WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.964 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:01.964 --> 00:00:05.900 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.900 --> 00:00:07.055 align:middle line:90% Oh my God. 00:00:07.055 --> 00:00:09.680 align:middle line:84% Usually if I'm nervous and there are a lot of people, I might-- 00:00:09.680 --> 00:00:10.850 align:middle line:90% I don't usually get the giggles. 00:00:10.850 --> 00:00:12.500 align:middle line:84% But that just totally cracked me up. 00:00:12.500 --> 00:00:14.490 align:middle line:84% So I got to take a minute to recover. 00:00:14.490 --> 00:00:16.610 align:middle line:90% Well, that was funny. 00:00:16.610 --> 00:00:17.330 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:00:17.330 --> 00:00:19.290 align:middle line:90% Here's me in my head. 00:00:19.290 --> 00:00:20.990 align:middle line:90% Here's Tucson. 00:00:20.990 --> 00:00:21.710 align:middle line:90% Hello, Tucson. 00:00:21.710 --> 00:00:22.790 align:middle line:90% This is super exciting. 00:00:22.790 --> 00:00:24.500 align:middle line:90% I've had just-- 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:27.650 align:middle line:84% I don't know, just a blessed 24 hour period here. 00:00:27.650 --> 00:00:30.560 align:middle line:84% And seeing all of you makes it feel all the more so. 00:00:30.560 --> 00:00:32.240 align:middle line:84% So thank you so much to my hosts. 00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:33.980 align:middle line:90% Thank you, all of you guys. 00:00:33.980 --> 00:00:36.440 align:middle line:90% And it is true that-- 00:00:36.440 --> 00:00:38.450 align:middle line:84% I don't think I even have a copy of "Pacific." 00:00:38.450 --> 00:00:41.310 align:middle line:84% So you guys made it all the more special. 00:00:41.310 --> 00:00:41.810 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:41.810 --> 00:00:43.370 align:middle line:90% It's lost in the tide. 00:00:43.370 --> 00:00:46.760 align:middle line:90% So anyway, I'm going to-- 00:00:46.760 --> 00:00:49.820 align:middle line:84% let's see, I'm going to read to y'all. 00:00:49.820 --> 00:00:56.222 align:middle line:84% And because of the hybrid nature of the series, 00:00:56.222 --> 00:00:58.880 align:middle line:84% I thought I would risk kind of schizophrenia, 00:00:58.880 --> 00:01:02.120 align:middle line:84% but since we have the hydra headedness as the introduction, 00:01:02.120 --> 00:01:05.420 align:middle line:90% by reading from three things. 00:01:05.420 --> 00:01:06.953 align:middle line:90% And I think-- 00:01:06.953 --> 00:01:08.870 align:middle line:84% I don't know, I was talking with Ander's class 00:01:08.870 --> 00:01:11.690 align:middle line:84% today about projects that seem dissimilar 00:01:11.690 --> 00:01:14.210 align:middle line:84% but they actually kind of one feeds onto the next. 00:01:14.210 --> 00:01:15.230 align:middle line:90% And so I'm-- 00:01:15.230 --> 00:01:17.820 align:middle line:84% I kind of picked some parts that I think do that. 00:01:17.820 --> 00:01:20.480 align:middle line:84% So since so many of you have been kind enough 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:22.160 align:middle line:84% to pay attention to this book, Bluets. 00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:26.250 align:middle line:84% So I thought I would read the end of it to you all. 00:01:26.250 --> 00:01:29.240 align:middle line:90% And it's a book that started-- 00:01:29.240 --> 00:01:32.350 align:middle line:90% 00:01:32.350 --> 00:01:35.470 align:middle line:84% it started when I was very young, collecting blue things. 00:01:35.470 --> 00:01:39.850 align:middle line:84% And then I finally sat down and put all the blue things down. 00:01:39.850 --> 00:01:43.150 align:middle line:84% And it ended up being written in numbered propositions, 00:01:43.150 --> 00:01:43.910 align:middle line:90% I call them. 00:01:43.910 --> 00:01:49.090 align:middle line:84% So there are 240 and I'm going to start at number 222. 00:01:49.090 --> 00:01:51.310 align:middle line:90% So 222. 