WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.500 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.500 --> 00:00:02.910 align:middle line:90% I'm going to read three more. 00:00:02.910 --> 00:00:06.420 align:middle line:84% This next one has yet another problem with the title. 00:00:06.420 --> 00:00:09.420 align:middle line:90% This is becoming a theme. 00:00:09.420 --> 00:00:10.650 align:middle line:90% It's called "Year Zero." 00:00:10.650 --> 00:00:13.710 align:middle line:84% And I read it for the first time last December. 00:00:13.710 --> 00:00:17.130 align:middle line:84% And after I read it, some extremely nice person 00:00:17.130 --> 00:00:21.222 align:middle line:84% came up and said, that's a lovely Millenium poem. 00:00:21.222 --> 00:00:23.430 align:middle line:84% Which left me completely sort of dumbfounded since it 00:00:23.430 --> 00:00:25.180 align:middle line:84% didn't mean to be a Millenium poem at all. 00:00:25.180 --> 00:00:28.550 align:middle line:90% It's set in 1920. 00:00:28.550 --> 00:00:32.759 align:middle line:90% And, you know, my bad. 00:00:32.759 --> 00:00:36.120 align:middle line:84% I mean, obviously, it's going to be read that way. 00:00:36.120 --> 00:00:38.070 align:middle line:84% It's called-- "Year Zero" is actually 00:00:38.070 --> 00:00:42.480 align:middle line:84% a fairly traditional move by revolutionaries. 00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:45.160 align:middle line:84% They really like, why a revolution works. 00:00:45.160 --> 00:00:47.160 align:middle line:84% And the revolutionaries seize power for a while. 00:00:47.160 --> 00:00:48.390 align:middle line:90% They like to take over time. 00:00:48.390 --> 00:00:49.930 align:middle line:90% It's sort of part of the deal. 00:00:49.930 --> 00:00:53.850 align:middle line:84% So you know in 1789, France, they renamed all the months. 00:00:53.850 --> 00:01:00.385 align:middle line:84% In 1848, in Paris, during -- when the first hours 00:01:00.385 --> 00:01:02.760 align:middle line:84% of the revolution, a bunch of people went out and started 00:01:02.760 --> 00:01:06.150 align:middle line:84% shooting at the clock tower, trying to knock the hands off 00:01:06.150 --> 00:01:08.680 align:middle line:90% and succeeded in doing so. 00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:10.750 align:middle line:84% And the big thing with 20th century is to-- 00:01:10.750 --> 00:01:13.665 align:middle line:84% is to say that the old calendars have started again 00:01:13.665 --> 00:01:14.410 align:middle line:90% in Year Zero. 00:01:14.410 --> 00:01:17.730 align:middle line:84% This isn't a particularly proud tradition. 00:01:17.730 --> 00:01:22.290 align:middle line:84% Pol Pot did Year Zero, and he started at Year Zero. 00:01:22.290 --> 00:01:26.040 align:middle line:84% But this is also what the Soviets did, 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:30.660 align:middle line:84% and particularly, there was a region of the Soviet Republic 00:01:30.660 --> 00:01:33.660 align:middle line:84% which was led by this general named Nestor Makhno. 00:01:33.660 --> 00:01:35.790 align:middle line:90% He was a great guy. 00:01:35.790 --> 00:01:37.200 align:middle line:90% For one thing, he wasn't-- 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:39.990 align:middle line:84% he was neither a communist nor was he a tsarist. 00:01:39.990 --> 00:01:43.120 align:middle line:90% He was just-- he liked to fight. 00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:44.820 align:middle line:84% He was one of them real generals. 00:01:44.820 --> 00:01:46.500 align:middle line:84% So he'd been a general in the White Army 00:01:46.500 --> 00:01:48.708 align:middle line:84% because that was at the time the only army there was, 00:01:48.708 --> 00:01:51.030 align:middle line:84% and he ran around, I don't know, repressing 00:01:51.030 --> 00:01:52.650 align:middle line:90% Cossacks or whatever. 00:01:52.650 --> 00:01:57.238 align:middle line:84% And then the Russian Revolution, the big one, the big part, 00:01:57.238 --> 00:01:59.280 align:middle line:84% broke out, and there was something, the Red Army, 00:01:59.280 --> 00:01:59.940 align:middle line:90% the communists. 00:01:59.940 --> 00:02:01.958 align:middle line:84% And he-- well, the communists are probably 00:02:01.958 --> 00:02:03.000 align:middle line:90% better than the tsarists. 