90% fell for nine seconds. 00:34:35.500 --> 00:34:40.260 align:middle line:84% I also learned that God resides in the ninth order of heaven, 00:34:40.260 --> 00:34:43.380 align:middle line:84% that before he could've received the secret meaning of runes, 00:34:43.380 --> 00:34:47.159 align:middle line:84% Odin had to hang for nine days on a tree. 00:34:47.159 --> 00:34:49.409 align:middle line:84% There are always nine muses alive 00:34:49.409 --> 00:34:54.840 align:middle line:84% at any time, always nine maidens in ancient Celtic myths, 00:34:54.840 --> 00:34:59.400 align:middle line:84% always nine floors in the most sacred Buddhist temples. 00:34:59.400 --> 00:35:01.920 align:middle line:84% If a servant finds nine peas in a pod 00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:04.560 align:middle line:84% and places that pod on the floor of her kitchen, 00:35:04.560 --> 00:35:07.350 align:middle line:84% the first man who comes in and tramples that pod 00:35:07.350 --> 00:35:09.840 align:middle line:90% will be the man she marries. 00:35:09.840 --> 00:35:14.160 align:middle line:84% Possession, they say, is 9/10 of the law. 00:35:14.160 --> 00:35:18.930 align:middle line:84% Nine people, says the Bible, will be stoned on judgment day. 00:35:18.930 --> 00:35:21.120 align:middle line:84% "Thrice to thine and thrice to mine 00:35:21.120 --> 00:35:23.100 align:middle line:84% and thrice again to make up nine" 00:35:23.100 --> 00:35:24.930 align:middle line:84% is how Shakespeare's three witches 00:35:24.930 --> 00:35:27.300 align:middle line:90% guaranteed Macbeth's charm. 00:35:27.300 --> 00:35:33.120 align:middle line:84% For nine, said Pythagoras, is that which brings completion. 00:35:33.120 --> 00:35:38.210 align:middle line:84% I think we knew, however, that he really fell for eight. 00:35:38.210 --> 00:35:40.580 align:middle line:90% Drove back to where they lived. 00:35:40.580 --> 00:35:43.250 align:middle line:90% Made plans for dinner soon. 00:35:43.250 --> 00:35:45.600 align:middle line:84% Kissed and hugged and waved goodbye and said, 00:35:45.600 --> 00:35:47.570 align:middle line:90% we'd be in touch. 00:35:47.570 --> 00:35:52.040 align:middle line:84% I left Las Vegas five months after mom and I arrived. 00:35:52.040 --> 00:35:53.900 align:middle line:84% At some point, it came clear while I 00:35:53.900 --> 00:35:57.230 align:middle line:84% was visiting the Presleys that in fact I had not spoken 00:35:57.230 --> 00:35:59.630 align:middle line:90% to their son the night he died. 00:35:59.630 --> 00:36:04.280 align:middle line:84% It was clear as I left Vegas that some other boy had called, 00:36:04.280 --> 00:36:06.410 align:middle line:84% clear that if I point to something 00:36:06.410 --> 00:36:10.700 align:middle line:84% seeming like significance, there is the possibility that nothing 00:36:10.700 --> 00:36:13.010 align:middle line:90% real is there. 00:36:13.010 --> 00:36:17.840 align:middle line:84% Sometimes we misplace knowledge in pursuit of information, 00:36:17.840 --> 00:36:21.200 align:middle line:84% sometimes our wisdom too in pursuit 00:36:21.200 --> 00:36:23.120 align:middle line:90% of what's called knowledge. 00:36:23.120 --> 00:36:29.040 align:middle line:90% 00:36:29.040 --> 00:36:34.260 align:middle line:84% Levi came home at 2:00 AM, or he came home at 2:30. 00:36:34.260 --> 00:36:38.340 align:middle line:84% But neither Gail, his mom, nor Levi senior, his dad, 00:36:38.340 --> 00:36:41.130 align:middle line:90% can remember exactly which. 00:36:41.130 --> 00:36:43.560 align:middle line:84% This doesn't matter though, they both say, 00:36:43.560 --> 00:36:46.410 align:middle line:90% because his curfew was 11:00. 00:36:46.410 --> 00:36:48.540 align:middle line:84% We didn't say anything immediately 00:36:48.540 --> 00:36:50.580 align:middle line:84% because he had a tournament the next day 00:36:50.580 --> 00:36:53.640 align:middle line:84% and we knew he needed his sleep, Gail says. 00:36:53.640 --> 00:36:55.590 align:middle line:90% Levi slept for four hours. 