WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.660 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.660 --> 00:00:08.039 align:middle line:84% I told Ben before he delivered the introduction that I just 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:11.680 align:middle line:84% wrote a rather absurd short story called 00:00:11.680 --> 00:00:14.080 align:middle line:90% When Introducing Rick Moody. 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:18.160 align:middle line:84% That's a list of all the things that no introducer should ever 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:19.337 align:middle line:90% do. 00:00:19.337 --> 00:00:20.920 align:middle line:84% And then I told him I'd give it to him 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:22.540 align:middle line:90% after he gave his introduction. 00:00:22.540 --> 00:00:25.720 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:25.720 --> 00:00:27.540 align:middle line:90% 00:00:27.540 --> 00:00:29.400 align:middle line:84% Number eight on the list is that it's 00:00:29.400 --> 00:00:32.369 align:middle line:84% your job to create in the audience 00:00:32.369 --> 00:00:34.560 align:middle line:90% the need to have sex with me. 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:37.934 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:37.934 --> 00:00:41.688 align:middle line:90% 00:00:41.688 --> 00:00:42.480 align:middle line:90% I'm going to read-- 00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:45.060 align:middle line:84% I was-- since the whole second half of the book 00:00:45.060 --> 00:00:46.080 align:middle line:90% is set in Tucson. 00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:50.220 align:middle line:84% I had this idea that I was going to prove how much I 00:00:50.220 --> 00:00:52.230 align:middle line:90% knew about your town. 00:00:52.230 --> 00:00:54.510 align:middle line:84% And then somewhere during dinner I 00:00:54.510 --> 00:00:59.550 align:middle line:84% decided that was probably silly and that you knew plenty 00:00:59.550 --> 00:01:02.850 align:middle line:84% about your town and you didn't need me to tell you so. 00:01:02.850 --> 00:01:09.240 align:middle line:84% Instead I've been reading three sections from the book recently 00:01:09.240 --> 00:01:12.210 align:middle line:84% that are quite short and they have 00:01:12.210 --> 00:01:17.040 align:middle line:84% only as a kind of binding agent, the fact that I think they're 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:19.000 align:middle line:90% the best sections of the book. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:22.810 align:middle line:84% So the first is from the very beginning, 00:01:22.810 --> 00:01:26.940 align:middle line:84% which is to say the introduction by Montese Crandall, who's 00:01:26.940 --> 00:01:31.530 align:middle line:84% the narrator of the framed story in the book. 00:01:31.530 --> 00:01:33.090 align:middle line:90% So this is in his voice. 00:01:33.090 --> 00:01:36.910 align:middle line:90% 00:01:36.910 --> 00:01:42.730 align:middle line:84% "People often ask me where I get my ideas. 00:01:42.730 --> 00:01:47.220 align:middle line:84% Or on one occasion back in 2024 I was asked, 00:01:47.220 --> 00:01:50.940 align:middle line:84% this was at a reading and an old fashioned used media outlet 00:01:50.940 --> 00:01:52.500 align:middle line:90% right here in town. 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:57.030 align:middle line:84% The store called Arachnids Incorporated. 00:01:57.030 --> 00:02:01.170 align:middle line:84% The audience consisted of five intrepid and stalwart folks. 00:02:01.170 --> 00:02:04.680 align:middle line:84% Four out of the five, no doubt intent on surfing aimlessly at 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:06.270 align:middle line:90% consoles. 00:02:06.270 --> 00:02:08.430 align:middle line:84% Or perhaps they intended to leave the store 00:02:08.430 --> 00:02:11.490 align:middle line:84% when instead they were herded into a cluster 00:02:11.490 --> 00:02:17.190 align:middle line:84% of uncomfortable petrochemical multi-use furniture modules 00:02:17.190 --> 00:02:20.940 align:middle line:84% by Noel Stroup, the hard drinking owner operator 00:02:20.940 --> 00:02:23.490 align:middle line:90% of the shop in question. 00:02:23.490 --> 00:02:28.260 align:middle line:84% I've been pestering Noel about a reading for some time, months. 00:02:28.260 --> 00:02:30.810 align:middle line:84% Despite the fact that Arachnids was not 00:02:30.810 --> 00:02:36.090 align:middle line:84% celebrated for its calendar of arts related programming. 00:02:36.090 --> 00:02:38.850 align:middle line:84% To be honest, the reason for this pestering 00:02:38.850 --> 00:02:42.330 align:middle line:84% had most to do with my wife who'd spend her remaining 00:02:42.330 --> 00:02:49.110 align:middle line:84% time on Earth counseling me on just how to boost my product. 00:02:49.110 --> 00:02:51.870 align:middle line:84% "Ask Noel," my wife said, her eyes 00:02:51.870 --> 00:02:54.390 align:middle line:90% full of implacable purpose. 00:02:54.390 --> 00:02:57.930 align:middle line:84% We used to see Noel at the flea market, which by now took up 00:02:57.930 --> 00:03:00.570 align:middle line:90% more than a dozen city blocks. 00:03:00.570 --> 00:03:04.710 align:middle line:84% There were more flea markets than licensed taxpaying Emporia 00:03:04.710 --> 00:03:06.540 align:middle line:90% in Rio Blanco. 00:03:06.540 --> 00:03:09.210 align:middle line:84% I had a booth there where on weekends I 00:03:09.210 --> 00:03:14.970 align:middle line:84% hawked old baseball cards and other sports memorabilia. 00:03:14.970 --> 00:03:18.690 align:middle line:90% This therefore is my business. 00:03:18.690 --> 00:03:20.730 align:middle line:84% It was here at the flea market, according 00:03:20.730 --> 00:03:22.980 align:middle line:84% to my wife's plans, that I screwed up 00:03:22.980 --> 00:03:26.040 align:middle line:84% my non-existent courage one Sunday and said 00:03:26.040 --> 00:03:30.390 align:middle line:84% to Noel Stroop, who is busy selling software modules. 00:03:30.390 --> 00:03:35.670 align:middle line:84% Something called the compact disk and e-book files. 00:03:35.670 --> 00:03:39.390 align:middle line:84% "Hey, Noel, what does a guy like me, 00:03:39.390 --> 00:03:43.530 align:middle line:84% a literary innovator have to do in this town 00:03:43.530 --> 00:03:47.503 align:middle line:90% to get some respect." 00:03:47.503 --> 00:03:48.920 align:middle line:84% Perhaps you're wondering what I've 00:03:48.920 --> 00:03:52.280 align:middle line:84% done to merit such a high opinion of my legacy. 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:56.210 align:middle line:84% What is the nature of the Montese Crandall 00:03:56.210 --> 00:03:58.520 align:middle line:90% literary innovation. 00:03:58.520 --> 00:04:01.700 align:middle line:84% I'm going to take the remainder of this brief introduction 00:04:01.700 --> 00:04:06.050 align:middle line:84% to explicate fully my response to this question. 00:04:06.050 --> 00:04:08.870 align:middle line:84% Let me then throw down the gauntlet 00:04:08.870 --> 00:04:14.420 align:middle line:84% and remark that I, Montese Crandall, MFA, 00:04:14.420 --> 00:04:19.980 align:middle line:84% write very short, very condensed literary pieces. 00:04:19.980 --> 00:04:25.700 align:middle line:84% And by short I mean very, very short. 00:04:25.700 --> 00:04:29.270 align:middle line:84% Shorter than you've probably read in your reading life. 00:04:29.270 --> 00:04:32.390 align:middle line:90% More than one word, usually. 