00:01:51.310 --> 00:01:55.570 align:middle line:84% In January, 2002, camping in the Dry Tortugas 00:01:55.570 --> 00:01:57.190 align:middle line:84% on an island, which is essentially 00:01:57.190 --> 00:02:00.550 align:middle line:84% an abandoned fort 90 miles north of Cuba, 00:02:00.550 --> 00:02:03.670 align:middle line:84% flipping through a copy of Nature Magazine. 00:02:03.670 --> 00:02:05.920 align:middle line:84% I read that the color of the universe (whatever 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:08.139 align:middle line:84% that might mean, and here I gather 00:02:08.139 --> 00:02:10.810 align:middle line:84% it means the result of a survey of the spectrum of light 00:02:10.810 --> 00:02:13.540 align:middle line:84% emitted by around 200,000 galaxies) 00:02:13.540 --> 00:02:15.550 align:middle line:90% has finally been deduced. 00:02:15.550 --> 00:02:18.160 align:middle line:84% The color of the universe, the article says, 00:02:18.160 --> 00:02:20.830 align:middle line:90% is pale turquoise. 00:02:20.830 --> 00:02:23.650 align:middle line:84% Of course, I think, looking out wistfully over the glittering 00:02:23.650 --> 00:02:24.430 align:middle line:90% Gulf. 00:02:24.430 --> 00:02:26.050 align:middle line:90% I knew it all along. 00:02:26.050 --> 00:02:29.530 align:middle line:90% The heart of the world is blue. 00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:31.120 align:middle line:90% 223. 00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:33.100 align:middle line:84% A few months later back at home I 00:02:33.100 --> 00:02:35.920 align:middle line:84% read somewhere else that this result was an error 00:02:35.920 --> 00:02:37.900 align:middle line:90% due to a computer glitch. 00:02:37.900 --> 00:02:41.380 align:middle line:84% The real color of the universe, this new article says, 00:02:41.380 --> 00:02:44.380 align:middle line:90% is light beige. 00:02:44.380 --> 00:02:46.030 align:middle line:90% 224. 00:02:46.030 --> 00:02:48.070 align:middle line:84% Recently, I found out that les bluets 00:02:48.070 --> 00:02:50.202 align:middle line:90% can translate as corn flowers. 00:02:50.202 --> 00:02:52.660 align:middle line:84% Now, you might have think I would have known this all along 00:02:52.660 --> 00:02:55.420 align:middle line:84% as I have been calling this book "Bluets" mispronounced 00:02:55.420 --> 00:02:56.770 align:middle line:90% for years. 00:02:56.770 --> 00:02:58.570 align:middle line:84% But somehow I had only ever heard 00:02:58.570 --> 00:03:01.210 align:middle line:84% it was a small blue flower with a yellow center that 00:03:01.210 --> 00:03:03.940 align:middle line:84% grows abundantly in the countryside of France. 00:03:03.940 --> 00:03:06.700 align:middle line:90% So I thought I'd never seen it. 00:03:06.700 --> 00:03:08.410 align:middle line:90% 225. 00:03:08.410 --> 00:03:10.480 align:middle line:84% Shortly after finding out about the "Bluets" 00:03:10.480 --> 00:03:12.700 align:middle line:84% I have a dream in which I am sent 00:03:12.700 --> 00:03:14.650 align:middle line:90% an abundance of corn flowers. 00:03:14.650 --> 00:03:18.130 align:middle line:84% In this dream it is perfectly all right that is their name. 00:03:18.130 --> 00:03:20.600 align:middle line:84% They do not need to be "Bluets" any longer. 00:03:20.600 --> 00:03:21.640 align:middle line:90% They are American. 00:03:21.640 --> 00:03:22.390 align:middle line:90% They are shaggy. 00:03:22.390 --> 00:03:23.170 align:middle line:90% They're wild. 00:03:23.170 --> 00:03:23.860 align:middle line:90% They're strong. 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:26.020 align:middle line:90% And they do not signify romance. 00:03:26.020 --> 00:03:29.530 align:middle line:84% They were sent by no one in celebration of nothing. 00:03:29.530 --> 00:03:32.380 align:middle line:90% I had known them all along. 00:03:32.380 --> 00:03:33.910 align:middle line:90% 226. 00:03:33.910 --> 00:03:36.730 align:middle line:84% As I collected blues for this project in folders, 00:03:36.730 --> 00:03:39.490 align:middle line:84% in boxes, and notebooks, and memory, 00:03:39.490 --> 00:03:43.000 align:middle line:84% I imagined I would create a blue tome, an encyclopedic 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:46.900 align:middle line:84% compendium of blue observations, thoughts, and facts. 