00:36:55.590 --> 00:36:57.750 align:middle line:84% Excuse me, Levi slept for five hours, 00:36:57.750 --> 00:36:59.820 align:middle line:90% or he slept for 4 and 1/2 hours. 00:36:59.820 --> 00:37:03.090 align:middle line:84% Then he woke, showered, dressed, ate nothing, 00:37:03.090 --> 00:37:06.510 align:middle line:84% drove to his tournament, stretched, cheered, competed, 00:37:06.510 --> 00:37:09.720 align:middle line:84% lost, drove back home, slammed the car door, 00:37:09.720 --> 00:37:12.240 align:middle line:84% slammed the front door, slammed his room door, 00:37:12.240 --> 00:37:13.710 align:middle line:90% and stayed there. 00:37:13.710 --> 00:37:16.560 align:middle line:84% He was probably in there two hours, Gail says. 00:37:16.560 --> 00:37:17.910 align:middle line:90% Is that unusual? 00:37:17.910 --> 00:37:19.710 align:middle line:90% That's not unusual, she says. 00:37:19.710 --> 00:37:21.390 align:middle line:84% But after a tournament, I guess, it'd 00:37:21.390 --> 00:37:23.370 align:middle line:84% be a little unusual because he really 00:37:23.370 --> 00:37:26.820 align:middle line:84% liked to talk about his meets when he came home. 00:37:26.820 --> 00:37:29.340 align:middle line:84% After another hour, Gail says, she and her husband 00:37:29.340 --> 00:37:31.770 align:middle line:84% called Levi into their bedroom and told him 00:37:31.770 --> 00:37:34.590 align:middle line:84% that he was grounded for staying out past his curfew 00:37:34.590 --> 00:37:37.620 align:middle line:84% and for being at a party to which they suspected 00:37:37.620 --> 00:37:39.660 align:middle line:90% other kids had brought drugs. 00:37:39.660 --> 00:37:43.590 align:middle line:84% Gail says she heard ecstasy, Levi senior says pot. 00:37:43.590 --> 00:37:44.910 align:middle line:90% Levi said, fine. 00:37:44.910 --> 00:37:46.410 align:middle line:84% Threw his cell phone on their bed 00:37:46.410 --> 00:37:49.050 align:middle line:84% and told them that they might as well take that too. 00:37:49.050 --> 00:37:52.050 align:middle line:84% He slammed their bedroom door, slammed the front door, 00:37:52.050 --> 00:37:54.660 align:middle line:84% slammed his car door, and drove away. 00:37:54.660 --> 00:37:56.100 align:middle line:90% Is that unusual? 00:37:56.100 --> 00:37:57.120 align:middle line:90% That's not unusual. 00:37:57.120 --> 00:37:58.770 align:middle line:90% He's a teenager, says Gail. 00:37:58.770 --> 00:38:02.100 align:middle line:84% But, then again, we had just grounded him. 00:38:02.100 --> 00:38:05.280 align:middle line:84% Levi drove east down Pleasant Plains Way. 00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:09.330 align:middle line:84% Turned right onto Rainy River, left onto Joe Michael, 00:38:09.330 --> 00:38:14.190 align:middle line:84% right onto Shermcreft, right onto Gowen, left onto Rainbow, 00:38:14.190 --> 00:38:19.170 align:middle line:84% right onto Cheyenne, south onto Interstate 15 past two exits, 00:38:19.170 --> 00:38:22.320 align:middle line:84% then right onto Sahara, left onto Vegas, 00:38:22.320 --> 00:38:25.770 align:middle line:84% left onto Baltimore, and right into the parking garage 00:38:25.770 --> 00:38:28.140 align:middle line:90% at the Stratosphere hotel. 00:38:28.140 --> 00:38:30.270 align:middle line:84% He found a space on the fifth level-- 00:38:30.270 --> 00:38:33.900 align:middle line:84% the blue level, three spaces away from the elevator. 00:38:33.900 --> 00:38:36.540 align:middle line:90% It was 5:18 PM. 00:38:36.540 --> 00:38:39.870 align:middle line:84% Levi then either walked down two flights of stairs 00:38:39.870 --> 00:38:41.760 align:middle line:84% to the third level of the garage-- 00:38:41.760 --> 00:38:45.120 align:middle line:84% the orange level of the garage, where a skywalk connects 00:38:45.120 --> 00:38:48.510 align:middle line:84% parking to the hotel's registration-- or Levi 00:38:48.510 --> 00:38:51.660 align:middle line:84% waited there in order to take the elevator. 