00:04:32.390 --> 00:04:37.460 align:middle line:84% Because one word is too easy but quite a bit more modest 00:04:37.460 --> 00:04:39.950 align:middle line:90% than five score. 00:04:39.950 --> 00:04:43.070 align:middle line:84% The 350 pages of a novel, according 00:04:43.070 --> 00:04:45.680 align:middle line:84% to the argument I am want to advance, 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:48.380 align:middle line:90% are a tedious elaboration. 00:04:48.380 --> 00:04:51.530 align:middle line:84% As I understand it, death, war, and adultery 00:04:51.530 --> 00:04:54.320 align:middle line:84% are the major novelistic themes and these 00:04:54.320 --> 00:04:56.990 align:middle line:84% were all dispensed with well before Christ got 00:04:56.990 --> 00:04:59.660 align:middle line:90% nailed to his block of wood. 00:04:59.660 --> 00:05:02.930 align:middle line:84% The 19th century novel you opine. 00:05:02.930 --> 00:05:07.520 align:middle line:84% Well, the 19th century novel does have it all. 00:05:07.520 --> 00:05:12.170 align:middle line:84% Attic dwelling harridans, uncanny coincidences, 00:05:12.170 --> 00:05:16.970 align:middle line:84% advantageous marriages to strong silent landowners, 00:05:16.970 --> 00:05:22.280 align:middle line:90% orphans, revolutions, whaling. 00:05:22.280 --> 00:05:24.860 align:middle line:84% You can't go wrong with the 19th century novel. 00:05:24.860 --> 00:05:29.540 align:middle line:84% But much that has been written since amounts to imitation 00:05:29.540 --> 00:05:33.350 align:middle line:84% barely warmed over by writers with strange grammatical 00:05:33.350 --> 00:05:35.870 align:middle line:90% inclinations. 00:05:35.870 --> 00:05:40.640 align:middle line:90% Lovelorn women of Canada. 00:05:40.640 --> 00:05:43.880 align:middle line:84% Incest on the Southern plantation. 00:05:43.880 --> 00:05:47.060 align:middle line:90% Drug using editorial assistants. 00:05:47.060 --> 00:05:49.430 align:middle line:90% The usual stuff. 00:05:49.430 --> 00:05:53.570 align:middle line:84% Yours truly, Montese Crandall, living out his Pacific middle 00:05:53.570 --> 00:05:57.620 align:middle line:84% age in a college town next door over to nowhere at all, 00:05:57.620 --> 00:06:03.420 align:middle line:84% is unwilling to add more roughage to this rich diet. 00:06:03.420 --> 00:06:05.330 align:middle line:84% One thing the late 20th century was 00:06:05.330 --> 00:06:11.330 align:middle line:84% good at besides mass marketing, paring away. 00:06:11.330 --> 00:06:14.540 align:middle line:90% Omitting needless words. 00:06:14.540 --> 00:06:18.530 align:middle line:90% Alluding without overstating. 00:06:18.530 --> 00:06:23.000 align:middle line:90% Dust bunny under radiator. 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:27.540 align:middle line:90% Cockroach on window blind. 00:06:27.540 --> 00:06:31.980 align:middle line:90% Heartbreak in the food court. 00:06:31.980 --> 00:06:38.790 align:middle line:84% Impotence, subdivisions, melanoma, muffler problems. 00:06:38.790 --> 00:06:41.640 align:middle line:84% On the advent of the digital age as you know, 00:06:41.640 --> 00:06:45.990 align:middle line:84% writers who went on and on just didn't last. 00:06:45.990 --> 00:06:49.230 align:middle line:84% You couldn't read all that nonsense on a screen. 00:06:49.230 --> 00:06:52.980 align:middle line:84% Fragmentation became the one true way. 00:06:52.980 --> 00:06:57.880 align:middle line:84% Fragmentation offered a point and click interface. 00:06:57.880 --> 00:07:01.590 align:middle line:84% Additionally, this strategic reduction 00:07:01.590 --> 00:07:04.920 align:middle line:84% blurred the line between poetry and prose, 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:10.020 align:middle line:84% which is where I, Montese Crandall, come into the story. 00:07:10.020 --> 00:07:14.670 align:middle line:84% I, Montese Crandall, rely heavily on such strategies 00:07:14.670 --> 00:07:20.370 align:middle line:84% as alliteration, condensation, the strange ghostly echo 00:07:20.370 --> 00:07:23.640 align:middle line:84% of metrical feet, iambs and dactyls, 00:07:23.640 --> 00:07:26.400 align:middle line:90% spondees and amphibrachs. 00:07:26.400 --> 00:07:32.160 align:middle line:84% For example, here's a pair of amphibrachs, unstressed, 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:36.090 align:middle line:84% stressed, unstressed, that might very well summarize 00:07:36.090 --> 00:07:39.750 align:middle line:90% my entire output. 00:07:39.750 --> 00:07:41.580 align:middle line:90% Romantic. 00:07:41.580 --> 00:07:43.830 align:middle line:90% Objective. 00:07:43.830 --> 00:07:48.780 align:middle line:84% The phrase does have a fine euphony. 00:07:48.780 --> 00:07:51.990 align:middle line:84% My first groundbreaking and innovative one sentence story 00:07:51.990 --> 00:07:55.050 align:middle line:90% occurred in the following way. 00:07:55.050 --> 00:07:59.190 align:middle line:84% I had been working on a 45 page erotic novella that was loosely 00:07:59.190 --> 00:08:03.930 align:middle line:84% based on my boundless physical desire for my wife, Tara, 00:08:03.930 --> 00:08:05.730 align:middle line:90% Schott Crandall. 00:08:05.730 --> 00:08:07.380 align:middle line:84% The sequence in which I performed 00:08:07.380 --> 00:08:12.660 align:middle line:84% a certain advanced delight upon her delicately canted pelvis 00:08:12.660 --> 00:08:15.450 align:middle line:90% ran well over 20 pages. 00:08:15.450 --> 00:08:18.570 align:middle line:84% And her muse and snorts of transport, 00:08:18.570 --> 00:08:23.280 align:middle line:84% as described in the text, would pierce the waxy consciousnesses 00:08:23.280 --> 00:08:26.550 align:middle line:84% of neighbors up and down the block. 00:08:26.550 --> 00:08:29.760 align:middle line:84% Her cries of delight as described therein 00:08:29.760 --> 00:08:32.130 align:middle line:84% were likened to the coyote howling 00:08:32.130 --> 00:08:36.720 align:middle line:84% on the mesa, the kettle shrilling on the stove top, 00:08:36.720 --> 00:08:39.840 align:middle line:84% sopranos in local opera companies 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:42.539 align:middle line:84% would hang their heads for they knew 00:08:42.539 --> 00:08:45.600 align:middle line:84% that when Tara Schott Crandall climaxed, 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:49.770 align:middle line:90% they were out of a job. 00:08:49.770 --> 00:08:51.150 align:middle line:90% I am afraid. 00:08:51.150 --> 00:08:54.510 align:middle line:90% I cut the entire passage. 00:08:54.510 --> 00:08:56.430 align:middle line:90% The erotic part. 00:08:56.430 --> 00:09:01.110 align:middle line:84% And not only that, then I cut the opening and the ending. 00:09:01.110 --> 00:09:03.150 align:middle line:90% I cut a lot of the middle. 00:09:03.150 --> 00:09:06.630 align:middle line:84% I cut the part where we were poised post-coital sharing 00:09:06.630 --> 00:09:09.630 align:middle line:90% a glass of Van Ordinaire. 00:09:09.630 --> 00:09:12.600 align:middle line:84% Next, I cut the astoundingly tender moment in the story 00:09:12.600 --> 00:09:16.140 align:middle line:84% where in snappy dialogue, Tara and I revisited 00:09:16.140 --> 00:09:18.300 align:middle line:90% our assignations past. 00:09:18.300 --> 00:09:20.640 align:middle line:84% The time in the back of the minivan. 00:09:20.640 --> 00:09:23.340 align:middle line:84% The time in the woods when we got poison Ivy. 00:09:23.340 --> 00:09:27.540 align:middle line:84% The time in the press box at the basketball game. 00:09:27.540 --> 00:09:31.290 align:middle line:84% For a while, a single scene remained 00:09:31.290 --> 00:09:33.840 align:middle line:84% in which the Tara character sent me 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:39.780 align:middle line:90% out after lovemaking for eggs. 00:09:39.780 --> 00:09:41.430 align:middle line:90% Eggs. 00:09:41.430 --> 00:09:43.140 align:middle line:90% So beautiful. 