WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.890 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:01.890 --> 00:00:05.230 align:middle line:84% So, you know, I wrote this book on cruelty and it was-- 00:00:05.230 --> 00:00:09.710 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.710 --> 00:00:11.370 align:middle line:84% it really began as a, kind of, catalog 00:00:11.370 --> 00:00:12.620 align:middle line:90% of different kinds of cruelty. 00:00:12.620 --> 00:00:14.540 align:middle line:84% Like the cruelty of brutal honesty, like saying, 00:00:14.540 --> 00:00:15.283 align:middle line:90% no you smell bad. 00:00:15.283 --> 00:00:15.950 align:middle line:90% No, you just do. 00:00:15.950 --> 00:00:16.617 align:middle line:90% I'm just saying. 00:00:16.617 --> 00:00:18.110 align:middle line:84% You know, like that kind of thing. 00:00:18.110 --> 00:00:19.370 align:middle line:90% It had like brutal honesty. 00:00:19.370 --> 00:00:23.150 align:middle line:84% It had the cruelty of, kind of, re-enactments-- 00:00:23.150 --> 00:00:25.190 align:middle line:84% the, kind of, faux catharsis principle. 00:00:25.190 --> 00:00:29.270 align:middle line:84% It had cruelty of defacement, forms of effacement and in art. 00:00:29.270 --> 00:00:31.280 align:middle line:90% It had a lot of different-- 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:33.770 align:middle line:84% the cruelty of the resurrection and crucifixion. 00:00:33.770 --> 00:00:37.910 align:middle line:84% Not what you think [CHUCKLES] on that account 00:00:37.910 --> 00:00:39.410 align:middle line:84% but anyway I won't go into all that. 00:00:39.410 --> 00:00:43.550 align:middle line:84% But it was-- but as I was describing 00:00:43.550 --> 00:00:46.147 align:middle line:84% in one of the classes I visited, I think 00:00:46.147 --> 00:00:48.230 align:middle line:84% it was today's class actually, while I was writing 00:00:48.230 --> 00:00:53.690 align:middle line:84% about all these very claustrophobic forms of cruelty 00:00:53.690 --> 00:00:57.200 align:middle line:84% this idea of this space or this-- enough room 00:00:57.200 --> 00:00:58.520 align:middle line:90% to move but not fall. 00:00:58.520 --> 00:01:01.520 align:middle line:84% Kind of, kept getting summoned beside this claustrophobia 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:03.813 align:middle line:84% and that's why that book ends with Winnicott and John 00:01:03.813 --> 00:01:05.480 align:middle line:84% Cage talking about that, kind of, space. 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:09.560 align:middle line:84% So the book that I'm working on now is-- 00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:10.760 align:middle line:90% kind of, takes up-- 00:01:10.760 --> 00:01:13.580 align:middle line:84% it, kind of, takes up with Winnicott where it left off 00:01:13.580 --> 00:01:15.830 align:middle line:84% and with this idea of the holding container. 00:01:15.830 --> 00:01:18.650 align:middle line:90% And it is-- 00:01:18.650 --> 00:01:22.490 align:middle line:84% I won't say too much about it but it's, kind of, 00:01:22.490 --> 00:01:25.910 align:middle line:84% a double love story for my partner and for a baby 00:01:25.910 --> 00:01:32.270 align:middle line:90% that we had about 20 months ago. 00:01:32.270 --> 00:01:34.880 align:middle line:84% And it, kind of, weaves in between-- there's 00:01:34.880 --> 00:01:37.130 align:middle line:84% also a love, kind of, a love letter 00:01:37.130 --> 00:01:39.680 align:middle line:84% to Eve Sedgwick who was a teacher of mine 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:44.930 align:middle line:84% and a great hero of queer theory who died of breast cancer 00:01:44.930 --> 00:01:46.190 align:middle line:90% while I was writing. 00:01:46.190 --> 00:01:49.712 align:middle line:84% And some other heroes along the way. 00:01:49.712 --> 00:01:51.590 align:middle line:90% So it's, kind of, a-- 00:01:51.590 --> 00:01:54.190 align:middle line:90% it's a weave of-- 00:01:54.190 --> 00:01:56.600 align:middle line:84% it braids different threads than some of the ones 00:01:56.600 --> 00:01:59.450 align:middle line:84% I've been touching on so far tonight. 00:01:59.450 --> 00:02:02.570 align:middle line:84% So maybe it's another head and I'm 00:02:02.570 --> 00:02:06.590 align:middle line:84% going to read you guys about, I don't know, eight pages 00:02:06.590 --> 00:02:09.979 align:middle line:90% from this manuscript so-- 00:02:09.979 --> 00:02:12.530 align:middle line:90% This is near the beginning. 00:02:12.530 --> 00:02:14.660 align:middle line:90% October 2007. 00:02:14.660 --> 00:02:16.730 align:middle line:84% The Santa Ana winds are shredding the bark 00:02:16.730 --> 00:02:19.940 align:middle line:84% off the eucalyptus trees in long white stripes. 