WEBVTT

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And the last piece that I'll
read from this particular book

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is called "The
Last Williamsburg,

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this was About 10 Years Ago."

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I have to say that I keep
having to change the time

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period in that parenthetical.

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It was now more
than 10 years ago.

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But Williamsburg was this
really hip section of Brooklyn

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where they filmed the first
The Real World on MTV,

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so after that episode, after
that series was filmed,

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everybody moved to
Williamsburg and you couldn't

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afford to move to Williamsburg.

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OK, so that's
preface number one.

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Preface number two is there's
a place in here that's

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mentioned called Pete's Candy
Store that still does poetry

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series readings and it was
always a really cool place

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to go to the poetry readings.

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And then there's
this other place

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called PS1, which was
public school number

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one, so it was the first public
school in New York City, PS1,

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but it's now a
contemporary art museum.

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"The Last Williamsburg, this
was About 10 Years Ago."

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There's the Domino Sugar
sign and there's that

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and there's that.

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And she's pointing
out many things

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that I'm beginning to think
she's lovelier than I am.

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And so for the rest
of the weekend,

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I'll be incredibly out
of sorts and distracted,

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quiet, suspicious, and worse.

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See?

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The whole side of that
building there is only

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held up by spindly planks.

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On sidewalks, on roads,
on lampposts, on walls

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somebody has spray painted
"Die, yuppie scum, die."

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and "Yuppie go home."

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The yuppies ride with baskets
full of organic tomatoes

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and bakery bread.

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At Pete's Candy Store you
don't get fries or chips.

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Instead you get
about four or five

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really dry baby carrots, so
dry they are white and have

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cracks and ridges in them.

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The prosciutto is as hard
as a homeless man's foot.

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I want to die by
the time it's over.

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Through these walks he
doesn't hold my hand.

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Over there Manhattan
shines all orange

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in the sunlight, which is
in the west and dying now.

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The bridge some sort
of shade of gray sky.

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The coroner comes once.

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The freight elevator takes us
up to their warehouse apartment

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where all the inhabitants
have been busy all day

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going to the hardware
store all day

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to buy two by fours or
nails or sheeting or paint

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or whatever to make
themselves little boxy rooms.

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They think this is so cool
because they have just

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gotten a degree in architecture
from some state school

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on the West Coast
and all of them

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want to design a building that
is bigger and better than just

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these little rooms.

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All of them do this
except for one loser

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dude, who still doesn't
have walls for his room

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and who still sleeps on a
blow up mattress and everyone

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gossips that he's never
around and just sleeps all day

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and no one knows just
where it is that he goes.

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They complain that her
hair dryer is too loud,

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wakes them all up
in the morning.

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I mention this to her
and she gets very upset.

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I think her lipstick is
too dark for her skin tone.

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On the rooftop, she's
pointing out this and that

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again on the Manhattan
skyline, but I

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feel as if she's only
pointing things out

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to him, the boy of
the incredible shit,

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the boy of the hyacinth.

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He warns me that Paul will
snore very, very loudly

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and all night I listen to
Paul snore very, very loudly

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and I wonder how his
little Asian girlfriend,

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littler and Asianer
than I am, can stand it.

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He and I share a sleeping
bag but don't ever

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touch, all night the beeping
of a truck backing up,

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backing up all night in
the paper factory below us.

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In the morning we eat
pork buns and he tells me,

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Paul made these pork buns.

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And I think, wow,
Paul makes pork buns.

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But no, he just stuck
them in the microwave

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for less than a minute.

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He has taken a massive
shit in Paul's bathroom

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and the little Asian
girl has gone in to pee

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and comes out running
saying, don't come here.

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Don't come here anymore!

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Because apparently he
had taken a massive shit

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and didn't flush or
else try to flush

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and the massive shit
didn't go all the way down.

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The coroner comes twice.

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I wonder how I can be
in love with someone

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who takes massive shits and
then doesn't care to see

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if it goes all the way down.

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The pork bun was not
enough, so we go to diner,

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because that is where
she said we should go.

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So we are finally
going to be alone.

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It's supposed to
be the place to go,

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so he and I go and
he loses his wallet,

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but really he doesn't
lose his wallet

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because when we go back to
diner to try to find it,

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it's just sitting there under
the chair there as if no

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one even bothered, as
if no one even cared.

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So many flowers in
such little vases.

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The coroner comes once,
the coroner comes twice.

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See there the Twin Towers
as if, as if we didn't know.

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I never learned why the
trucks back up all night.

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At PS1, he and she
liked the same things

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because they're both
architects and because I

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am a poet I am excluded
from all of that.

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They like the room that
leaks the fake sunlight.

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I want to die by
the time it's over.

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The coroner we later
learned came for suicide.

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The coroner came
for an overdose.

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A big guy punches
him on the G train.

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Never again will I ever
take the G train, even later

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when I lived in that city.

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He seems embarrassed, below
his eye a purple bruise

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budding like a hyacinth.

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I want to die by
the time it's over,

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the bridge painted a
certain shade of sky.

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And that was the last
time I wrote about him.

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And that felt good.

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