WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.320 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:10.750 align:middle line:90% Forgive me for my smuttiness. 00:00:10.750 --> 00:00:13.610 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:13.610 --> 00:00:14.870 align:middle line:90% "Autobiography." 00:00:14.870 --> 00:00:17.480 align:middle line:84% So when I was in Granada, a strange city 00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:21.980 align:middle line:84% in the South of Spain, obsessed with its Arab history. 00:00:21.980 --> 00:00:26.600 align:middle line:84% I was obsessed and frightened by the haunting of this city that 00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:28.440 align:middle line:90% murdered its poet. 00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:30.530 align:middle line:84% And he was killed by the city itself. 00:00:30.530 --> 00:00:33.470 align:middle line:84% He was-- the mobs literally stormed into his place 00:00:33.470 --> 00:00:34.640 align:middle line:90% and carried him off. 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:37.430 align:middle line:84% And very recently, the other folks 00:00:37.430 --> 00:00:38.930 align:middle line:84% who were in that mass grave, where 00:00:38.930 --> 00:00:41.090 align:middle line:84% Lorca was said to have been dumped, 00:00:41.090 --> 00:00:43.280 align:middle line:84% they have been petitioning the Spanish government 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:45.440 align:middle line:84% for years and years and years to exhume 00:00:45.440 --> 00:00:47.540 align:middle line:84% that grave so they can identify their loved ones 00:00:47.540 --> 00:00:48.590 align:middle line:90% and rebury them. 00:00:48.590 --> 00:00:53.390 align:middle line:84% And always the Lorca heirs, were sort of not wanting his remains 00:00:53.390 --> 00:00:54.070 align:middle line:90% to be disturbed. 00:00:54.070 --> 00:00:55.820 align:middle line:84% But if you remember a couple of years ago, 00:00:55.820 --> 00:00:57.740 align:middle line:90% he did order the exhumation. 00:00:57.740 --> 00:01:02.180 align:middle line:84% They did DNA testing and Lorca is not in that grave. 00:01:02.180 --> 00:01:05.330 align:middle line:84% So he's-- nobody knows what happened to him now. 00:01:05.330 --> 00:01:07.970 align:middle line:84% We only knew what happened to him because one of those guys 00:01:07.970 --> 00:01:10.940 align:middle line:84% explained, we went at this time, we took him, 00:01:10.940 --> 00:01:12.020 align:middle line:90% we took him to this hill. 00:01:12.020 --> 00:01:12.620 align:middle line:90% We shot him. 00:01:12.620 --> 00:01:14.300 align:middle line:90% We buried him down there. 00:01:14.300 --> 00:01:18.470 align:middle line:84% And that's not a true story so we don't know. 00:01:18.470 --> 00:01:21.050 align:middle line:84% So I was there in this hotel staying at the corner 00:01:21.050 --> 00:01:22.400 align:middle line:90% of Calla San Anton. 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:24.500 align:middle line:84% And San Anton, St Anthony, of course, 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:27.170 align:middle line:84% is the saint of lost things, and I at that moment, 00:01:27.170 --> 00:01:33.560 align:middle line:84% was a lost thing in Granada, as happens to me sometimes. 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:37.280 align:middle line:84% And then at the other two was Calla Duende. 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:39.590 align:middle line:84% "At the corner of San Anton and Duende, 00:01:39.590 --> 00:01:42.800 align:middle line:84% I hardly know the edge of the sidewalk, a bare consonant 00:01:42.800 --> 00:01:44.550 align:middle line:90% of the city's harsh sentence. 