WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.990 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:00.990 --> 00:00:03.470 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:00:03.470 --> 00:00:05.990 align:middle line:84% A few weeks ago, I was sitting at a coffee shop, 00:00:05.990 --> 00:00:07.400 align:middle line:90% reading a book. 00:00:07.400 --> 00:00:09.980 align:middle line:84% A man approached a young woman at the table next to me, 00:00:09.980 --> 00:00:12.560 align:middle line:84% told her he had noticed her from across the patio, 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:14.900 align:middle line:90% and asked if he could sit down. 00:00:14.900 --> 00:00:16.700 align:middle line:90% They began a conversation. 00:00:16.700 --> 00:00:20.450 align:middle line:84% I began to eavesdrop, only now pretending to read my book, 00:00:20.450 --> 00:00:23.420 align:middle line:84% eager to see if sparks would fly. 00:00:23.420 --> 00:00:26.120 align:middle line:84% The man began to tell his life story. 00:00:26.120 --> 00:00:28.460 align:middle line:84% He told her that earlier this year, 00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:30.890 align:middle line:90% his grandmother had passed. 00:00:30.890 --> 00:00:34.370 align:middle line:84% A month after that, his uncle too had passed. 00:00:34.370 --> 00:00:38.690 align:middle line:84% That word exactly, "passed," not passed away, not died. 00:00:38.690 --> 00:00:41.600 align:middle line:84% That was how he referred to death. 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:44.210 align:middle line:84% It was then that I wished that the book I had with me 00:00:44.210 --> 00:00:47.510 align:middle line:84% was Brent Hendricks's A Long Day at the End of the World. 00:00:47.510 --> 00:00:50.000 align:middle line:84% I would have stood up, walked over to them, 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.030 align:middle line:84% and place it on their table like an antique. 00:00:53.030 --> 00:00:56.000 align:middle line:84% For what does it mean to say that someone has passed, to say 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:58.130 align:middle line:90% even that someone has died? 00:00:58.130 --> 00:00:59.750 align:middle line:90% How do we discuss this? 00:00:59.750 --> 00:01:02.120 align:middle line:90% How do we write about it? 00:01:02.120 --> 00:01:03.860 align:middle line:84% We would be wise to write about it 00:01:03.860 --> 00:01:05.900 align:middle line:90% the way Brent Hendricks does. 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:07.490 align:middle line:84% A Long Day at the End of the World 00:01:07.490 --> 00:01:10.070 align:middle line:84% chronicles not just the death of Hendricks's father, 00:01:10.070 --> 00:01:12.350 align:middle line:84% but his re-death, the desecration 00:01:12.350 --> 00:01:14.990 align:middle line:84% of his body alongside hundreds of others 00:01:14.990 --> 00:01:18.380 align:middle line:84% at the Tri-State Crematory in rural Georgia. 00:01:18.380 --> 00:01:22.190 align:middle line:84% It chronicles Hendricks's own journey across the state 00:01:22.190 --> 00:01:24.950 align:middle line:84% to the site of this mass desecration. 00:01:24.950 --> 00:01:30.760 align:middle line:84% His long day's drive in the face of collapsed and crunched time. 00:01:30.760 --> 00:01:34.390 align:middle line:84% Throughout, Hendricks writes without mincing words. 00:01:34.390 --> 00:01:37.690 align:middle line:84% He writes with calmness, and precision, and humor 00:01:37.690 --> 00:01:40.240 align:middle line:84% even when he writes with passion, and fervor, 00:01:40.240 --> 00:01:42.040 align:middle line:90% and undiluted pain-- 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:46.150 align:middle line:84% when he writes a howl, and then a moan, and then a wail. 00:01:46.150 --> 00:01:49.810 align:middle line:84% He writes with conviction, but without blame. 00:01:49.810 --> 00:01:53.530 align:middle line:84% At times, when he observes how the world arranges or collapses 00:01:53.530 --> 00:01:57.070 align:middle line:84% in on itself, he writes with real rapture. 