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:04.950 align:middle line:84% They have a very groovy platform, you know. 00:02:04.950 --> 00:02:06.662 align:middle line:90% Communism, woohoo. 00:02:06.662 --> 00:02:08.370 align:middle line:84% And so, so he started fighting with them. 00:02:08.370 --> 00:02:09.495 align:middle line:90% He was a brilliant general. 00:02:09.495 --> 00:02:12.643 align:middle line:84% He won a lot, beat the White Army over and over again. 00:02:12.643 --> 00:02:14.560 align:middle line:84% Realized he didn't like the communists either. 00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:17.162 align:middle line:84% He wasn't-- they had a big program. 00:02:17.162 --> 00:02:18.120 align:middle line:90% Just like the tsarists. 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:19.050 align:middle line:90% He was against programs. 00:02:19.050 --> 00:02:19.883 align:middle line:90% He was an anarchist. 00:02:19.883 --> 00:02:23.130 align:middle line:84% So he said, well, okay, I'll just fight. 00:02:23.130 --> 00:02:24.600 align:middle line:84% I won't really be on anyone's team. 00:02:24.600 --> 00:02:25.440 align:middle line:90% So he took his army. 00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:27.510 align:middle line:90% They were fiercely loyal to him. 00:02:27.510 --> 00:02:29.882 align:middle line:84% And he ran around obliterating every army who 00:02:29.882 --> 00:02:31.680 align:middle line:84% he ran into and eventually carved out 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:36.960 align:middle line:84% a region in northern USSR, and the comments at one-- 00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:39.685 align:middle line:84% he basically said, well, fine, have your Soviet. 00:02:39.685 --> 00:02:41.310 align:middle line:84% This is going to be Anarchist Republic. 00:02:41.310 --> 00:02:42.570 align:middle line:90% He declared it, so it was. 00:02:42.570 --> 00:02:44.610 align:middle line:90% Year zero, there they were. 00:02:44.610 --> 00:02:46.120 align:middle line:90% And he was lovely in many ways. 00:02:46.120 --> 00:02:49.377 align:middle line:84% He printed money, and it was for the Republic, 00:02:49.377 --> 00:02:50.835 align:middle line:84% and he wrote directly on it that it 00:02:50.835 --> 00:02:52.230 align:middle line:90% was just phony and counterfeit. 00:02:52.230 --> 00:02:54.098 align:middle line:84% In fact, he recommended it highly. 00:02:54.098 --> 00:02:56.858 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:56.858 --> 00:02:58.150 align:middle line:90% This is why we like anarchists. 00:02:58.150 --> 00:03:00.733 align:middle line:84% They know enough just to, like, screw with the essential shit, 00:03:00.733 --> 00:03:01.260 align:middle line:90% you know. 00:03:01.260 --> 00:03:05.498 align:middle line:84% And anyway, in that Republic, one of the great art movements 00:03:05.498 --> 00:03:06.956 align:middle line:84% in the 20th century happened, which 00:03:06.956 --> 00:03:09.630 align:middle line:84% is the Russian Supremacists, often confused 00:03:09.630 --> 00:03:11.470 align:middle line:90% with the Constructivists. 00:03:11.470 --> 00:03:19.860 align:middle line:84% And this is set in that time, in the "Year Zero." 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:23.270 align:middle line:90% 00:03:23.270 --> 00:03:26.840 align:middle line:84% "The clock into which you stared as into a mother's face 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:30.980 align:middle line:84% now seen as a time-factory under winter. 00:03:30.980 --> 00:03:34.760 align:middle line:84% Year Zero the mistakes have yet to be invented, and music-- 00:03:34.760 --> 00:03:38.410 align:middle line:84% well, it comes down to inventing flowers. 00:03:38.410 --> 00:03:41.360 align:middle line:84% This they do down at the flower factory over the bridge 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:43.010 align:middle line:84% from the factory where cherries tumble 00:03:43.010 --> 00:03:45.830 align:middle line:84% from the cherry-making machinery. 00:03:45.830 --> 00:03:48.500 align:middle line:84% Nothing is true everything is the case." 00:03:48.500 --> 00:03:49.000 align:middle line:90%