00:01:44.550 --> 00:01:48.080 align:middle line:84% How can I say my actual name, when all I can manage 00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:51.410 align:middle line:84% is counting change for coffee I do not buy? 00:01:51.410 --> 00:01:54.560 align:middle line:84% Every night the clouds that argue in the sky for the right 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:57.320 align:middle line:84% to be the one who will part to reveal 00:01:57.320 --> 00:01:59.630 align:middle line:84% the new moon, blank but appearing, 00:01:59.630 --> 00:02:03.590 align:middle line:84% day by day a new misunderstanding of gone. 00:02:03.590 --> 00:02:06.860 align:middle line:84% But how can you already know if you have never yet 00:02:06.860 --> 00:02:10.729 align:middle line:84% been the Twin inside arriving after departure. 00:02:10.729 --> 00:02:13.430 align:middle line:84% A crime of history, a quivering vessel, 00:02:13.430 --> 00:02:15.680 align:middle line:90% my also bones a manic making. 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:16.970 align:middle line:90% And who am I? 00:02:16.970 --> 00:02:19.970 align:middle line:84% A man inside a bell inside someone else's face. 00:02:19.970 --> 00:02:22.520 align:middle line:84% Fingers that hold a skull or pen. 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:24.800 align:middle line:84% Well of course, a swan could be an elephant, 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:26.660 align:middle line:90% or a man could be on fire. 00:02:26.660 --> 00:02:29.720 align:middle line:84% The coffee I didn't drink is pouring through time, 00:02:29.720 --> 00:02:33.530 align:middle line:84% and inside any city 1,000 vowels pronounce themselves. 00:02:33.530 --> 00:02:36.950 align:middle line:84% Every street map has 1,000 pointing arrows flashing, 00:02:36.950 --> 00:02:39.230 align:middle line:90% labeled each, you are here. 00:02:39.230 --> 00:02:44.090 align:middle line:84% But really, who are you at the corner of San Anton and Duende, 00:02:44.090 --> 00:02:46.550 align:middle line:84% dark eyed and holding your empty? 00:02:46.550 --> 00:02:50.900 align:middle line:84% Nobody knows you, hardly arriving and already gone." 00:02:50.900 --> 00:02:58.940 align:middle line:90% 00:02:58.940 --> 00:03:00.890 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read to you a little piece out 00:03:00.890 --> 00:03:04.700 align:middle line:84% of my book Orange Alert, which is a book of essays. 00:03:04.700 --> 00:03:06.773 align:middle line:90% 00:03:06.773 --> 00:03:08.940 align:middle line:84% But I guess the difference between essays and poetry 00:03:08.940 --> 00:03:12.510 align:middle line:90% is also a stupid difference. 00:03:12.510 --> 00:03:14.340 align:middle line:90% Stupid difference. 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:17.820 align:middle line:84% Do you see that film Impromptu, with Emma Thompson 00:03:17.820 --> 00:03:18.845 align:middle line:90% and Judy Davis? 00:03:18.845 --> 00:03:19.470 align:middle line:90% Did you see it? 00:03:19.470 --> 00:03:19.970 align:middle line:90% You saw it? 00:03:19.970 --> 00:03:20.820 align:middle line:90% Stupid rain. 00:03:20.820 --> 00:03:22.650 align:middle line:90% Stupid rain. 00:03:22.650 --> 00:03:25.833 align:middle line:84% Emma Thompson is upset with the rain. 00:03:25.833 --> 00:03:27.000 align:middle line:90% Which is apropos of nothing. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:30.360 align:middle line:84% I'm sorry, you are getting a very punchy, silly version 00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:31.005 align:middle line:90% of me today. 00:03:31.005 --> 00:03:35.460 align:middle line:90% 00:03:35.460 --> 00:03:38.460 align:middle line:84% I have not made much sense to you, please forgive me. 00:03:38.460 --> 00:03:41.010 align:middle line:84% And you are about to now get, not 00:03:41.010 --> 00:03:42.960 align:middle line:84% the architecture of Muslim Spain, which I do 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:47.001 align:middle line:84% write about in this book, but Battlestar Galactica. 