00:02:19.940 --> 00:02:22.190 align:middle line:84% A friend suggests I tattoo the words, 00:02:22.190 --> 00:02:25.340 align:middle line:84% hard to get, across my knuckles as a reminder of this 00:02:25.340 --> 00:02:27.590 align:middle line:90% poses possible fruits. 00:02:27.590 --> 00:02:29.600 align:middle line:84% Instead the words, I love you, come tumbling out 00:02:29.600 --> 00:02:32.210 align:middle line:84% of my mouth in an incantation, the first time you fucked me 00:02:32.210 --> 00:02:34.880 align:middle line:84% in the ass, my face smashed against the cement 00:02:34.880 --> 00:02:37.670 align:middle line:84% floor of your dank and charming bachelor pad. 00:02:37.670 --> 00:02:39.950 align:middle line:84% You had Molloy by your bedside, and a pile 00:02:39.950 --> 00:02:43.040 align:middle line:84% of cocks in a shadowy unused shower stall. 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:45.110 align:middle line:90% Does it get any better? 00:02:45.110 --> 00:02:46.580 align:middle line:90% What's your pleasure? you asked. 00:02:46.580 --> 00:02:50.160 align:middle line:84% And then you stuck around for an answer. 00:02:50.160 --> 00:02:52.160 align:middle line:84% A friend came over the other day and pulled down 00:02:52.160 --> 00:02:53.300 align:middle line:90% a mug for coffee. 00:02:53.300 --> 00:02:55.610 align:middle line:84% A mug that was a gift from my mother. 00:02:55.610 --> 00:02:57.260 align:middle line:84% It's one of those mugs you can purchase 00:02:57.260 --> 00:03:00.740 align:middle line:84% online from Snapfish with the photo of your choice emblazoned 00:03:00.740 --> 00:03:01.790 align:middle line:90% on it. 00:03:01.790 --> 00:03:03.740 align:middle line:84% I was horrified when I received it 00:03:03.740 --> 00:03:05.630 align:middle line:90% but it's the biggest mug we own. 00:03:05.630 --> 00:03:07.670 align:middle line:84% So sometimes it fits the bill like 00:03:07.670 --> 00:03:09.800 align:middle line:84% if you're in the mood for a trough of warm milk 00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:11.480 align:middle line:90% or something. 00:03:11.480 --> 00:03:13.430 align:middle line:84% Wow, my friend said filling up the mug. 00:03:13.430 --> 00:03:15.935 align:middle line:84% I've never seen anything so heteronormative in all my life. 00:03:15.935 --> 00:03:18.080 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:21.110 align:middle line:84% The photo on the mug depicts Harry, Harry's first son Lenny, 00:03:21.110 --> 00:03:23.030 align:middle line:84% and me all dressed up to go to the Nutcracker 00:03:23.030 --> 00:03:24.470 align:middle line:90% at Christmas time. 00:03:24.470 --> 00:03:27.110 align:middle line:84% A ritual that was important to my mother when I was little 00:03:27.110 --> 00:03:28.610 align:middle line:84% and which we have revived now that I 00:03:28.610 --> 00:03:30.350 align:middle line:90% have children in my life. 00:03:30.350 --> 00:03:32.000 align:middle line:84% In the photo I'm seven months pregnant 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.910 align:middle line:84% and wearing a high ponytail in a leopard print dress. 00:03:34.910 --> 00:03:36.740 align:middle line:84% Harry and Lenny are wearing matching 00:03:36.740 --> 00:03:38.588 align:middle line:90% dark suits and look dashing. 00:03:38.588 --> 00:03:40.130 align:middle line:84% We're standing in front of the mantel 00:03:40.130 --> 00:03:42.350 align:middle line:84% at my mother's house, which has monogrammed 00:03:42.350 --> 00:03:43.940 align:middle line:90% stockings hanging from it. 00:03:43.940 --> 00:03:45.980 align:middle line:90% We look happy. 00:03:45.980 --> 00:03:47.450 align:middle line:84% The struggles it has taken to make 00:03:47.450 --> 00:03:52.160 align:middle line:84% this happiness, this family, are not pictured on the mug. 00:03:52.160 --> 00:03:55.010 align:middle line:84% But what about it is the essence of heteronormativity? 00:03:55.010 --> 00:03:59.480 align:middle line:84% That my mother made the mug on a bougie service like Snapfish? 00:03:59.480 --> 00:04:02.240 align:middle line:84% That we're clearly participating or acquiescing for the moment 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:04.790 align:middle line:84% into participating into a long tradition of families 00:04:04.790 --> 00:04:08.300 align:middle line:84% being photographed at holiday time in their holiday best. 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:10.580 align:middle line:84% That my mother made me the mug in part to indicate 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:14.240 align:middle line:84% she recognizes my tribe as family. 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:15.560 align:middle line:90% What about my pregnancy? 