00:01:57.070 --> 00:02:00.910 align:middle line:84% He writes knowing that we become more alive in the opening unto 00:02:00.910 --> 00:02:04.810 align:middle line:84% death, knowing that when we become death for a moment, 00:02:04.810 --> 00:02:07.690 align:middle line:90% it is the most a body can do. 00:02:07.690 --> 00:02:12.670 align:middle line:84% He writes that this, in the end, is you or will be-- 00:02:12.670 --> 00:02:17.050 align:middle line:84% your body, a cenotaph to oblivion's home. 00:02:17.050 --> 00:02:19.930 align:middle line:84% If this sounds like poetry, it's because it is. 00:02:19.930 --> 00:02:23.020 align:middle line:84% It's because Brent Hendricks is not only a non-fiction writer, 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:24.550 align:middle line:90% but a poet. 00:02:24.550 --> 00:02:26.140 align:middle line:90% Brent is many things. 00:02:26.140 --> 00:02:28.150 align:middle line:84% He's a graduate of Harvard Law School, 00:02:28.150 --> 00:02:31.930 align:middle line:84% and the MFA program here at the University of Arizona. 00:02:31.930 --> 00:02:35.080 align:middle line:84% He is the author of Thaumatrope, a book of poems. 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:38.020 align:middle line:84% He is a star tennis player, and musician. 00:02:38.020 --> 00:02:40.840 align:middle line:84% According to our own lovely Kate Bernheimer, 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:44.020 align:middle line:84% Brent spent his adolescent years playing and winning 00:02:44.020 --> 00:02:46.910 align:middle line:84% competitive tennis matches in a tracksuit and headband, 00:02:46.910 --> 00:02:48.670 align:middle line:84% straight out of The Royal Tenenbaums, 00:02:48.670 --> 00:02:51.730 align:middle line:84% with the same haircut he has now. 00:02:51.730 --> 00:02:55.450 align:middle line:84% And early in the 21st century, he played keyboards 00:02:55.450 --> 00:02:57.910 align:middle line:84% in a Portland, Oregon band called Television Eye, 00:02:57.910 --> 00:03:02.580 align:middle line:84% opening for Richmond Fontaine and The Dandy Warhols. 00:03:02.580 --> 00:03:05.950 align:middle line:84% A thaumatrope, by the way, is a visual illusion, 00:03:05.950 --> 00:03:08.830 align:middle line:84% a toy card with a different picture on each side. 00:03:08.830 --> 00:03:12.880 align:middle line:84% For example, a bird on one and a cage on the other. 00:03:12.880 --> 00:03:16.030 align:middle line:84% When the card is twirled, the images combine. 00:03:16.030 --> 00:03:18.550 align:middle line:84% The bird appears contained in the cage. 00:03:18.550 --> 00:03:22.300 align:middle line:84% The seemingly disparate is housed in one another. 00:03:22.300 --> 00:03:26.110 align:middle line:84% Because of this, a thaumatrope was known as a wonder turner. 00:03:26.110 --> 00:03:29.420 align:middle line:90% 00:03:29.420 --> 00:03:31.760 align:middle line:84% What's most remarkable about A Long Day 00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:33.320 align:middle line:84% at the End of the World is what's 00:03:33.320 --> 00:03:37.610 align:middle line:84% most unremarkable about the man at the coffee shop story. 00:03:37.610 --> 00:03:41.120 align:middle line:84% That man told a story about himself only. 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:43.400 align:middle line:84% But as a long day progresses, we see 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:46.400 align:middle line:84% all that is really contained in Hendricks's writing. 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:48.590 align:middle line:84% We see the South and its history, 00:03:48.590 --> 00:03:52.100 align:middle line:84% down to Hernando de Soto and the roadside wildflowers. 00:03:52.100 --> 00:03:56.150 align:middle line:84% We see the way we have treated and tortured the land. 00:03:56.150 --> 00:03:59.750 align:middle line:84% Through the alchemy of images, we see a story of Revelation 00:03:59.750 --> 00:04:02.600 align:middle line:90% and ultimately apocalypse. 00:04:02.600 --> 00:04:06.350 align:middle line:84% And who turns this tale into a rising summons? 00:04:06.350 --> 00:04:09.020 align:middle line:84% I'm going to do what Brent Hendricks never does. 00:04:09.020 --> 00:04:12.920 align:middle line:84% And that is make the easy, obvious analogy. 00:04:12.920 --> 00:04:14.885 align:middle line:84% Brent Hendricks is a wonder turner. 00:04:14.885 --> 00:04:17.420 align:middle line:90% 00:04:17.420 --> 00:04:20.510 align:middle line:84% It is my honor to introduce to you the rapturous, 00:04:20.510 --> 00:04:23.540 align:middle line:84% the revelatory, the alchemical, the disarmingly 00:04:23.540 --> 00:04:26.870 align:middle line:84% tall and strikingly handsome Brent Hendricks. 00:04:26.870 --> 00:04:29.320 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]