00:09:43.140 --> 00:09:45.150 align:middle line:90% So fecund. 00:09:45.150 --> 00:09:47.640 align:middle line:84% Likely to balance on their oblong points 00:09:47.640 --> 00:09:50.040 align:middle line:90% during the equinoxes. 00:09:50.040 --> 00:09:53.100 align:middle line:90% Symbols of fertility. 00:09:53.100 --> 00:09:57.120 align:middle line:84% Available in multiple sizes, including jumbo. 00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:59.490 align:middle line:84% I couldn't let go of this scene for a while. 00:09:59.490 --> 00:10:00.870 align:middle line:90% You know how this is. 00:10:00.870 --> 00:10:05.460 align:middle line:84% And yet, after three months of wrestling with that story 00:10:05.460 --> 00:10:09.450 align:middle line:84% I cut the entire tangle of misbegotten sentences. 00:10:09.450 --> 00:10:13.800 align:middle line:84% The whole sprawling mess or almost all of it, 00:10:13.800 --> 00:10:18.060 align:middle line:84% leaving none at last but the following. 00:10:18.060 --> 00:10:20.660 align:middle line:90% 00:10:20.660 --> 00:10:23.668 align:middle line:90% Go get some eggs you dwarf. 00:10:23.668 --> 00:10:26.600 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:28.910 align:middle line:84% I don't expect everyone reading this introduction 00:10:28.910 --> 00:10:33.260 align:middle line:84% to see immediately the merit in this sentence. 00:10:33.260 --> 00:10:35.870 align:middle line:84% And yet the awakening, the unfolding 00:10:35.870 --> 00:10:39.020 align:middle line:84% that occurred to me after a relaxed consideration 00:10:39.020 --> 00:10:42.500 align:middle line:84% of the six words that remained of this longer work. 00:10:42.500 --> 00:10:45.290 align:middle line:84% This unfolding located itself in the fact 00:10:45.290 --> 00:10:49.082 align:middle line:84% that the more I read and reread the sentence above the better 00:10:49.082 --> 00:10:51.410 align:middle line:90% I liked it. 00:10:51.410 --> 00:10:54.950 align:middle line:84% I printed it out in various fonts. 00:10:54.950 --> 00:10:58.670 align:middle line:84% I pulled my few remaining hairs out trying to decide 00:10:58.670 --> 00:11:01.970 align:middle line:90% whether to cut the word "go." 00:11:01.970 --> 00:11:03.860 align:middle line:84% I pronounced the entirety of the story 00:11:03.860 --> 00:11:07.490 align:middle line:84% aloud to myself while walking from our ramshackle subdivision 00:11:07.490 --> 00:11:11.240 align:middle line:84% to the shipping offices where I then occasionally pulled 00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:12.650 align:middle line:90% a shift. 00:11:12.650 --> 00:11:15.830 align:middle line:84% I would entone the sentence while going past the shuttered 00:11:15.830 --> 00:11:19.700 align:middle line:84% health and beauty aids purveyor on 22nd and Mountain. 00:11:19.700 --> 00:11:22.760 align:middle line:84% I would say it while taking my number at the woebegone post 00:11:22.760 --> 00:11:24.230 align:middle line:90% office on 6th. 00:11:24.230 --> 00:11:26.570 align:middle line:84% I shouted it at the beckoning doors 00:11:26.570 --> 00:11:28.760 align:middle line:90% of the gay bars on 4th Avenue. 00:11:28.760 --> 00:11:32.300 align:middle line:84% I said it to myself at the food co-op. 00:11:32.300 --> 00:11:36.950 align:middle line:84% As if the eggs in question were part of an actual shopping 00:11:36.950 --> 00:11:38.450 align:middle line:90% agenda. 00:11:38.450 --> 00:11:40.730 align:middle line:84% I can't tell you how long it took me 00:11:40.730 --> 00:11:43.250 align:middle line:84% in my ecstatically creative state 00:11:43.250 --> 00:11:48.350 align:middle line:84% to realize that, in fact, there needn't be an exclamation 00:11:48.350 --> 00:11:51.900 align:middle line:90% point at the end. 00:11:51.900 --> 00:11:55.530 align:middle line:84% My wife whose health situation had 00:11:55.530 --> 00:11:58.380 align:middle line:84% taken a rather unsettling turn never 00:11:58.380 --> 00:12:00.840 align:middle line:84% approved of the long version of the story. 00:12:00.840 --> 00:12:03.450 align:middle line:84% Though she generally supported whatever wind 00:12:03.450 --> 00:12:06.510 align:middle line:84% blew me along in my compositional hobbies 00:12:06.510 --> 00:12:10.410 align:middle line:84% as long as I took seriously the post compositional portion 00:12:10.410 --> 00:12:15.870 align:middle line:84% of the writer's life and got out there to sell, sell, sell. 00:12:15.870 --> 00:12:21.090 align:middle line:84% She did however, enjoy "Go get some eggs, you dwarf." 00:12:21.090 --> 00:12:25.860 align:middle line:84% Where my wife inquired was I going to publish this story. 00:12:25.860 --> 00:12:29.010 align:middle line:84% Was I going to pit against one another some nationally 00:12:29.010 --> 00:12:31.110 align:middle line:90% recognized periodicals? 00:12:31.110 --> 00:12:34.530 align:middle line:84% And what about book publication had I considered 00:12:34.530 --> 00:12:36.810 align:middle line:90% a run of hard covers. 00:12:36.810 --> 00:12:38.850 align:middle line:84% In fact, I had secured an agreement 00:12:38.850 --> 00:12:41.970 align:middle line:84% with a little web periodical called 00:12:41.970 --> 00:12:46.440 align:middle line:84% Mud Hut, where my story got an entire page by itself. 00:12:46.440 --> 00:12:47.430 align:middle line:90% No title. 00:12:47.430 --> 00:12:49.770 align:middle line:90% No byline. 00:12:49.770 --> 00:12:53.640 align:middle line:84% Not six months later, fresh from the victory just described. 00:12:53.640 --> 00:12:57.120 align:middle line:84% I came up with what I like to think of as the second finest 00:12:57.120 --> 00:12:59.850 align:middle line:90% narrative I've ever composed. 00:12:59.850 --> 00:13:02.640 align:middle line:84% And yet, before I type out for you 00:13:02.640 --> 00:13:07.230 align:middle line:84% that magnificence I should describe what I look like. 00:13:07.230 --> 00:13:09.180 align:middle line:84% Because it bears on the interpretation 00:13:09.180 --> 00:13:10.620 align:middle line:90% of this second effort. 00:13:10.620 --> 00:13:14.970 align:middle line:84% I am, you should know, in my late 40s or thereabouts. 00:13:14.970 --> 00:13:19.350 align:middle line:84% And it is simply being honest to note that my metabolism, which 00:13:19.350 --> 00:13:21.150 align:middle line:84% was doing wind sprints and stomach 00:13:21.150 --> 00:13:24.300 align:middle line:84% crunches throughout the dark ages of my 20s 00:13:24.300 --> 00:13:28.560 align:middle line:84% has lately taken an ill advised nap. 00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:31.770 align:middle line:84% I am now the site of an unmistakable sag, 00:13:31.770 --> 00:13:35.700 align:middle line:84% as if some avalanche stirred at the crest of my solar plexus 00:13:35.700 --> 00:13:39.300 align:middle line:84% and sent all the flab in my northern latitudes 00:13:39.300 --> 00:13:43.470 align:middle line:84% down toward my once noble pubic swell. 00:13:43.470 --> 00:13:45.870 align:middle line:84% With fancy holographic belt buckles 00:13:45.870 --> 00:13:51.210 align:middle line:84% do I attempt to restrain the stampeding softness in vain. 00:13:51.210 --> 00:13:53.880 align:middle line:84% Additionally, my hair is thinning and my skin, 00:13:53.880 --> 00:13:57.000 align:middle line:84% which once had the virtue of being free from the blemishes 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:00.780 align:middle line:84% that trouble the young is now mottled and flaky. 