WEBVTT

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I recently found that this
is an interesting thing that

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relates to that book,
the Chorus of Stones,

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it's is a terrific book with
things that are unspoken still

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emerge in cultures later.

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I recently found out that
my mother was farmed out

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to a relative who
could better feed her

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than my grandmother was
who was very, very poor.

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And that her cousin
was a painter, I mean,

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she painted and my
mother told me envy that

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and I just found that out
maybe like two months ago,

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which is an amazing thing.

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Here's another one,
this is further

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in my harangue about what words
do, and how painted they are,

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and how much I'd like to be
separate from that if I could,

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clean air.

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I love clean air, especially
California clean air

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paints of the
1930s, which I have,

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I'm lucky enough to have one.

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I just love it not
because I'm sophisticated,

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I know anything about
it they remind me

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of social studies, illustrations
of social studies books,

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and I just purely love
them for that and just

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so totally escapist.

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I hate the social studies,
but I love those pictures

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in the desert-- and
all those colors.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So this is called "Plein Air."

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I'd like to explain
how difficult it

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is to work with words.

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A painter sits down and lines
of little tubes of color,

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cleansed of context.

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The autistic tubes in a row
under narrative, a sentence

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don't waggle with admonishment
of squirm with shame.

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There's no fear there
tiny silver mouth

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to a whisper, fucking
mustache or fat immigrant.

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You never or I always or don't.

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No one has hissed cadmium yellow
in a fit of rage or spat chrome

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oxide green while
walking out the door.

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Free from these
radioactive insinuations,

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the painter can open
up the top of her head,

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release the words blackening
its ceiling like trapped smoke

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and go to work with the
vocabulary of another planet.

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Her materials are as
forgiving as leaves,

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which pair not whether
she says detergent

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instead of iconoclast.

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When she opens up
the case, the colors

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are all there exactly
as she left them,

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not dangling between her
and the checkout clerk.

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They're pristine,
untroubled, idiot savants

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with an amnesiac's satin memory.

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She doesn't have to autoclave
each one before she picks it

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up.

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There could be such
a box for writers

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filled with words,
brightly minted but spared

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the smudge of circulation.

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Words denied to cruel rapacious
partners, jealous coworkers,

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spin doctors, and
ad copywriters.

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Words one could
pick up and squeeze

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a little bit of
on a palette, add

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a splotch of medium and
swirl to just the right

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syrupy consistency.

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Thus preserved these
words would sweep the mind

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free of muddle, the
sky of pollution,

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and, virginal as illustrations
in social studies

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books before we understood
the West was actually lost,

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blue creased mountains
would loom, crisply visible,

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their presence saying simply
winter, saying late afternoon,

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saying here.

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