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:48.580 align:middle line:84% But as I lay out my collection now. 00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:51.190 align:middle line:84% What strikes me most is its anemia. 00:03:51.190 --> 00:03:55.930 align:middle line:84% An anemia that seems to stand in direct proportion to my zeal. 00:03:55.930 --> 00:03:58.990 align:middle line:84% I thought I had collected enough blue to build a mountain, 00:03:58.990 --> 00:04:01.030 align:middle line:90% albeit one of detritus. 00:04:01.030 --> 00:04:03.100 align:middle line:84% But it seems to me now as if I have stumbled 00:04:03.100 --> 00:04:06.640 align:middle line:84% upon a pile of thin blue gels scattered on the stage 00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:09.080 align:middle line:84% long after the show has come and gone. 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:12.210 align:middle line:90% The set striked. 00:04:12.210 --> 00:04:13.320 align:middle line:90% 227. 00:04:13.320 --> 00:04:15.760 align:middle line:90% Perhaps this is as it should be. 00:04:15.760 --> 00:04:18.540 align:middle line:84% Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 00:04:18.540 --> 00:04:20.370 align:middle line:84% the first and only book of philosophy 00:04:20.370 --> 00:04:24.240 align:middle line:84% he published in his lifetime, clocks in at 60 pages. 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:27.840 align:middle line:84% And it offers a grand total of seven propositions. 00:04:27.840 --> 00:04:29.370 align:middle line:84% "As to the shortness of this book, 00:04:29.370 --> 00:04:30.810 align:middle line:90% I am awfully sorry for it. 00:04:30.810 --> 00:04:32.050 align:middle line:90% But what can I do?" 00:04:32.050 --> 00:04:33.947 align:middle line:84% Wittgenstein wrote his translator. 00:04:33.947 --> 00:04:36.030 align:middle line:84% "If you were to squeeze me like a lemon," he said, 00:04:36.030 --> 00:04:39.450 align:middle line:84% "you would get nothing more out of me." 00:04:39.450 --> 00:04:40.860 align:middle line:90% 228. 00:04:40.860 --> 00:04:43.410 align:middle line:84% My injured friend is now able to write letters 00:04:43.410 --> 00:04:46.680 align:middle line:84% via voice recognition software to keep her friends 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:49.410 align:middle line:84% abreast of changes in her condition, of which there 00:04:49.410 --> 00:04:50.730 align:middle line:90% have been many. 00:04:50.730 --> 00:04:52.140 align:middle line:90% "My life can change. 00:04:52.140 --> 00:04:54.570 align:middle line:84% My life does change," she asserts. 00:04:54.570 --> 00:04:59.220 align:middle line:84% And it has and it does often in astonishing ways. 00:04:59.220 --> 00:05:01.290 align:middle line:84% Nonetheless, near the end of these letters 00:05:01.290 --> 00:05:03.960 align:middle line:84% she usually includes a short paragraph 00:05:03.960 --> 00:05:06.630 align:middle line:84% that acknowledges her ongoing physical pain 00:05:06.630 --> 00:05:10.320 align:middle line:84% and her intense grief for all she has lost, a grief she 00:05:10.320 --> 00:05:13.650 align:middle line:90% describes as bottomless. 00:05:13.650 --> 00:05:16.200 align:middle line:84% "If I did not write of the difficulties under which 00:05:16.200 --> 00:05:18.780 align:middle line:84% I labor," she writes, "I would fear 00:05:18.780 --> 00:05:20.550 align:middle line:84% to be misrepresenting the grinding 00:05:20.550 --> 00:05:24.520 align:middle line:84% reality of quadriplegia and spinal cord injury. 00:05:24.520 --> 00:05:27.630 align:middle line:84% So here it is, the paragraph that roundly asserts 00:05:27.630 --> 00:05:30.570 align:middle line:90% that I continue to suffer." 00:05:30.570 --> 00:05:31.650 align:middle line:90% 229. 