00:03:47.001 --> 00:03:49.830 align:middle line:90% 00:03:49.830 --> 00:03:52.140 align:middle line:84% "When Kara Thrace first appeared on the screen 00:03:52.140 --> 00:03:54.690 align:middle line:84% and it became clear to the audience of the new Battlestar 00:03:54.690 --> 00:03:57.210 align:middle line:84% Galactica that Starbuck was a woman, 00:03:57.210 --> 00:03:59.880 align:middle line:84% one first looked at this new version and thought, 00:03:59.880 --> 00:04:03.390 align:middle line:84% but this character is the same, still coded as male. 00:04:03.390 --> 00:04:06.750 align:middle line:84% The same old wisecracking, cigar smoking, hard drinking, 00:04:06.750 --> 00:04:10.500 align:middle line:84% sexual predator he/she/ze always was. 00:04:10.500 --> 00:04:14.710 align:middle line:84% Like the Cylon enemies, the body of Starbuck in the past-- 00:04:14.710 --> 00:04:16.620 align:middle line:84% in this case, Dirk Benedict's body, 00:04:16.620 --> 00:04:20.940 align:middle line:84% defines the body of the future Starbuck, Katee Sackhoff. 00:04:20.940 --> 00:04:24.180 align:middle line:84% Though, she exists utterly independent of him. 00:04:24.180 --> 00:04:27.390 align:middle line:84% One's second thought was to look back at the original Starbuck 00:04:27.390 --> 00:04:30.960 align:middle line:84% character, and ask, whether the sexual tension between Apollo 00:04:30.960 --> 00:04:33.030 align:middle line:90% and Starbuck was always there? 00:04:33.030 --> 00:04:35.340 align:middle line:84% If you look back at those old episodes, 00:04:35.340 --> 00:04:37.080 align:middle line:90% you will agree that it was. 00:04:37.080 --> 00:04:39.240 align:middle line:84% The past writes the present, for sure, 00:04:39.240 --> 00:04:42.480 align:middle line:84% but the present always returns the favor. 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:45.240 align:middle line:84% A body is like Dickinson's signature, 00:04:45.240 --> 00:04:47.640 align:middle line:84% which she sealed away on a separate card 00:04:47.640 --> 00:04:49.980 align:middle line:84% with her first and otherwise unsigned 00:04:49.980 --> 00:04:51.630 align:middle line:90% letter to Thomas Higginson. 00:04:51.630 --> 00:04:54.120 align:middle line:84% There are a dozen different versions 00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:59.160 align:middle line:84% of the body unfolding around the self, written and overwritten. 00:04:59.160 --> 00:05:02.580 align:middle line:84% Dickinson herself, was of course overwritten, 00:05:02.580 --> 00:05:04.890 align:middle line:90% deleted and edited into limbo. 00:05:04.890 --> 00:05:07.260 align:middle line:84% She has, in a fashion, been restored, 00:05:07.260 --> 00:05:09.990 align:middle line:84% though Susan Howe's complaint that the relineation 00:05:09.990 --> 00:05:13.050 align:middle line:84% of Dickinson continues has been largely ignored, 00:05:13.050 --> 00:05:16.110 align:middle line:84% except in the Paris Press edition of Dickinson's letters 00:05:16.110 --> 00:05:17.970 align:middle line:90% to her sister-in-law Susan. 00:05:17.970 --> 00:05:21.300 align:middle line:84% And of course, the bowdlerized Dickinson's of Bianchi, 00:05:21.300 --> 00:05:25.230 align:middle line:84% Todd Higginson, and Bingham are all in the public realm 00:05:25.230 --> 00:05:29.130 align:middle line:84% and continue to be widely republished, at least one 00:05:29.130 --> 00:05:33.750 align:middle line:84% of addition of those is by a well-respected publisher 00:05:33.750 --> 00:05:41.910 align:middle line:84% and carries a forward by a former US Poet Laureate" 00:05:41.910 --> 00:05:43.110 align:middle line:90% It's true. 00:05:43.110 --> 00:05:44.850 align:middle line:84% "Of all the crew on the Pequod it 00:05:44.850 --> 00:05:47.970 align:middle line:84% is Starbuck who most wishes to disobey his captain. 