00:38:51.660 --> 00:38:55.200 align:middle line:84% This was Saturday, however, and in the early evening 00:38:55.200 --> 00:39:01.120 align:middle line:84% hours on Saturdays in Vegas, the elevators everywhere are slow. 00:39:01.120 --> 00:39:04.930 align:middle line:84% Once inside the Casino, Levi walked down its red staircase 00:39:04.930 --> 00:39:06.820 align:middle line:84% and passed the group towards reception 00:39:06.820 --> 00:39:10.870 align:middle line:84% desk on his right side and Roxy's diner on his left, where 00:39:10.870 --> 00:39:15.010 align:middle line:84% a disk jockey plays '50s rock and the wait staff sings. 00:39:15.010 --> 00:39:17.530 align:middle line:84% Because it was a Saturday in early evening 00:39:17.530 --> 00:39:20.710 align:middle line:84% at Roxy's, the place definitely would have been hopping, 00:39:20.710 --> 00:39:23.380 align:middle line:84% said their featured waiter, Johnny Pot Roast, 00:39:23.380 --> 00:39:26.170 align:middle line:84% who thinks he was on duty that night he said. 00:39:26.170 --> 00:39:29.290 align:middle line:84% And, who knows, I was probably singing Grease Lightning 00:39:29.290 --> 00:39:30.740 align:middle line:84% because it's a high-energy number, 00:39:30.740 --> 00:39:33.340 align:middle line:84% and that's what we want on a Saturday night. 00:39:33.340 --> 00:39:35.710 align:middle line:84% When Johnny starts singing, the waitresses 00:39:35.710 --> 00:39:38.530 align:middle line:84% pull microphones from the pouches of their aprons 00:39:38.530 --> 00:39:42.190 align:middle line:84% and jump onto the partitions between the diners booths. 00:39:42.190 --> 00:39:46.780 align:middle line:84% They wave their order pads in the air and shimmy in place 00:39:46.780 --> 00:39:50.380 align:middle line:84% while diners lift fork fulls of potatoes to their mouths 00:39:50.380 --> 00:39:53.650 align:middle line:84% and Johnny jumps high and lands on his knees 00:39:53.650 --> 00:39:55.930 align:middle line:84% and holds his eyes shut as he holds 00:39:55.930 --> 00:40:00.820 align:middle line:84% the long "ing" in the long final high note in "lightning." 00:40:00.820 --> 00:40:04.930 align:middle line:84% Levi then walked past the casino's 48 card tables 00:40:04.930 --> 00:40:07.840 align:middle line:84% and 2,000 slot machines, some of which 00:40:07.840 --> 00:40:11.170 align:middle line:84% are named after popular American television shows-- 00:40:11.170 --> 00:40:15.130 align:middle line:84% "I Dream of Jeannie," "Wheel of Fortune," "Hogan's Heroes--" 00:40:15.130 --> 00:40:16.840 align:middle line:84% and some of which are named after 00:40:16.840 --> 00:40:18.970 align:middle line:90% popular American merchandise-- 00:40:18.970 --> 00:40:23.380 align:middle line:84% Spam, Harley Davidson, the board game Battleship-- 00:40:23.380 --> 00:40:26.770 align:middle line:84% and some of which are not named after anything at all-- 00:40:26.770 --> 00:40:31.630 align:middle line:84% Money to Burn, the Nickel Game, Push It, Push It, Push It. 00:40:31.630 --> 00:40:34.180 align:middle line:84% And, then, Levi walked toward the woman 00:40:34.180 --> 00:40:38.260 align:middle line:84% at the foot of the escalator who sells cigarettes and cigars 00:40:38.260 --> 00:40:41.770 align:middle line:84% and battery-operated necklaces from a small tray that 00:40:41.770 --> 00:40:44.800 align:middle line:84% hangs from her shoulders below her breasts. 