00:14:00.780 --> 00:14:03.960 align:middle line:84% Burst blood vessels lead the eye of any observer 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:06.030 align:middle line:90% astray around my nose. 00:14:06.030 --> 00:14:09.480 align:middle line:84% I am yoked to bifocals for my ocular needs. 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:14.280 align:middle line:84% I have fallen arches hammer toes. 00:14:14.280 --> 00:14:18.450 align:middle line:84% My only virtues as a physical specimen 00:14:18.450 --> 00:14:23.820 align:middle line:84% are my sideburns, which are like the pelts of rare Woodland 00:14:23.820 --> 00:14:25.530 align:middle line:90% animals. 00:14:25.530 --> 00:14:29.580 align:middle line:84% My sideburns are not to be ignored. 00:14:29.580 --> 00:14:34.440 align:middle line:84% No one, let it be said, would mistake me for a pugilist. 00:14:34.440 --> 00:14:36.540 align:middle line:90% For a law and order type. 00:14:36.540 --> 00:14:39.600 align:middle line:84% For a person drawn to physical conflicts. 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:41.490 align:middle line:90% For a militarist. 00:14:41.490 --> 00:14:46.920 align:middle line:84% I do not carry a taser or other weapon, loaded or unloaded. 00:14:46.920 --> 00:14:51.510 align:middle line:84% Though this is legal and even encouraged in my state. 00:14:51.510 --> 00:14:54.750 align:middle line:84% However, I could easily write at least five pages 00:14:54.750 --> 00:14:56.520 align:middle line:90% about these sorts of weapons. 00:14:56.520 --> 00:15:02.190 align:middle line:84% The Gatling, the ArmaLite, the Glock, the proton disruptor. 00:15:02.190 --> 00:15:04.350 align:middle line:84% Revealing a complex and deeply seeded 00:15:04.350 --> 00:15:08.490 align:middle line:84% need for a pertinence of male power and phallic supremacy. 00:15:08.490 --> 00:15:11.850 align:middle line:84% Even as I disdain these common places in my everyday life 00:15:11.850 --> 00:15:14.970 align:middle line:84% and incline in an era of Islamist saber 00:15:14.970 --> 00:15:18.510 align:middle line:84% rattling toward a foreign policy of tolerance 00:15:18.510 --> 00:15:20.490 align:middle line:90% and non-intervention. 00:15:20.490 --> 00:15:24.000 align:middle line:84% And yet, as you will have surmised at this point, 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:26.940 align:middle line:84% the five pages of such a story would sooner or later 00:15:26.940 --> 00:15:29.730 align:middle line:90% be stripped of elaborations. 00:15:29.730 --> 00:15:35.880 align:middle line:84% Adjectives, adverbs, similes, astute geopolitical views 00:15:35.880 --> 00:15:40.500 align:middle line:90% until what remained was only. 00:15:40.500 --> 00:15:45.710 align:middle line:90% We went with the stealth bomber. 00:15:45.710 --> 00:15:48.650 align:middle line:84% This was a sentence of such limpid beauty and durability 00:15:48.650 --> 00:15:51.200 align:middle line:84% that it was very difficult to follow up 00:15:51.200 --> 00:15:54.380 align:middle line:84% not notwithstanding an unprecedented second 00:15:54.380 --> 00:15:58.190 align:middle line:90% publication on the mud hut site. 00:15:58.190 --> 00:16:00.140 align:middle line:84% So affecting was the sentence, in fact, 00:16:00.140 --> 00:16:02.900 align:middle line:84% that there was a danger in having composed it. 00:16:02.900 --> 00:16:05.750 align:middle line:84% Namely, that I would retreat to the reliable paycheck 00:16:05.750 --> 00:16:10.190 align:middle line:84% of some day job becoming for example, an exclusive buyer 00:16:10.190 --> 00:16:15.320 align:middle line:84% and seller of baseball cards without composing again. 00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:17.900 align:middle line:84% I don't know how many months went by. 00:16:17.900 --> 00:16:22.250 align:middle line:84% During this time my argument was simply, why bother. 00:16:22.250 --> 00:16:25.430 align:middle line:84% Have I not already proven myself. 00:16:25.430 --> 00:16:28.040 align:middle line:84% Have I not written a timeless epic from the front lines 00:16:28.040 --> 00:16:30.620 align:middle line:84% of the military industrial complex, which 00:16:30.620 --> 00:16:32.750 align:middle line:84% in the third decade of the new Millennium 00:16:32.750 --> 00:16:38.660 align:middle line:84% we now know to be not only a complex but more or less 00:16:38.660 --> 00:16:41.330 align:middle line:90% the whole shebang. 00:16:41.330 --> 00:16:43.460 align:middle line:90% The answer was Yes. 00:16:43.460 --> 00:16:45.830 align:middle line:84% There was no longer a need to prove my dominance 00:16:45.830 --> 00:16:46.880 align:middle line:90% in the writing field. 00:16:46.880 --> 00:16:51.080 align:middle line:84% In fact, what I craved instead here at the top of my game 00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:53.060 align:middle line:90% was domesticity. 00:16:53.060 --> 00:16:58.280 align:middle line:84% The ability to control a little narrow patch of scorpion 00:16:58.280 --> 00:17:02.810 align:middle line:84% and tarantula infested dry land around a single story 00:17:02.810 --> 00:17:07.490 align:middle line:84% house in a town where it never rained. 00:17:07.490 --> 00:17:10.130 align:middle line:84% Yet professionalism being what it is, in due course, 00:17:10.130 --> 00:17:13.280 align:middle line:84% a suite of stories in the first person followed. 00:17:13.280 --> 00:17:15.680 align:middle line:90% Apparently I could not stop. 00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:17.839 align:middle line:84% In general, I much prefer a narration 00:17:17.839 --> 00:17:19.680 align:middle line:84% from the third person point of view. 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:23.180 align:middle line:84% The first person is tiresome and confining. 00:17:23.180 --> 00:17:28.220 align:middle line:84% It is the voice of narcissists and borderline personalities. 00:17:28.220 --> 00:17:32.300 align:middle line:84% Still my wife whose problem was a respiratory problem 00:17:32.300 --> 00:17:34.580 align:middle line:90% was getting worse. 00:17:34.580 --> 00:17:37.920 align:middle line:84% She was fast approaching her double lung transplant. 00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:39.830 align:middle line:84% And while it would have been easy just 00:17:39.830 --> 00:17:42.740 align:middle line:84% to wait until her name came up on the International organ 00:17:42.740 --> 00:17:45.530 align:middle line:84% lottery, while it would have been easy to collect 00:17:45.530 --> 00:17:47.570 align:middle line:84% the meager government funds disbursed 00:17:47.570 --> 00:17:51.080 align:middle line:84% to her as a citizen with a chronic genetic condition, 00:17:51.080 --> 00:17:56.390 align:middle line:84% I did in fact need some avenue of self-expression. 00:17:56.390 --> 00:18:00.090 align:middle line:84% Along came the idea for my masterful trilogy. 00:18:00.090 --> 00:18:02.900 align:middle line:84% If you like-- if it helps you to understand 00:18:02.900 --> 00:18:04.670 align:middle line:84% the kinds of influences that resulted 00:18:04.670 --> 00:18:08.090 align:middle line:84% in the literary coming of age of Montese Crandall, 00:18:08.090 --> 00:18:10.130 align:middle line:84% you may think of these next three stories 00:18:10.130 --> 00:18:14.270 align:middle line:84% as related thematically to the three volume compositions 00:18:14.270 --> 00:18:16.070 align:middle line:90% of the 19th century. 00:18:16.070 --> 00:18:20.680 align:middle line:84% Not unlike a door stopper by a Thackeray or a trollop. 