WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.820 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:04.820 --> 00:00:05.330 align:middle line:90% Pete Turchi. 00:00:05.330 --> 00:00:14.340 align:middle line:90% 00:00:14.340 --> 00:00:18.000 align:middle line:84% It's an honor to be invited to represent 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.260 align:middle line:84% some of the people who loved and respected Steve. 00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:25.560 align:middle line:84% I came here to the U of A in 1982 as a graduate student 00:00:25.560 --> 00:00:28.350 align:middle line:84% in fiction, and I just have the good luck of being assigned 00:00:28.350 --> 00:00:31.233 align:middle line:84% an office across the hall from Steve's. 00:00:31.233 --> 00:00:33.150 align:middle line:84% It was really tremendously good fortune for me 00:00:33.150 --> 00:00:35.608 align:middle line:84% because otherwise, I'm not sure I would have had the reason 00:00:35.608 --> 00:00:38.070 align:middle line:84% or opportunity to step inside his office 00:00:38.070 --> 00:00:42.240 align:middle line:84% and to get to know him as well as I eventually did. 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:44.490 align:middle line:84% And in part because of the conversations we had, 00:00:44.490 --> 00:00:46.810 align:middle line:84% I ended up taking a few poetry courses here, 00:00:46.810 --> 00:00:48.870 align:middle line:84% including two with him where he did me 00:00:48.870 --> 00:00:51.750 align:middle line:84% the very great kindness of never responding to a poem 00:00:51.750 --> 00:00:52.636 align:middle line:90% that I gave him. 00:00:52.636 --> 00:00:55.900 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:55.900 --> 00:01:00.660 align:middle line:84% We both knew I was headed in a different direction. 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:05.129 align:middle line:84% To our mutual amazement, about eight years after I left here, 00:01:05.129 --> 00:01:09.750 align:middle line:84% I became, at least on paper, his boss as the director of the MFA 00:01:09.750 --> 00:01:13.158 align:middle line:84% program at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina 00:01:13.158 --> 00:01:14.700 align:middle line:84% where Steve had already been teaching 00:01:14.700 --> 00:01:16.033 align:middle line:90% and where he continued to teach. 00:01:16.033 --> 00:01:19.050 align:middle line:84% We worked together there over the course of 15 years. 00:01:19.050 --> 00:01:21.900 align:middle line:84% And it says a great deal about him, I think, 00:01:21.900 --> 00:01:25.890 align:middle line:84% that we could assemble a crowd this large again in North 00:01:25.890 --> 00:01:30.000 align:middle line:84% Carolina today of colleagues and students and alumni 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:32.340 align:middle line:84% who loved and admired and respected Steve. 00:01:32.340 --> 00:01:34.150 align:middle line:90% It's really quite extraordinary. 00:01:34.150 --> 00:01:37.458 align:middle line:84% So to represent Warren Wilson and the people there 00:01:37.458 --> 00:01:39.750 align:middle line:84% who cared so much about him-- two stories from his work 00:01:39.750 --> 00:01:40.450 align:middle line:90% there. 00:01:40.450 --> 00:01:43.170 align:middle line:84% One was the winter that it got around 00:01:43.170 --> 00:01:46.020 align:middle line:84% that the undergraduates who worked in the cafeteria 00:01:46.020 --> 00:01:48.270 align:middle line:84% and who cleaned the campus and clean the dorms 00:01:48.270 --> 00:01:50.370 align:middle line:84% and did all of the work around campus 00:01:50.370 --> 00:01:52.710 align:middle line:84% felt that they were being ignored by the visiting, 00:01:52.710 --> 00:01:55.290 align:middle line:84% maybe even abused somehow, by the visiting graduate 00:01:55.290 --> 00:01:57.450 align:middle line:90% students and graduate faculty. 00:01:57.450 --> 00:01:59.250 align:middle line:84% Steve was horrified to hear this. 00:01:59.250 --> 00:02:01.770 align:middle line:84% And so he set out, he made it his agenda, 00:02:01.770 --> 00:02:04.560 align:middle line:84% to go around and meet as many of the undergraduates 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:07.950 align:middle line:84% as he who were working on campus and, as Fred just alluded to, 00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:11.100 align:middle line:90% giving them the Steve interview. 00:02:11.100 --> 00:02:13.860 align:middle line:84% So not only where are you from and what's your major the way 00:02:13.860 --> 00:02:15.630 align:middle line:84% any of us might, but you know why are 00:02:15.630 --> 00:02:17.353 align:middle line:90% those things in your tongue-- 00:02:17.353 --> 00:02:19.820 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:19.820 --> 00:02:24.260 align:middle line:84% --and who did your parents love better, you or your sister. 00:02:24.260 --> 00:02:28.200 align:middle line:84% So the undergraduates got to know Steve really well. 00:02:28.200 --> 00:02:30.590 align:middle line:84% The other thing that I remember so clearly from then-- 00:02:30.590 --> 00:02:32.600 align:middle line:84% I got to hear Steve give, I don't know, 00:02:32.600 --> 00:02:34.430 align:middle line:84% many, many readings over the years. 00:02:34.430 --> 00:02:37.460 align:middle line:84% And one time, he was reading his Dolly Parton poem. 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:41.690 align:middle line:84% And when he read the line where Dolly removes her bra 00:02:41.690 --> 00:02:45.650 align:middle line:84% and frees her breasts, Steve somehow had her remove her bra 00:02:45.650 --> 00:02:46.640 align:middle line:90% and free her brains. 00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:49.520 align:middle line:90% 00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:52.610 align:middle line:84% And he was so shocked and delighted. 