00:40:44.800 --> 00:40:49.390 align:middle line:84% There is a blue star necklace and a red orb necklace 00:40:49.390 --> 00:40:52.990 align:middle line:84% and a yellow cross necklace available for sale, 00:40:52.990 --> 00:40:57.100 align:middle line:84% each of which glows steadily or flickers randomly 00:40:57.100 --> 00:41:01.360 align:middle line:84% or even can be programmed to reflect your own mood. 00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:05.350 align:middle line:84% Amy, who was on duty that night, knows Levi didn't buy anything 00:41:05.350 --> 00:41:07.390 align:middle line:84% because she would have remembered a boy buying 00:41:07.390 --> 00:41:08.980 align:middle line:90% a necklace, she said. 00:41:08.980 --> 00:41:11.962 align:middle line:84% Usually, the guys who buy stuff are buying stuff for raves, 00:41:11.962 --> 00:41:13.420 align:middle line:84% and I always ask them where they're 00:41:13.420 --> 00:41:16.180 align:middle line:90% going because I'm a raver too. 00:41:16.180 --> 00:41:18.970 align:middle line:90% Then he went up the escalator. 00:41:18.970 --> 00:41:22.390 align:middle line:84% Levi would have stood in line at the hotels ticket booth 00:41:22.390 --> 00:41:26.380 align:middle line:84% in order to buy a ticket to the top of the hotel's tower. 00:41:26.380 --> 00:41:29.650 align:middle line:84% Because it was Saturday in early evening, however, 00:41:29.650 --> 00:41:33.460 align:middle line:84% there would have been a long line at the hotel ticket booth. 00:41:33.460 --> 00:41:35.800 align:middle line:84% Levi would have stood between the fanny 00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:39.070 align:middle line:84% packs and the midriffs and the open containers 00:41:39.070 --> 00:41:42.730 align:middle line:84% and the flip-flops and noticed the backlit advertisements 00:41:42.730 --> 00:41:46.300 align:middle line:84% behind the hotel's ticket booth for the upcoming Billy Ray 00:41:46.300 --> 00:41:49.930 align:middle line:84% Cyrus concert in September or the heavyweight boxing 00:41:49.930 --> 00:41:53.140 align:middle line:84% extravaganza in November or the Stratosphere's 00:41:53.140 --> 00:41:57.130 align:middle line:84% new guaranteed refund slot program, which pays players 00:41:57.130 --> 00:41:59.950 align:middle line:90% back 15% of what they've lost. 00:41:59.950 --> 00:42:02.140 align:middle line:84% And then he would have purchased his ticket 00:42:02.140 --> 00:42:04.660 align:middle line:84% from one of the three ticket booth attendants 00:42:04.660 --> 00:42:09.190 align:middle line:84% for $4 rather than $8 because he was a Las Vegas resident. 00:42:09.190 --> 00:42:10.930 align:middle line:84% And, finally, he would have begun 00:42:10.930 --> 00:42:13.480 align:middle line:84% to walk toward the tower's elevator 00:42:13.480 --> 00:42:16.930 align:middle line:84% at the other end of the Stratosphere's tower of shops 00:42:16.930 --> 00:42:23.110 align:middle line:84% mall past Flag Mania, past Alpaca Pete's, 00:42:23.110 --> 00:42:27.610 align:middle line:84% past the fabulous Las Vegas magic shop and the great wall 00:42:27.610 --> 00:42:30.220 align:middle line:90% of magnets and Gold Fathers-- 00:42:30.220 --> 00:42:34.180 align:middle line:84% a kiosk that sells gold chains by the yard. 00:42:34.180 --> 00:42:39.010 align:middle line:84% Levi walked past Aqua Massage, Haagen-Dazs, temporary henna 00:42:39.010 --> 00:42:43.450 align:middle line:84% airbrush tattoo, past Perfume Mania, Leather Land, 00:42:43.450 --> 00:42:46.270 align:middle line:84% Gifts Plus, arcade, past "coming soon 00:42:46.270 --> 00:42:49.150 align:middle line:84% to this location, another exciting shop," 00:42:49.150 --> 00:42:52.450 align:middle line:84% past Stitch It On's Hat Embroidery Kiosk, 00:42:52.450 --> 00:42:58.000 align:middle line:84% past Vegas Candle's huge blowout sale, past Wetzel's Pretzels, 00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:01.780 align:middle line:84% Cleo's Fine Jewelers, and CJ's Casino Emporium, 00:43:01.780 --> 00:43:10.360 align:middle line:84% which sells vintage 1991 slot machines for $4,995. 