00:18:20.680 --> 00:18:24.200 align:middle line:84% Well, on advice of counsel, and in order 00:18:24.200 --> 00:18:27.110 align:middle line:84% to avoid violating my own copyright with regard 00:18:27.110 --> 00:18:30.170 align:middle line:84% to a future collected works of Montese Crandall, 00:18:30.170 --> 00:18:33.020 align:middle line:84% now being discussed at one of the larger presses, 00:18:33.020 --> 00:18:36.470 align:middle line:84% I'm obligated to forego quotation of these works 00:18:36.470 --> 00:18:38.120 align:middle line:90% from the middle period. 00:18:38.120 --> 00:18:41.150 align:middle line:90% I'm sure you understand. 00:18:41.150 --> 00:18:44.870 align:middle line:84% Years had passed in my writerly biography. 00:18:44.870 --> 00:18:47.390 align:middle line:90% Years of dreams and ambitions. 00:18:47.390 --> 00:18:49.970 align:middle line:84% Years of seeing other less equipped 00:18:49.970 --> 00:18:53.480 align:middle line:84% artists finding publication, even renown, 00:18:53.480 --> 00:18:57.440 align:middle line:84% in web publishing venues or even small press publication 00:18:57.440 --> 00:19:02.030 align:middle line:84% while I had as yet, only five publishable sentences. 00:19:02.030 --> 00:19:05.780 align:middle line:84% Notwithstanding my education at a state school in the Northeast 00:19:05.780 --> 00:19:09.680 align:middle line:84% and a master of Fine Arts degree from an online program 00:19:09.680 --> 00:19:11.570 align:middle line:90% in the Rust Belt. 00:19:11.570 --> 00:19:15.320 align:middle line:84% As a result, I was in no position to suppress my trilogy 00:19:15.320 --> 00:19:18.350 align:middle line:84% or to recall publication, which constituted 00:19:18.350 --> 00:19:21.950 align:middle line:90% a full 60% of my output. 00:19:21.950 --> 00:19:25.530 align:middle line:84% Not every work by a writer is his best, 00:19:25.530 --> 00:19:28.220 align:middle line:84% especially when he's preoccupied with more homely 00:19:28.220 --> 00:19:30.050 align:middle line:90% responsibilities. 00:19:30.050 --> 00:19:33.920 align:middle line:84% One of these being the resale of baseball cards obtained 00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:37.175 align:middle line:84% from the disgruntled mothers of the world who has you know, 00:19:37.175 --> 00:19:39.950 align:middle line:84% have forged an international conspiracy 00:19:39.950 --> 00:19:46.340 align:middle line:84% to throw out the baseball cards in order to drive up prices. 00:19:46.340 --> 00:19:49.910 align:middle line:84% My other activity consisted of lugging oxygen tanks 00:19:49.910 --> 00:19:51.860 align:middle line:90% around my house. 00:19:51.860 --> 00:19:53.690 align:middle line:84% There was also the vigorous pounding 00:19:53.690 --> 00:19:56.270 align:middle line:84% on the back of my wife Tara, which 00:19:56.270 --> 00:19:58.910 align:middle line:84% was occasionally necessary in the mornings 00:19:58.910 --> 00:20:03.720 align:middle line:84% so that she could take advantage of life. 00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:06.480 align:middle line:90% I loved my wife. 00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:10.470 align:middle line:84% I comforted her when she needed comforting. 00:20:10.470 --> 00:20:16.170 align:middle line:84% My wife, understand, was going to die, and she knew it, 00:20:16.170 --> 00:20:20.600 align:middle line:84% and I knew it, and now you know it too. 00:20:20.600 --> 00:20:24.140 align:middle line:84% When the breeze blew up across the waterless tundra 00:20:24.140 --> 00:20:27.260 align:middle line:84% of my state, I often thought if only I could just 00:20:27.260 --> 00:20:30.830 align:middle line:84% harness some of that breeze and give it to Tara, 00:20:30.830 --> 00:20:33.720 align:middle line:90% our problems would be resolved. 00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:36.860 align:middle line:84% There are no sailboats in my part of the country that 00:20:36.860 --> 00:20:38.630 align:middle line:90% need the breezes. 00:20:38.630 --> 00:20:41.960 align:middle line:84% The jet pilots would be happy to encounter less clear air 00:20:41.960 --> 00:20:43.580 align:middle line:90% turbulence. 00:20:43.580 --> 00:20:46.430 align:middle line:84% The state officials have resisted wind farms 00:20:46.430 --> 00:20:48.150 align:middle line:90% at every turn. 00:20:48.150 --> 00:20:50.360 align:middle line:84% And the atmosphere that shrink wraps 00:20:50.360 --> 00:20:54.680 align:middle line:84% the globe offers a rich supply of oxygen. 00:20:54.680 --> 00:20:59.600 align:middle line:84% Why couldn't my wife have a bit of it in her bloodstream. 00:20:59.600 --> 00:21:02.420 align:middle line:90% What made her so undeserving. 00:21:02.420 --> 00:21:06.620 align:middle line:84% With this going on, you see, I sometimes 00:21:06.620 --> 00:21:09.020 align:middle line:90% didn't feel much like writing." 00:21:09.020 --> 00:21:11.550 align:middle line:90% 00:21:11.550 --> 00:21:12.960 align:middle line:90% So that's Montese. 00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:15.450 align:middle line:90% That's the beginning. 00:21:15.450 --> 00:21:17.810 align:middle line:84% Much later there's a trip to Mars. 00:21:17.810 --> 00:21:20.100 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:21:20.100 --> 00:21:25.350 align:middle line:84% And that's narrated by Jed Richards. 00:21:25.350 --> 00:21:27.360 align:middle line:84% And somewhere in the middle of it 00:21:27.360 --> 00:21:31.740 align:middle line:84% while he's thinking about flesh eating streptococcus, 00:21:31.740 --> 00:21:35.730 align:middle line:84% he has a reverie that is as follows. 00:21:35.730 --> 00:21:40.750 align:middle line:90% 00:21:40.750 --> 00:21:44.140 align:middle line:84% "And somehow the situation on Earth reminds 00:21:44.140 --> 00:21:49.000 align:middle line:84% me of those last 300 whooping cranes. 00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:51.940 align:middle line:84% Those birds that someone has been forcibly migrating 00:21:51.940 --> 00:21:55.300 align:middle line:84% back and forth from Florida for the past 20 odd years 00:21:55.300 --> 00:21:59.890 align:middle line:90% with the aid of an ultralight. 00:21:59.890 --> 00:22:02.470 align:middle line:84% This small population of birds is not 00:22:02.470 --> 00:22:07.030 align:middle line:84% a sustainable population, the experts all say. 00:22:07.030 --> 00:22:10.510 align:middle line:84% Because with the right outbreak of avian flu, 00:22:10.510 --> 00:22:12.940 align:middle line:84% which we already know can knock out a couple million 00:22:12.940 --> 00:22:15.850 align:middle line:84% people in an overcrowded ecosystem, 00:22:15.850 --> 00:22:20.410 align:middle line:84% the entire whooping crane population could collapse. 00:22:20.410 --> 00:22:25.180 align:middle line:90% One germ and extinction follows. 00:22:25.180 --> 00:22:28.270 align:middle line:84% A beautiful thing though, a whooping crane. 00:22:28.270 --> 00:22:31.150 align:middle line:84% And in the not so distant future there 00:22:31.150 --> 00:22:34.240 align:middle line:84% will only be a couple of them left and they'll 00:22:34.240 --> 00:22:36.910 align:middle line:90% have only one wing apiece. 00:22:36.910 --> 00:22:40.210 align:middle line:84% And they will idle on some lawn, like the lawn 00:22:40.210 --> 00:22:42.610 align:middle line:90% near Cape Canaveral. 00:22:42.610 --> 00:22:46.130 align:middle line:84% One of this non mating pair will die of old age. 00:22:46.130 --> 00:22:49.270 align:middle line:84% And then there will be one last whooping crane 00:22:49.270 --> 00:22:53.140 align:middle line:84% and it'll eat moldy popcorn from underneath the NASA reviewing 00:22:53.140 --> 00:22:56.740 align:middle line:84% stand, and it'll have delusional thoughts, 00:22:56.740 --> 00:23:00.490 align:middle line:84% mothballed memories in which it was part of a flock. 