00:02:52.610 --> 00:02:56.140 align:middle line:84% And he laughed so hard, he couldn't stand up. 00:02:56.140 --> 00:02:58.390 align:middle line:84% Somebody else might have been embarrassed and awkward 00:02:58.390 --> 00:02:58.890 align:middle line:90% about it. 00:02:58.890 --> 00:03:00.395 align:middle line:84% But Steve was absolutely delighted. 00:03:00.395 --> 00:03:02.770 align:middle line:84% So in memory of that, I thought I would read another poem 00:03:02.770 --> 00:03:04.720 align:middle line:84% that he read several times at Warren Wilson 00:03:04.720 --> 00:03:07.780 align:middle line:84% and which not only indicates, again, 00:03:07.780 --> 00:03:12.310 align:middle line:84% his love of history and anecdote and as Tony said 00:03:12.310 --> 00:03:14.650 align:middle line:84% earlier, his humility, but that other thing 00:03:14.650 --> 00:03:16.870 align:middle line:90% on the other side of humility. 00:03:16.870 --> 00:03:20.290 align:middle line:84% It's called "The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans, 1900 00:03:20.290 --> 00:03:22.120 align:middle line:90% to 1920." 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:24.070 align:middle line:84% "In the book of undistinguished American men 00:03:24.070 --> 00:03:26.710 align:middle line:84% and women those without significant event 00:03:26.710 --> 00:03:29.710 align:middle line:84% nonetheless have oddities that distinguish 00:03:29.710 --> 00:03:31.480 align:middle line:90% them one from the other-- 00:03:31.480 --> 00:03:35.080 align:middle line:84% the Polish sweatshop girl, the Igorote brave, 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:37.870 align:middle line:84% the farmer's wife, the autodidact. 00:03:37.870 --> 00:03:40.180 align:middle line:90% How many lives there have been? 00:03:40.180 --> 00:03:42.460 align:middle line:84% Of course, they're all dead by now. 00:03:42.460 --> 00:03:45.100 align:middle line:84% Similar markers on similar graves. 00:03:45.100 --> 00:03:48.880 align:middle line:84% So you, now, when someone emerges from the crowd and tugs 00:03:48.880 --> 00:03:50.920 align:middle line:84% at your sleeve and says, my life would 00:03:50.920 --> 00:03:54.670 align:middle line:84% make a novel, you should listen, ask where they're from 00:03:54.670 --> 00:04:00.340 align:middle line:84% and what they've done and nod, jot it down and say, amen. 00:04:00.340 --> 00:04:02.140 align:middle line:84% What else is left at the end of a life? 00:04:02.140 --> 00:04:02.980 align:middle line:90% We all know it. 00:04:02.980 --> 00:04:06.280 align:middle line:84% A few favorite knickknacks, shoes too big or too small, 00:04:06.280 --> 00:04:09.970 align:middle line:84% a chain of keys that God knows what unopened doors all 00:04:09.970 --> 00:04:13.390 align:middle line:84% tossed in the trash by the Undertaker's wife. 00:04:13.390 --> 00:04:15.820 align:middle line:84% And the secrets no one else would possess but the dead 00:04:15.820 --> 00:04:19.660 align:middle line:84% themselves, those uncollected frenzied passing moments, 00:04:19.660 --> 00:04:22.360 align:middle line:90% those too, gone. 00:04:22.360 --> 00:04:26.050 align:middle line:84% So God bless the author of this book, Mr. Hamilton Holm, who 00:04:26.050 --> 00:04:29.470 align:middle line:84% preserved in print the lives of these undistinguished American 00:04:29.470 --> 00:04:33.010 align:middle line:84% men and women, the Japanese servant, the Irish cook, 00:04:33.010 --> 00:04:36.250 align:middle line:84% the itinerant minister, the Italian boot black. 00:04:36.250 --> 00:04:39.700 align:middle line:84% Not a hero to be counted, neither King or queen, 00:04:39.700 --> 00:04:43.570 align:middle line:84% nor murderer, nor Savior, only the unappreciated 00:04:43.570 --> 00:04:46.720 align:middle line:84% crouched at the bottom of the list. 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:49.900 align:middle line:84% Did I ever tell you the time I pissed with a star? 00:04:49.900 --> 00:04:52.660 align:middle line:84% I'd been eating in a fancy New York restaurant 00:04:52.660 --> 00:04:54.730 align:middle line:84% and went downstairs to the bathroom. 00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:57.820 align:middle line:84% One of those dingy stinky cramped tiny rooms 00:04:57.820 --> 00:04:59.770 align:middle line:90% with a toilet and a grimy sink. 00:04:59.770 --> 00:05:03.190 align:middle line:84% And as I was shaking myself off, the door swung open 00:05:03.190 --> 00:05:05.680 align:middle line:84% and there he was, the man with the mouth, 00:05:05.680 --> 00:05:09.310 align:middle line:84% the man with the tongue who taught us how to sass and sing. 00:05:09.310 --> 00:05:12.010 align:middle line:90% The great star, Mick Jagger. 00:05:12.010 --> 00:05:17.890 align:middle line:84% He said to me, hey, mate, and I said back to him, hey, mate. 00:05:17.890 --> 00:05:19.612 align:middle line:90% God bless that moment. 00:05:19.612 --> 00:05:21.340 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:21.340 --> 00:05:26.560 align:middle line:84% Thank God for the extraordinary to show me my place. 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:29.530 align:middle line:84% In that tiny room, his light shone out. 00:05:29.530 --> 00:05:32.380 align:middle line:84% Underground, we were at last ourselves. 00:05:32.380 --> 00:05:35.800 align:middle line:84% The man who pissed with Mick Jagger and the man who 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:38.860 align:middle line:90% pissed with Steve Orlen. 00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:41.640 align:middle line:90% Lucky for me and lucky for him." 00:05:41.640 --> 00:05:44.866 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:44.866 --> 00:05:45.366 align:middle line:90%