00:05:47.970 --> 00:05:50.880 align:middle line:84% Both like and unlike his Galactic counterpart, 00:05:50.880 --> 00:05:53.550 align:middle line:84% Melville's Starbuck has a strong streak of rebellion 00:05:53.550 --> 00:05:56.520 align:middle line:84% but is fundamentally part of the larger social order 00:05:56.520 --> 00:05:58.050 align:middle line:90% and continues to support it. 00:05:58.050 --> 00:06:01.380 align:middle line:84% He is unable to make the brutal decision that needs making, 00:06:01.380 --> 00:06:04.710 align:middle line:84% that by murdering Ahab, he will save both ship and crew. 00:06:04.710 --> 00:06:07.800 align:middle line:84% Does the population of the ship, hence the world, 00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:12.570 align:middle line:84% die by Ahab's madness or by Starbucks inability to act? 00:06:12.570 --> 00:06:16.500 align:middle line:84% Higginson himself, known to us as pompous editor, 00:06:16.500 --> 00:06:19.380 align:middle line:84% literary muck-up, and distorter of genius, 00:06:19.380 --> 00:06:22.680 align:middle line:84% was actually hard at work the whole time on another issue. 00:06:22.680 --> 00:06:25.830 align:middle line:84% A dedicated abolitionist, Dickinson's correspondent 00:06:25.830 --> 00:06:29.550 align:middle line:84% put together and led into combat the first all African-American 00:06:29.550 --> 00:06:31.770 align:middle line:90% regiment in the US Army." 00:06:31.770 --> 00:06:33.690 align:middle line:84% He was also a member of the Gang of Six, 00:06:33.690 --> 00:06:38.160 align:middle line:84% that was raising funds for John Browns raid, 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:39.990 align:middle line:84% and was part of his defense committee. 00:06:39.990 --> 00:06:42.300 align:middle line:84% "Neither scholar nor mentor managed 00:06:42.300 --> 00:06:47.070 align:middle line:84% to speak themselves clearly through the shadows of history. 00:06:47.070 --> 00:06:50.610 align:middle line:84% Is the individual body, whether Higginson's, Dickinson's, 00:06:50.610 --> 00:06:53.310 align:middle line:84% Layla Al-Attar's or Rachel Corrie's, 00:06:53.310 --> 00:06:55.650 align:middle line:84% hopeless against the tidal wave of history, 00:06:55.650 --> 00:06:58.710 align:middle line:84% the universal social action of the mind? 00:06:58.710 --> 00:07:00.780 align:middle line:84% To go back to science fiction, one 00:07:00.780 --> 00:07:03.930 align:middle line:84% is reminded of Neo from The Matrix trilogy. 00:07:03.930 --> 00:07:06.930 align:middle line:84% He wants to know if he has individual will at all 00:07:06.930 --> 00:07:09.090 align:middle line:84% or whether he, like those who preceded him, 00:07:09.090 --> 00:07:10.890 align:middle line:84% is condemned to make a choice solely 00:07:10.890 --> 00:07:14.170 align:middle line:84% based on his experiences and previous circumstances. 00:07:14.170 --> 00:07:18.030 align:middle line:84% In other words, is identity an actual spiritual concept 00:07:18.030 --> 00:07:20.130 align:middle line:90% grounded in an individual soul? 00:07:20.130 --> 00:07:23.490 align:middle line:84% Or is it the body governed by a form of karma? 00:07:23.490 --> 00:07:25.860 align:middle line:84% That is to say, in the case of the soul, 00:07:25.860 --> 00:07:28.170 align:middle line:84% all of its previous experiences will 00:07:28.170 --> 00:07:30.480 align:middle line:84% shape its emotional and spiritual and chemical 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:32.700 align:middle line:84% responses, and in the case of the body, 00:07:32.700 --> 00:07:36.840 align:middle line:84% all of its DNA and lineage, as well as physical activities 00:07:36.840 --> 00:07:40.160 align:middle line:90% in its present life." 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:43.710 align:middle line:90% Goes on a little bit OK.