00:23:00.490 --> 00:23:03.190 align:middle line:84% And this flock followed an ultralight down 00:23:03.190 --> 00:23:07.610 align:middle line:84% to Brazil for the winter and then back again. 00:23:07.610 --> 00:23:10.330 align:middle line:84% What does our whooping crane think? 00:23:10.330 --> 00:23:13.810 align:middle line:84% The last whooping crane of planet Earth. 00:23:13.810 --> 00:23:17.530 align:middle line:84% It thinks that the currents of air are a marvel 00:23:17.530 --> 00:23:21.160 align:middle line:84% and it conceives of them in colors, spectra. 00:23:21.160 --> 00:23:25.360 align:middle line:84% As we think of sunsets, just so does the last whooping crane 00:23:25.360 --> 00:23:27.040 align:middle line:90% despite the fact that the only-- 00:23:27.040 --> 00:23:28.930 align:middle line:90% that only the one wing works-- 00:23:28.930 --> 00:23:30.700 align:middle line:90% think of these air currents. 00:23:30.700 --> 00:23:34.270 align:middle line:84% It remembers treetops, which were like sofas 00:23:34.270 --> 00:23:35.620 align:middle line:90% to the whooping crane. 00:23:35.620 --> 00:23:39.790 align:middle line:84% Back when it still had two wings it could land in any treetop 00:23:39.790 --> 00:23:41.620 align:middle line:90% and put its head under its wing. 00:23:41.620 --> 00:23:43.960 align:middle line:84% And the whooping crane remembers or believes 00:23:43.960 --> 00:23:46.750 align:middle line:84% it remembers certain kinds of fish that 00:23:46.750 --> 00:23:48.580 align:middle line:90% are particularly savory. 00:23:48.580 --> 00:23:50.740 align:middle line:84% And maybe a certain level of freshness 00:23:50.740 --> 00:23:54.190 align:middle line:84% in the matter of seafood is what a whooping crane most prizes. 00:23:54.190 --> 00:23:57.700 align:middle line:84% And it remembers mating because back when it was young 00:23:57.700 --> 00:24:00.160 align:middle line:84% it was picky in the mating department. 00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:02.110 align:middle line:84% And like many whooping cranes, it 00:24:02.110 --> 00:24:04.900 align:middle line:84% was not, despite its lanky beauty, 00:24:04.900 --> 00:24:08.050 align:middle line:90% terribly kind to the girls. 00:24:08.050 --> 00:24:09.760 align:middle line:84% Moreover, there was always the danger 00:24:09.760 --> 00:24:12.160 align:middle line:84% of infighting among the whooping cranes 00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:14.800 align:middle line:84% and this last crane remembers all of these. 00:24:14.800 --> 00:24:17.170 align:middle line:84% And because the crane cannot speak of it, 00:24:17.170 --> 00:24:19.750 align:middle line:84% the memories are that much more painful. 00:24:19.750 --> 00:24:23.890 align:middle line:84% And now in his loneliness, there is no other bird 00:24:23.890 --> 00:24:26.260 align:middle line:84% who protects that past of cranes, 00:24:26.260 --> 00:24:28.900 align:middle line:84% that long history of the most beautiful bird 00:24:28.900 --> 00:24:30.620 align:middle line:90% in this part of the country. 00:24:30.620 --> 00:24:33.400 align:middle line:84% And so the only other account of these events, 00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:36.730 align:middle line:84% after those others fade, is the memory 00:24:36.730 --> 00:24:40.750 align:middle line:84% of the guy who flew the ultralight. 00:24:40.750 --> 00:24:44.380 align:middle line:84% A balding guy with a not very good sense of humor. 00:24:44.380 --> 00:24:46.600 align:middle line:90% A guy who told the worst jokes. 00:24:46.600 --> 00:24:49.420 align:middle line:84% Not that the whooping crane understood the jokes. 00:24:49.420 --> 00:24:51.610 align:middle line:84% But rather the whooping crane recognized 00:24:51.610 --> 00:24:53.920 align:middle line:90% the timbre of this man's voice. 00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:56.950 align:middle line:84% A kind of ragged baritone that shaded into the tenor 00:24:56.950 --> 00:25:01.030 align:middle line:84% range but with outbreaks of alto when he got nervous. 00:25:01.030 --> 00:25:04.480 align:middle line:84% And this was the call of the ultralight 00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:06.880 align:middle line:84% as far as the whooping crane is concerned, 00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:09.280 align:middle line:84% this guy's rather humorous voice. 00:25:09.280 --> 00:25:11.380 align:middle line:84% It was not the cry of the whooping crane 00:25:11.380 --> 00:25:13.270 align:middle line:90% which is a majestic sound. 00:25:13.270 --> 00:25:17.290 align:middle line:84% It was the cry of some bald guy who never much expected 00:25:17.290 --> 00:25:19.720 align:middle line:90% to be piloting birds. 00:25:19.720 --> 00:25:23.410 align:middle line:84% He probably believed he'd have a career in civil aviation 00:25:23.410 --> 00:25:26.110 align:middle line:84% or maybe he thought he'd be an astronaut or something. 00:25:26.110 --> 00:25:27.970 align:middle line:84% And in fact, this is what he decides 00:25:27.970 --> 00:25:31.930 align:middle line:84% to do because the day comes when this pilot can no longer fly 00:25:31.930 --> 00:25:35.480 align:middle line:84% the ultralight because there are not enough cranes anymore. 00:25:35.480 --> 00:25:38.950 align:middle line:84% There's only the one crane and he is crushed. 00:25:38.950 --> 00:25:41.860 align:middle line:84% Well, come on, everyone is crushed. 00:25:41.860 --> 00:25:44.050 align:middle line:90% Life crushes you. 00:25:44.050 --> 00:25:48.010 align:middle line:84% And this is just one more story to stomp up and down 00:25:48.010 --> 00:25:49.720 align:middle line:90% on your crushed heart. 00:25:49.720 --> 00:25:54.400 align:middle line:84% This balding fellow going to visit the last crane sometimes 00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:56.350 align:middle line:84% over where he thinks the crane might still 00:25:56.350 --> 00:25:59.770 align:middle line:84% be living in some cage for injured birds. 00:25:59.770 --> 00:26:03.250 align:middle line:84% And he and the crane recognize each other, indeed, 00:26:03.250 --> 00:26:05.410 align:middle line:84% though they have no common language in which 00:26:05.410 --> 00:26:07.300 align:middle line:90% to speak of their recognition. 00:26:07.300 --> 00:26:10.000 align:middle line:84% There's no way for the crane to speak of the man 00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:12.220 align:middle line:90% as a man speaks of a crane. 00:26:12.220 --> 00:26:16.060 align:middle line:84% And it would all go fine if the man could speak in the tongue 00:26:16.060 --> 00:26:17.890 align:middle line:90% of cranes, but he can't. 00:26:17.890 --> 00:26:19.540 align:middle line:84% While he's visiting the crane there 00:26:19.540 --> 00:26:23.020 align:middle line:90% is in the distance a lift off. 00:26:23.020 --> 00:26:25.750 align:middle line:84% One of the last space shuttle missions and you 00:26:25.750 --> 00:26:28.250 align:middle line:84% can see it from almost 20 miles away. 00:26:28.250 --> 00:26:30.910 align:middle line:84% The conditions are that favorable in South Florida 00:26:30.910 --> 00:26:31.750 align:middle line:90% that day. 00:26:31.750 --> 00:26:35.860 align:middle line:84% And the guy, the balding pilot, the one with the bad jokes, 00:26:35.860 --> 00:26:38.680 align:middle line:84% and the not reliable timbre to his voice, 00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:40.950 align:middle line:84% thinks that maybe the only reasonable thing 00:26:40.950 --> 00:26:44.040 align:middle line:84% to pursue after the experience of flying the ultralight 00:26:44.040 --> 00:26:49.200 align:middle line:84% is the experience of going up into space as soon as he can. 00:26:49.200 --> 00:26:52.860 align:middle line:84% And he sits on a bench by the one winged whooping crane 00:26:52.860 --> 00:26:55.500 align:middle line:84% for a while and then he notices that he's 00:26:55.500 --> 00:26:57.570 align:middle line:90% talking to the whooping crane. 