00:43:10.360 --> 00:43:13.750 align:middle line:84% Levi walked past Breathe, an oxygen bar, 00:43:13.750 --> 00:43:17.410 align:middle line:84% where you can revive your body, renew your spirit, 00:43:17.410 --> 00:43:20.290 align:middle line:84% relax your mind, and feel more alive 00:43:20.290 --> 00:43:24.490 align:middle line:84% for $15 per 15-minute dose, which includes 00:43:24.490 --> 00:43:27.670 align:middle line:84% your choice of one of 18 complimentary oxygen 00:43:27.670 --> 00:43:32.740 align:middle line:84% aromas such as nirvana, watermelon, clarity, peach, 00:43:32.740 --> 00:43:37.930 align:middle line:84% sublime, cappuccino, synergy, dream, chocolate, eclipse, 00:43:37.930 --> 00:43:40.360 align:middle line:90% revitalize, or tangerine. 00:43:40.360 --> 00:43:42.250 align:middle line:84% The girls at Breeze don't remember 00:43:42.250 --> 00:43:44.620 align:middle line:84% Levi stopping by the bar that evening, 00:43:44.620 --> 00:43:48.340 align:middle line:84% but they do recall hearing about his jump once it occurred. 00:43:48.340 --> 00:43:51.910 align:middle line:84% All I want to say, said Jenny, who manages the bar, 00:43:51.910 --> 00:43:53.710 align:middle line:84% is that it's awful that it happened. 00:43:53.710 --> 00:43:57.580 align:middle line:84% But I know for a fact that he wasn't on O2 when he did it. 00:43:57.580 --> 00:44:00.160 align:middle line:90% 00:44:00.160 --> 00:44:02.580 align:middle line:84% Then, Levi reached the end of the mall 00:44:02.580 --> 00:44:06.160 align:middle line:84% and walked down a ramp to wait in the next line. 00:44:06.160 --> 00:44:09.090 align:middle line:84% Because it was Saturday in early evening, however, 00:44:09.090 --> 00:44:11.160 align:middle line:84% there would have been a long line 00:44:11.160 --> 00:44:14.370 align:middle line:84% wrapping around the roped corrals four or five times 00:44:14.370 --> 00:44:16.770 align:middle line:84% and stretching back into the mall. 00:44:16.770 --> 00:44:19.350 align:middle line:84% Harold, a security guard, eventually 00:44:19.350 --> 00:44:22.650 align:middle line:84% would have asked Levi if he had any metal in his pockets. 00:44:22.650 --> 00:44:26.400 align:middle line:84% And because he did, Levi would have emptied his car keys 00:44:26.400 --> 00:44:29.730 align:middle line:84% into a white Stratosphere slot machine coin bucket, 00:44:29.730 --> 00:44:32.850 align:middle line:84% walked through the metal detector, picked up his keys, 00:44:32.850 --> 00:44:36.060 align:middle line:84% and walked into a narrow hallway to wait for the elevator 00:44:36.060 --> 00:44:37.350 align:middle line:90% to the tower. 00:44:37.350 --> 00:44:40.860 align:middle line:84% Because it was Saturday in early evening, however, 00:44:40.860 --> 00:44:43.620 align:middle line:84% the group with which Levi had waited in line 00:44:43.620 --> 00:44:46.950 align:middle line:84% would have had to wait in that hallway even longer. 00:44:46.950 --> 00:44:51.210 align:middle line:84% It would have been crowded and hot and yellow-lit that night. 00:44:51.210 --> 00:44:54.630 align:middle line:84% And for the long meanwhile during which Levi waited, 00:44:54.630 --> 00:44:56.670 align:middle line:84% he might have glanced over the railing 00:44:56.670 --> 00:44:59.610 align:middle line:84% and seen below him the Stratosphere's amusement 00:44:59.610 --> 00:45:02.220 align:middle line:90% area that's called Stratofare-- 00:45:02.220 --> 00:45:06.630 align:middle line:84% a passageway of carnival games beside the hotel's pool. 00:45:06.630 --> 00:45:10.410 align:middle line:84% There is the softball throwing game called Cat Splat, 00:45:10.410 --> 00:45:13.590 align:middle line:84% and the ring throwing game called Orb-A-Toss, 00:45:13.590 --> 00:45:17.220 align:middle line:84% and the ride-at-your-own-risk mechanical bull that's called 00:45:17.220 --> 00:45:19.110 align:middle line:90% Vegas Cowboy. 