00:05:31.650 --> 00:05:34.200 align:middle line:84% I am writing all of this down in blue ink 00:05:34.200 --> 00:05:36.900 align:middle line:84% so as to remember that all words, not just 00:05:36.900 --> 00:05:40.320 align:middle line:90% some, are written in water. 00:05:40.320 --> 00:05:41.730 align:middle line:90% 230. 00:05:41.730 --> 00:05:44.490 align:middle line:84% Holed up in the North Country for the month of May, 00:05:44.490 --> 00:05:47.730 align:middle line:84% a May which saw but four days of sunshine. 00:05:47.730 --> 00:05:50.310 align:middle line:84% The rest of the month was solid gray, drizzling 00:05:50.310 --> 00:05:52.020 align:middle line:84% or pouring rain, rendering everything 00:05:52.020 --> 00:05:56.580 align:middle line:84% green, rushing and verdant, in short, a nightmare. 00:05:56.580 --> 00:05:59.670 align:middle line:84% Each day I took long walks in my yellow poncho looking for blue, 00:05:59.670 --> 00:06:01.830 align:middle line:90% looking for any blue thing. 00:06:01.830 --> 00:06:06.360 align:middle line:84% I found only tarps, always tarps pinned over stacks of firewood, 00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:08.580 align:middle line:84% a few blue recycling containers kicked over 00:06:08.580 --> 00:06:12.450 align:middle line:84% in the streets, a grayish blue mailbox here and there. 00:06:12.450 --> 00:06:14.550 align:middle line:84% I came back to my dark chamber each night 00:06:14.550 --> 00:06:18.180 align:middle line:84% empty handed, empty eyed as if I had been panning fruitlessly 00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:21.210 align:middle line:84% for gold all day in a cold river. 00:06:21.210 --> 00:06:24.030 align:middle line:84% Stop working against the world, I counseled myself. 00:06:24.030 --> 00:06:25.230 align:middle line:90% Love the one you're with. 00:06:25.230 --> 00:06:27.180 align:middle line:90% Love the color green. 00:06:27.180 --> 00:06:29.340 align:middle line:84% But I did not love the green nor did 00:06:29.340 --> 00:06:32.220 align:middle line:84% I want to have to love it or pretend to love it. 00:06:32.220 --> 00:06:35.670 align:middle line:84% The most I can say is that I abided it. 00:06:35.670 --> 00:06:37.140 align:middle line:90% 231. 00:06:37.140 --> 00:06:40.440 align:middle line:84% That month I touched myself every night in my narrow bed 00:06:40.440 --> 00:06:42.210 align:middle line:90% and came thinking of you. 00:06:42.210 --> 00:06:44.310 align:middle line:84% Knowing all the while that I was planting 00:06:44.310 --> 00:06:47.130 align:middle line:90% the seeds of a fresh disaster. 00:06:47.130 --> 00:06:50.370 align:middle line:84% The disaster did not come then but it did come later. 00:06:50.370 --> 00:06:52.410 align:middle line:84% "Though six days may smoothly run, 00:06:52.410 --> 00:06:56.850 align:middle line:84% the seventh will bring blue devils or a dun," wrote Byron. 00:06:56.850 --> 00:07:00.450 align:middle line:84% The most I can say is that this time I learned my lesson. 00:07:00.450 --> 00:07:02.850 align:middle line:90% I stopped hoping. 00:07:02.850 --> 00:07:04.620 align:middle line:90% 232. 00:07:04.620 --> 00:07:08.400 align:middle line:84% Perhaps in time I will also stop missing you. 00:07:08.400 --> 00:07:10.140 align:middle line:90% 233. 00:07:10.140 --> 00:07:13.950 align:middle line:84% That the future is unknowable is for some God's means 00:07:13.950 --> 00:07:17.370 align:middle line:84% of suturing us in or to the present moment. 00:07:17.370 --> 00:07:20.340 align:middle line:84% For others it is the mark of a malevolence, a sure sign 00:07:20.340 --> 00:07:23.160 align:middle line:84% that our entire existence here is best understood 00:07:23.160 --> 00:07:26.430 align:middle line:90% as a sort of joke or a mistake. 00:07:26.430 --> 00:07:27.750 align:middle line:90% 234. 00:07:27.750 --> 00:07:29.500 align:middle line:90% For me it's neither. 00:07:29.500 --> 00:07:33.150 align:middle line:84% It is simply the way that it is, whether this accident 00:07:33.150 --> 00:07:36.270 align:middle line:84% be a happy or unhappy one is probably a matter of mood 00:07:36.270 --> 00:07:37.770 align:middle line:90% more than anything else. 00:07:37.770 --> 00:07:40.230 align:middle line:84% The difficulty is that "our moods do not believe 00:07:40.230 --> 00:07:43.140 align:middle line:90% in each other," wrote Emerson. 