00:26:57.570 --> 00:27:03.170 align:middle line:84% And he's saying, "Well, I don't exactly 00:27:03.170 --> 00:27:05.870 align:middle line:84% want to leave you here like this. 00:27:05.870 --> 00:27:09.320 align:middle line:84% I can't really think of anything worse. 00:27:09.320 --> 00:27:11.960 align:middle line:84% And I have left some people behind in my life. 00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:13.670 align:middle line:90% Who hasn't. 00:27:13.670 --> 00:27:16.040 align:middle line:90% Even some people I loved. 00:27:16.040 --> 00:27:19.160 align:middle line:84% But none of that is as bad as thinking that I won't see you 00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:20.990 align:middle line:90% here again. 00:27:20.990 --> 00:27:22.760 align:middle line:84% And no one who comes to see you here 00:27:22.760 --> 00:27:25.530 align:middle line:90% will know what I know about you. 00:27:25.530 --> 00:27:28.260 align:middle line:84% And you won't recognize these people. 00:27:28.260 --> 00:27:30.510 align:middle line:90% Nothing could be worse. 00:27:30.510 --> 00:27:33.030 align:middle line:84% But still a man has to move on sometimes 00:27:33.030 --> 00:27:35.280 align:middle line:84% and I just can't stay here doing this. 00:27:35.280 --> 00:27:38.790 align:middle line:84% And so I'm wondering, would you think it was OK for me 00:27:38.790 --> 00:27:44.340 align:middle line:84% to go ahead and undertake to become an astronaut. 00:27:44.340 --> 00:27:46.770 align:middle line:84% Do you think that you could possibly 00:27:46.770 --> 00:27:49.380 align:middle line:90% give me your blessing?" 00:27:49.380 --> 00:27:52.870 align:middle line:84% He knows that the whooping crane can't answer him. 00:27:52.870 --> 00:27:54.700 align:middle line:90% That's obvious enough. 00:27:54.700 --> 00:27:57.970 align:middle line:84% But he feels he owes a reasonable explanation 00:27:57.970 --> 00:28:00.970 align:middle line:84% to the whooping crane, even more of an explanation 00:28:00.970 --> 00:28:04.120 align:middle line:84% than he owes his wife or his parents. 00:28:04.120 --> 00:28:07.000 align:middle line:84% And the crane can't see how bad the pilot feels, 00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:10.240 align:middle line:84% how broken up he is, when the man thinks that he won't be 00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:13.390 align:middle line:90% able to visit the crane again. 00:28:13.390 --> 00:28:16.180 align:middle line:84% When the crane is a thing of the past, when 00:28:16.180 --> 00:28:19.030 align:middle line:84% the crane is nothing more than the fertilizer for creatures 00:28:19.030 --> 00:28:20.080 align:middle line:90% to come. 00:28:20.080 --> 00:28:23.650 align:middle line:84% The pilot will only learn of it online because he'll 00:28:23.650 --> 00:28:27.970 align:middle line:84% be off pursuing his ambition, flying his test missions, 00:28:27.970 --> 00:28:30.940 align:middle line:84% sleeping in the barracks, all so that he 00:28:30.940 --> 00:28:34.360 align:middle line:84% might get the hell off the planet that slew 00:28:34.360 --> 00:28:35.470 align:middle line:90% the whooping crane." 00:28:35.470 --> 00:28:39.850 align:middle line:90% 00:28:39.850 --> 00:28:46.220 align:middle line:84% So this last little section is very short. 00:28:46.220 --> 00:28:48.650 align:middle line:84% And like many things in the second half of the book, 00:28:48.650 --> 00:28:52.670 align:middle line:84% it's meant as a love letter to this place that you live. 00:28:52.670 --> 00:29:02.740 align:middle line:90% 00:29:02.740 --> 00:29:09.150 align:middle line:84% "Night fell over the desert and Monaco 37 streaked past again. 00:29:09.150 --> 00:29:11.700 align:middle line:84% And the stars were like the future perfect 00:29:11.700 --> 00:29:14.250 align:middle line:90% of an uncommon verb. 00:29:14.250 --> 00:29:19.230 align:middle line:84% Or the stars were the filaments of discarded human aspirations. 00:29:19.230 --> 00:29:21.450 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky were 00:29:21.450 --> 00:29:24.090 align:middle line:84% the innumerable preschoolers of September 00:29:24.090 --> 00:29:27.000 align:middle line:84% afraid to climb onto the bus in order 00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:30.690 align:middle line:90% to have their liberty abridged. 00:29:30.690 --> 00:29:33.570 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky were like so many holes 00:29:33.570 --> 00:29:36.000 align:middle line:84% into which our heads were to be stuck. 00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:38.670 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky were 00:29:38.670 --> 00:29:42.480 align:middle line:84% the innumerable computations of some frail and overburdened 00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:46.260 align:middle line:84% supercomputer come to the logical end 00:29:46.260 --> 00:29:48.330 align:middle line:90% of its computations. 00:29:48.330 --> 00:29:50.760 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky were the total sum 00:29:50.760 --> 00:29:55.620 align:middle line:84% of responsibilities, grievances, loves of a certain nation 00:29:55.620 --> 00:29:59.520 align:middle line:90% listing to the end of empire. 00:29:59.520 --> 00:30:01.740 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky were an example 00:30:01.740 --> 00:30:04.920 align:middle line:84% of every possible color in the spectrum of all colors, 00:30:04.920 --> 00:30:07.680 align:middle line:84% but the beauty of the spectrum was so overwhelming 00:30:07.680 --> 00:30:11.130 align:middle line:84% that an unaided eye could no longer discern it. 00:30:11.130 --> 00:30:13.350 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky were the number 00:30:13.350 --> 00:30:17.970 align:middle line:84% of words required to correctly describe the stars as a whole. 00:30:17.970 --> 00:30:21.210 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky represented the number of times 00:30:21.210 --> 00:30:24.450 align:middle line:84% that a certain recalcitrant boy was reminded 00:30:24.450 --> 00:30:26.880 align:middle line:90% to observe the natural world. 00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:29.730 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky were ghosts of all the 00:30:29.730 --> 00:30:33.720 align:middle line:84% dead known and unknown to this boy and others. 00:30:33.720 --> 00:30:37.470 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky were pocket lighters flicked on 00:30:37.470 --> 00:30:40.410 align:middle line:84% during the encore of the stadium rock show 00:30:40.410 --> 00:30:43.620 align:middle line:84% back when there were still pocket lighters and still 00:30:43.620 --> 00:30:44.850 align:middle line:90% rock shows. 00:30:44.850 --> 00:30:49.260 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky were a painterly representation 00:30:49.260 --> 00:30:51.720 align:middle line:90% of the idea of insignificance. 00:30:51.720 --> 00:30:54.810 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky where the manifest eruption 00:30:54.810 --> 00:30:56.430 align:middle line:90% of something from nothing. 