00:45:19.110 --> 00:45:22.350 align:middle line:84% Warning-- this mechanical bull is designed 00:45:22.350 --> 00:45:25.350 align:middle line:84% to simulate the motion of a live bull, 00:45:25.350 --> 00:45:28.080 align:middle line:84% therefore, there is a high probability 00:45:28.080 --> 00:45:31.500 align:middle line:84% that the rider will be thrown from and/or struck 00:45:31.500 --> 00:45:34.500 align:middle line:90% by this mechanical bull. 00:45:34.500 --> 00:45:37.290 align:middle line:84% This mechanical bull is a heavy-duty machine 00:45:37.290 --> 00:45:40.440 align:middle line:84% that will violently, erratically, and unpredictably 00:45:40.440 --> 00:45:43.380 align:middle line:84% spin and rotate the rider at high speeds. 00:45:43.380 --> 00:45:48.660 align:middle line:84% You must be at least 13 years old to ride this bull. 00:45:48.660 --> 00:45:51.150 align:middle line:90% Then, he entered the elevator. 00:45:51.150 --> 00:45:53.400 align:middle line:84% Inside, Levi would have been greeted 00:45:53.400 --> 00:45:56.520 align:middle line:84% by a young woman, perhaps Caroline, 00:45:56.520 --> 00:45:59.460 align:middle line:84% who would have worn black pants and a pink and teal 00:45:59.460 --> 00:46:03.780 align:middle line:84% Stratosphere polo shirt, and who would have announced, 00:46:03.780 --> 00:46:07.170 align:middle line:84% once the doors had closed, that Levi and the elevator's 00:46:07.170 --> 00:46:10.260 align:middle line:84% other 25 maximum occupants that night, 00:46:10.260 --> 00:46:14.640 align:middle line:84% would soon be traveling 1,858 feet per minute 00:46:14.640 --> 00:46:16.770 align:middle line:84% to the top of the stratosphere tower, 00:46:16.770 --> 00:46:18.870 align:middle line:84% even though they would only be traveling 00:46:18.870 --> 00:46:22.710 align:middle line:84% 857 feet to the top of the stratosphere tower 00:46:22.710 --> 00:46:26.430 align:middle line:84% together in a double-decker elevator in which they would 00:46:26.430 --> 00:46:29.400 align:middle line:84% have been so closely arranged that it would have been 00:46:29.400 --> 00:46:32.190 align:middle line:84% impossible for them to have counted themselves, 00:46:32.190 --> 00:46:34.590 align:middle line:84% some of whom might have been drunk, 00:46:34.590 --> 00:46:36.720 align:middle line:84% some of whom might have been talking 00:46:36.720 --> 00:46:40.260 align:middle line:84% over the elevator operator's narrative of their ascent, 00:46:40.260 --> 00:46:43.230 align:middle line:84% and some of whom might have interrupted the operator 00:46:43.230 --> 00:46:46.590 align:middle line:84% to ask her several times on the same trip while 00:46:46.590 --> 00:46:49.080 align:middle line:84% giggling, how many times each day 00:46:49.080 --> 00:46:51.750 align:middle line:90% she goes up and down the shaft. 00:46:51.750 --> 00:46:54.540 align:middle line:84% Then, Levi would have exited and walked 00:46:54.540 --> 00:46:57.030 align:middle line:84% into the blue lit hallway of the first level 00:46:57.030 --> 00:47:00.540 align:middle line:84% of the towers two-level observation deck, 00:47:00.540 --> 00:47:04.740 align:middle line:84% past a closed gift shop, past a closed snack bar, 00:47:04.740 --> 00:47:07.380 align:middle line:84% past the picture pained radio station that 00:47:07.380 --> 00:47:11.670 align:middle line:84% had broadcast nothing for years, and into the carpeted round 00:47:11.670 --> 00:47:16.170 align:middle line:84% enclosure of the deck whose floor-to-ceiling windows slant 00:47:16.170 --> 00:47:19.950 align:middle line:84% inward toward the ground so that visitors, while looking down 00:47:19.950 --> 00:47:23.220 align:middle line:84% at Las Vegas, toe to pane at the windows, 00:47:23.220 --> 00:47:26.430 align:middle line:84% might experience what pre-opening hotel press 00:47:26.430 --> 00:47:31.290 align:middle line:84% releases called in 1994, freefall. 00:47:31.290 --> 00:47:35.070 align:middle line:90% Then, he went upstairs, outside. 