WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.667 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.667 --> 00:00:03.750 align:middle line:84%
I passed these signs as I
was coming here tonight,

00:00:03.750 --> 00:00:06.960 align:middle line:84%
and so I couldn't resist
reading the poem, "The Thing."

00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:09.510 align:middle line:84%
"The huge signs hug
the road from Deming

00:00:09.510 --> 00:00:12.420 align:middle line:84%
to the middle of
nowhere, advertising gas,

00:00:12.420 --> 00:00:14.820 align:middle line:90%
the last fueling place, coffee.

00:00:14.820 --> 00:00:16.379 align:middle line:90%
Asking you to witness the thing.

00:00:16.379 --> 00:00:19.020 align:middle line:84%
Indeed many things from
all over the world.

00:00:19.020 --> 00:00:22.710 align:middle line:84%
Elephant carvings from Africa,
Italian tapestries depicting

00:00:22.710 --> 00:00:26.100 align:middle line:84%
the Last Supper, yellow
butterflies, and placemats,

00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:29.910 align:middle line:84%
and the moon shot shaky
grace of toy privies.

00:00:29.910 --> 00:00:33.960 align:middle line:84%
Shelves full of sly ceramics
plugging ashtray jokes,

00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:36.810 align:middle line:84%
and feathered tomahawks
made in Japan.

00:00:36.810 --> 00:00:40.710 align:middle line:84%
Glass balls stuffed with
alembics and mustard seeds.

00:00:40.710 --> 00:00:43.800 align:middle line:84%
Pay your $0.50 and
go to see The Thing.

00:00:43.800 --> 00:00:46.170 align:middle line:84%
Pried out of the ground
by tons of water,

00:00:46.170 --> 00:00:52.050 align:middle line:84%
the thing is a flexed skeleton,
one arm enfolding a waxen baby.

00:00:52.050 --> 00:00:54.360 align:middle line:84%
In a cultural
paradox, this basket

00:00:54.360 --> 00:00:56.700 align:middle line:84%
make her mother and
her child mummified

00:00:56.700 --> 00:00:59.970 align:middle line:84%
by the desert thrombosed
by time, spilled out

00:00:59.970 --> 00:01:01.710 align:middle line:90%
to the miners hose.

00:01:01.710 --> 00:01:05.459 align:middle line:84%
The beguiled are fastened by
their eyes to what they see.

00:01:05.459 --> 00:01:09.330 align:middle line:84%
They also dark sand blasted by
shimmery lassitudes of light.

00:01:09.330 --> 00:01:11.340 align:middle line:84%
The agile water
scooped the grave out

00:01:11.340 --> 00:01:14.970 align:middle line:84%
of the canyon, the floater,
and the floating baby.

00:01:14.970 --> 00:01:17.010 align:middle line:84%
Food for the museum
along the highway

00:01:17.010 --> 00:01:20.160 align:middle line:84%
emerged in grotesque
tender rags.

00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:22.830 align:middle line:90%
They lie side by side.

00:01:22.830 --> 00:01:25.320 align:middle line:84%
Al Capone's getaway
car stands nearby,

00:01:25.320 --> 00:01:28.950 align:middle line:84%
and the burlesque is completed
by Der Fuhrer's Mercedes Benz.

00:01:28.950 --> 00:01:31.770 align:middle line:84%
This place put together
by a jackdaw genius

00:01:31.770 --> 00:01:34.050 align:middle line:90%
is a jigsaw of civilization.

00:01:34.050 --> 00:01:36.840 align:middle line:84%
Sunset burns blue along
the abrasions of the bullet

00:01:36.840 --> 00:01:40.110 align:middle line:84%
holes and the
Athabaskan's human pain.

00:01:40.110 --> 00:01:43.200 align:middle line:84%
This is a grotto where
noon kneels to spiders,

00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:46.590 align:middle line:84%
hairy starved tarantulas
and scorpions whose world is

00:01:46.590 --> 00:01:50.370 align:middle line:84%
a membrane of venom and ashes
curved and flick of a tail.

00:01:50.370 --> 00:01:54.060 align:middle line:84%
Carried up and out in
spasmodic ways, the mummies,

00:01:54.060 --> 00:01:56.520 align:middle line:84%
the dictators, the
dead float in the light

00:01:56.520 --> 00:01:57.930 align:middle line:90%
where we have anchored them.

00:01:57.930 --> 00:01:59.430 align:middle line:90%
Things dry out here.

00:01:59.430 --> 00:02:02.180 align:middle line:90%
Their dry eyes on us."

00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:03.000 align:middle line:90%