00:07:43.140 --> 00:07:46.050 align:middle line:84% One can wander about the landscape looking for clues, 00:07:46.050 --> 00:07:49.020 align:middle line:84% amassing evidence, but even the highest pile never 00:07:49.020 --> 00:07:51.480 align:middle line:90% seems to decide the case. 00:07:51.480 --> 00:07:53.703 align:middle line:90% 235. 00:07:53.703 --> 00:07:55.620 align:middle line:84% "One thing they don't tell you about the blues 00:07:55.620 --> 00:07:56.250 align:middle line:90% when you got them. 00:07:56.250 --> 00:07:58.417 align:middle line:84% You keep on falling, because there ain't no bottom," 00:07:58.417 --> 00:07:59.730 align:middle line:90% sings Emmylou Harris. 00:07:59.730 --> 00:08:01.650 align:middle line:90% And she may be right. 00:08:01.650 --> 00:08:04.320 align:middle line:84% Perhaps it would help to be told there is no bottom, 00:08:04.320 --> 00:08:08.910 align:middle line:84% save, as they say, wherever and whenever you stop digging. 00:08:08.910 --> 00:08:12.600 align:middle line:84% You have to stand there, spade in hand, cold whiskey 00:08:12.600 --> 00:08:16.440 align:middle line:84% sweat beaded on your brow, eyes misshapen and wild, 00:08:16.440 --> 00:08:20.490 align:middle line:84% some sorry ass grave digger grown bone tired of the trade. 00:08:20.490 --> 00:08:24.900 align:middle line:84% You have to stand there in the dirty rut you dug alone 00:08:24.900 --> 00:08:28.410 align:middle line:84% in the darkness and all its pulsing quiet surrounded 00:08:28.410 --> 00:08:31.700 align:middle line:90% by the scandal of corpses. 00:08:31.700 --> 00:08:33.380 align:middle line:90% 236. 00:08:33.380 --> 00:08:36.380 align:middle line:84% Do not be overly troubled by this fact. 00:08:36.380 --> 00:08:39.559 align:middle line:84% "Nine days out of 10," wrote Merleau-Ponty of Cezanne, 00:08:39.559 --> 00:08:42.020 align:middle line:84% "all he saw around him was the wretchedness 00:08:42.020 --> 00:08:45.560 align:middle line:84% of his empirical life and his unsuccessful attempts, 00:08:45.560 --> 00:08:50.090 align:middle line:84% the debris of an unknown celebration." 00:08:50.090 --> 00:08:51.440 align:middle line:90% 237. 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:55.370 align:middle line:84% In any case, I am no longer counting the days. 00:08:55.370 --> 00:08:56.630 align:middle line:90% 238. 00:08:56.630 --> 00:08:58.920 align:middle line:84% I want you to know if you ever read this. 00:08:58.920 --> 00:09:01.940 align:middle line:84% There was a time when I would rather have had you by my side 00:09:01.940 --> 00:09:04.370 align:middle line:90% than any one of these words. 00:09:04.370 --> 00:09:06.230 align:middle line:84% I would have rather have had you by my side 00:09:06.230 --> 00:09:09.230 align:middle line:90% than all the blue in the world. 00:09:09.230 --> 00:09:10.850 align:middle line:90% 239. 00:09:10.850 --> 00:09:14.240 align:middle line:84% But now you were talking as if love were a consolation. 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:16.670 align:middle line:90% Simone Weil warned otherwise. 00:09:16.670 --> 00:09:19.010 align:middle line:84% "Love is not consolation," they wrote. 00:09:19.010 --> 00:09:21.200 align:middle line:90% "It is light." 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:22.400 align:middle line:90% 240. 00:09:22.400 --> 00:09:25.040 align:middle line:84% All right then, let me try to rephrase. 00:09:25.040 --> 00:09:29.030 align:middle line:84% When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing 00:09:29.030 --> 00:09:31.200 align:middle line:90% but of light." 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:31.700 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:09:31.700 --> 00:09:32.908 align:middle line:90% So that's how that book ends. 00:09:32.908 --> 00:09:33.920 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:09:33.920 --> 00:09:36.070 align:middle line:90% Thank you, guys.