00:47:35.070 --> 00:47:37.560 align:middle line:84% It was Saturday in early evening, 00:47:37.560 --> 00:47:40.140 align:middle line:84% and there were many people around-- 00:47:40.140 --> 00:47:42.600 align:middle line:84% some kids running around the paved deck 00:47:42.600 --> 00:47:45.330 align:middle line:84% of the tower, some adults looking 00:47:45.330 --> 00:47:48.780 align:middle line:84% through the coin-operated telescopes making sure 00:47:48.780 --> 00:47:53.520 align:middle line:84% they wouldn't work before first depositing a coin, some older 00:47:53.520 --> 00:47:57.450 align:middle line:84% people holding on to the inside chain-link fence of the deck, 00:47:57.450 --> 00:48:01.800 align:middle line:84% readjusting their grips each time a copter flew by. 00:48:01.800 --> 00:48:05.580 align:middle line:84% Levi walked left, east, away from where 00:48:05.580 --> 00:48:08.040 align:middle line:84% the sun had begun its own decline, 00:48:08.040 --> 00:48:11.310 align:middle line:84% and leaned briefly against the four-foot-high railing 00:48:11.310 --> 00:48:14.700 align:middle line:84% fence of the deck while a bride and groom took photographs 00:48:14.700 --> 00:48:16.590 align:middle line:84% of each other and then of the view 00:48:16.590 --> 00:48:20.700 align:middle line:84% and then of the last 200 feet of the tower above. 00:48:20.700 --> 00:48:24.240 align:middle line:84% Then, Levi climbed over the four-foot-high railing fence, 00:48:24.240 --> 00:48:28.200 align:middle line:84% stepped into what Stratosphere security calls "the moat--" 00:48:28.200 --> 00:48:30.960 align:middle line:84% a six-foot-wide concrete paved space 00:48:30.960 --> 00:48:34.740 align:middle line:84% between the four-foot-high fence on the decks inside perimeter 00:48:34.740 --> 00:48:38.310 align:middle line:84% and the 10-foot-high fence at the very edge of the perimeter. 00:48:38.310 --> 00:48:41.580 align:middle line:84% And then Levi climbed over the 10-foot-high fence 00:48:41.580 --> 00:48:43.470 align:middle line:90% and sat down. 00:48:43.470 --> 00:48:46.170 align:middle line:84% It was Saturday an early evening, 00:48:46.170 --> 00:48:50.430 align:middle line:84% and an alarm was ringing in the hotel's security office. 00:48:50.430 --> 00:48:53.340 align:middle line:84% Levi sat on the ledge for 48 seconds 00:48:53.340 --> 00:48:56.310 align:middle line:84% before anyone on the deck walked by. 00:48:56.310 --> 00:49:00.840 align:middle line:84% Now, the sun was gone, Saturday was night, 00:49:00.840 --> 00:49:04.860 align:middle line:84% and the valley in which Levi had grown up became bright. 00:49:04.860 --> 00:49:09.240 align:middle line:84% And it stayed bright all the way to the invisible black 00:49:09.240 --> 00:49:10.890 align:middle line:90% mountains around it-- 00:49:10.890 --> 00:49:13.800 align:middle line:84% the wall that would keep the city forever 00:49:13.800 --> 00:49:16.350 align:middle line:90% the shape it now was. 00:49:16.350 --> 00:49:18.600 align:middle line:84% Security Officer Frank then approach 00:49:18.600 --> 00:49:22.080 align:middle line:84% Levi from the left, the east, and said, hey. 00:49:22.080 --> 00:49:23.670 align:middle line:90% Or he said, hey, kid. 00:49:23.670 --> 00:49:25.320 align:middle line:90% Or he said, kid, no. 00:49:25.320 --> 00:49:29.190 align:middle line:84% Or he said nothing, and it was his presence alone 00:49:29.190 --> 00:49:32.250 align:middle line:84% that caused Levi to turn his head to the left, 00:49:32.250 --> 00:49:36.510 align:middle line:84% stand up on the ledge, wave to the security officer who 00:49:36.510 --> 00:49:39.720 align:middle line:84% does not appear on the screen of the video on which Levi 00:49:39.720 --> 00:49:43.090 align:middle line:90% is waving, and jump. 00:49:43.090 --> 00:49:44.880 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:49:44.880 --> 00:50:02.000 align:middle line:90%