00:30:56.430 --> 00:30:59.760 align:middle line:84% Or the stars hinted at a conflagration happening 00:30:59.760 --> 00:31:02.910 align:middle line:84% on the other side of a wall of dark substances 00:31:02.910 --> 00:31:06.270 align:middle line:84% through which these tiny holes have been poked. 00:31:06.270 --> 00:31:09.780 align:middle line:84% Or the stars in the night sky where a soup of possibility. 00:31:09.780 --> 00:31:13.650 align:middle line:84% A broth of what might have been and what might come to pass. 00:31:13.650 --> 00:31:16.830 align:middle line:84% The stars in the night sky were a grinding down 00:31:16.830 --> 00:31:19.620 align:middle line:84% of all the mineralia of planet Earth 00:31:19.620 --> 00:31:23.010 align:middle line:84% into infinitesimal grains, which grains 00:31:23.010 --> 00:31:27.330 align:middle line:84% were in turn bits of gas and debris cast off by the stars 00:31:27.330 --> 00:31:28.290 align:middle line:90% themselves. 00:31:28.290 --> 00:31:31.380 align:middle line:84% The stars in the night sky indicated the natural end 00:31:31.380 --> 00:31:33.190 align:middle line:90% of our 24 hour day. 00:31:33.190 --> 00:31:36.120 align:middle line:84% And that was why they were greeted with such astonishment 00:31:36.120 --> 00:31:37.050 align:middle line:90% and relief. 00:31:37.050 --> 00:31:41.340 align:middle line:84% The turning away of the sun was relief and impertinence. 00:31:41.340 --> 00:31:43.740 align:middle line:84% The stars in the night sky were the light show 00:31:43.740 --> 00:31:45.390 align:middle line:90% for the desert itself. 00:31:45.390 --> 00:31:47.970 align:middle line:90% A ratification of its disuse. 00:31:47.970 --> 00:31:50.340 align:middle line:84% The stars and the night sky could only 00:31:50.340 --> 00:31:52.230 align:middle line:90% be appreciated in silence. 00:31:52.230 --> 00:31:54.300 align:middle line:84% The stars in the night sky could only 00:31:54.300 --> 00:31:56.460 align:middle line:84% be experienced in motionlessness. 00:31:56.460 --> 00:31:59.640 align:middle line:84% The stars in the night sky had a cumulative effect 00:31:59.640 --> 00:32:02.020 align:middle line:84% and the longer you looked at them, 00:32:02.020 --> 00:32:07.240 align:middle line:84% the more you wanted to as if the stars were somehow addictive. 00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:10.020 align:middle line:84% The stars in the night sky were addictive and when used 00:32:10.020 --> 00:32:14.010 align:middle line:84% improperly they crowded out other activities, particularly 00:32:14.010 --> 00:32:15.510 align:middle line:90% social activities. 00:32:15.510 --> 00:32:18.720 align:middle line:84% Unless these activities were organized around the night 00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:20.010 align:middle line:90% sky itself. 00:32:20.010 --> 00:32:22.230 align:middle line:84% The stars in the night sky cohered 00:32:22.230 --> 00:32:26.560 align:middle line:84% with certain harmonic principles cycles per second. 00:32:26.560 --> 00:32:29.220 align:middle line:84% But they did not accord with musical principles 00:32:29.220 --> 00:32:30.810 align:middle line:90% that affirmed tonality. 00:32:30.810 --> 00:32:32.910 align:middle line:84% But rather a more random sequences 00:32:32.910 --> 00:32:37.470 align:middle line:84% of assonances and dissonances of such long duration 00:32:37.470 --> 00:32:41.130 align:middle line:84% that most human beings would perceive the musical principles 00:32:41.130 --> 00:32:45.270 align:middle line:84% of the stars as having a dull endless sameness. 00:32:45.270 --> 00:32:47.010 align:middle line:90% A dissonant merciless. 00:32:47.010 --> 00:32:49.950 align:middle line:84% The stars in the night sky were prolix, 00:32:49.950 --> 00:32:51.930 align:middle line:84% show offey, because they meant to make 00:32:51.930 --> 00:32:55.230 align:middle line:84% a mockery of the mathematical ideas of infinity 00:32:55.230 --> 00:32:56.760 align:middle line:90% just by being here. 00:32:56.760 --> 00:32:59.460 align:middle line:90% They were finite but limitless. 00:32:59.460 --> 00:33:01.500 align:middle line:84% The stars in the night sky had to be 00:33:01.500 --> 00:33:04.440 align:middle line:84% seen in the desert and eventually the desert lured 00:33:04.440 --> 00:33:07.320 align:middle line:84% out all stargazers, even people who were 00:33:07.320 --> 00:33:09.240 align:middle line:90% busy with many other things. 00:33:09.240 --> 00:33:12.510 align:middle line:84% Special education, identity theft, 00:33:12.510 --> 00:33:15.720 align:middle line:84% the making of low budget pornography films, 00:33:15.720 --> 00:33:18.360 align:middle line:84% day trading in Central Asian markets. 00:33:18.360 --> 00:33:22.230 align:middle line:84% They all found that when they saw the stars in the desert 00:33:22.230 --> 00:33:24.510 align:middle line:90% they put aside childish things. 00:33:24.510 --> 00:33:28.470 align:middle line:84% And thus in the desert there was the Very Large Array. 00:33:28.470 --> 00:33:31.860 align:middle line:84% And then the Very, Very Large Array. 00:33:31.860 --> 00:33:35.340 align:middle line:84% And then there was the International Sonoran Array, 00:33:35.340 --> 00:33:37.320 align:middle line:84% which was so large that you had to fly 00:33:37.320 --> 00:33:40.380 align:middle line:84% from one end of the field of radio dishes to the other 00:33:40.380 --> 00:33:43.440 align:middle line:84% to bear witness to the entirety of the stargazing 00:33:43.440 --> 00:33:45.060 align:middle line:90% apparatus of the desert. 00:33:45.060 --> 00:33:48.660 align:middle line:84% Whole cities sprang up inside the International Sonoran 00:33:48.660 --> 00:33:49.350 align:middle line:90% Array. 00:33:49.350 --> 00:33:52.920 align:middle line:84% It had a complex of universities and think tanks, 00:33:52.920 --> 00:33:57.000 align:middle line:84% mostly now concentrated on the other side of the border 00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:00.030 align:middle line:84% since that was where the venture capital was located. 00:34:00.030 --> 00:34:04.410 align:middle line:84% Where there was less fallout from the immigration problem. 00:34:04.410 --> 00:34:07.170 align:middle line:84% People came to the desert because the stars were 00:34:07.170 --> 00:34:09.389 align:middle line:84% in the desert and the stars had yet 00:34:09.389 --> 00:34:11.670 align:middle line:84% to be corrupted by man though man 00:34:11.670 --> 00:34:14.280 align:middle line:84% had managed to corrupt so much else, 00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:17.460 align:middle line:90% and there was no fee involved. 00:34:17.460 --> 00:34:20.909 align:middle line:84% In fact, the stars it seemed would crush a man 00:34:20.909 --> 00:34:23.429 align:middle line:84% in a scenic gravitational panorama 00:34:23.429 --> 00:34:26.190 align:middle line:84% before man would ever corrupt the stars 00:34:26.190 --> 00:34:29.760 align:middle line:84% and that was why men mostly neglected them or attempted 00:34:29.760 --> 00:34:33.510 align:middle line:84% to surpass the stars, gauzing over the night 00:34:33.510 --> 00:34:38.010 align:middle line:84% sky with his sugary glaze in the pursuit of making the night 00:34:38.010 --> 00:34:43.800 align:middle line:84% sky less seductive and more like the screen of a monitor 00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:48.860 align:middle line:90% switched to the off position. 00:34:48.860 --> 00:34:49.880 align:middle line:90% Thanks a lot. 00:34:49.880 --> 00:34:53.230 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:34:53.230 --> 00:35:06.000 align:middle line:90%