00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:17.779 align:middle line:84% Is that, inherently, heteronormative, 00:04:17.779 --> 00:04:21.440 align:middle line:84% or is the presumed opposition of queerness and procreation, 00:04:21.440 --> 00:04:24.230 align:middle line:84% or to put a finer edge on it, maternity, 00:04:24.230 --> 00:04:27.320 align:middle line:84% more of a reactionary embrace of how things have shaken down 00:04:27.320 --> 00:04:29.330 align:middle line:84% for queers rather than the bearer 00:04:29.330 --> 00:04:31.880 align:middle line:90% of some ontological truth. 00:04:31.880 --> 00:04:34.520 align:middle line:84% As more queers have kids will the presumed opposition 00:04:34.520 --> 00:04:35.630 align:middle line:90% wither away? 00:04:35.630 --> 00:04:37.340 align:middle line:90% Will you miss it? 00:04:37.340 --> 00:04:40.100 align:middle line:84% Is there something, inherently, queer about pregnancy itself? 00:04:40.100 --> 00:04:43.400 align:middle line:84% Insofar as it radically alters one's normal state 00:04:43.400 --> 00:04:46.700 align:middle line:84% and occasions an intimacy with and radical alienation 00:04:46.700 --> 00:04:48.800 align:middle line:90% from one's body. 00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:52.220 align:middle line:84% How can the experience so profoundly strange and wild 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:55.010 align:middle line:84% and transformative also symbolize or enact 00:04:55.010 --> 00:04:57.050 align:middle line:90% the ultimate conformity? 00:04:57.050 --> 00:04:59.960 align:middle line:84% Or is this simply another instance of disqualifying 00:04:59.960 --> 00:05:03.020 align:middle line:84% anything tied too closely to the female animal 00:05:03.020 --> 00:05:05.660 align:middle line:84% from the privileged term, in this case, 00:05:05.660 --> 00:05:08.600 align:middle line:90% non-conformity, radicality. 00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:11.810 align:middle line:84% What about the fact that Harry's neither male nor female. 00:05:11.810 --> 00:05:14.270 align:middle line:84% I'm a special, a two for one, his character 00:05:14.270 --> 00:05:18.140 align:middle line:84% explains in his butch buddy classic By Hook or by Crook. 00:05:18.140 --> 00:05:21.980 align:middle line:84% What qualifies as a mining of older nuclear family kinship 00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:22.820 align:middle line:90% arrangements? 00:05:22.820 --> 00:05:24.260 align:middle line:90% That's a Judith Butler line. 00:05:24.260 --> 00:05:27.140 align:middle line:84% And what is a radical rethinking of kinship? 00:05:27.140 --> 00:05:28.490 align:middle line:90% How can you tell? 00:05:28.490 --> 00:05:29.970 align:middle line:90% Who's to tell? 00:05:29.970 --> 00:05:33.140 align:middle line:84% Tell your girlfriend to find a different kid to play house 00:05:33.140 --> 00:05:38.090 align:middle line:84% with, your ex said over and over again after we moved him. 00:05:38.090 --> 00:05:40.370 align:middle line:84% To assert oneself aligned or suffused 00:05:40.370 --> 00:05:42.530 align:middle line:84% with the real at the expense of others 00:05:42.530 --> 00:05:45.680 align:middle line:84% is an attempt to bar them, to shrivel them, 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:48.740 align:middle line:84% but any fixed conviction of identity or realness 00:05:48.740 --> 00:05:51.560 align:middle line:90% also has a finger in psychosis. 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:53.750 align:middle line:84% The madman is not only a beggar who 00:05:53.750 --> 00:05:55.940 align:middle line:84% thinks he is a king, wrote Lacan, 00:05:55.940 --> 00:05:59.900 align:middle line:84% but also a king who thinks he is a king. 00:05:59.900 --> 00:06:02.570 align:middle line:84% Perhaps this is why Winnicott's notion of feeling real 00:06:02.570 --> 00:06:04.550 align:middle line:90% is so moving to me. 00:06:04.550 --> 00:06:06.740 align:middle line:90% One can aspire to feel real. 00:06:06.740 --> 00:06:08.990 align:middle line:84% One can help others to feel real. 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:14.660 align:middle line:84% And one can oneself feel real but no one has to be it. 00:06:14.660 --> 00:06:18.230 align:middle line:84% Alice Notley called money zinnias. 00:06:18.230 --> 00:06:20.960 align:middle line:84% Gertrude Stein called orgasms or bowel movements, 00:06:20.960 --> 00:06:25.610 align:middle line:84% depending on which scholar you're reading, cows. 00:06:25.610 --> 00:06:27.950 align:middle line:84% Our kids call Harry, Poppy, and know him 00:06:27.950 --> 00:06:31.310 align:middle line:90% as to be an in-betweener. 00:06:31.310 --> 00:06:32.930 align:middle line:84% A day or two after my pronouncement, 00:06:32.930 --> 00:06:35.000 align:middle line:84% now wild with vulnerability, I sent you 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:37.730 align:middle line:84% the passage from Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes in which 00:06:37.730 --> 00:06:40.730 align:middle line:84% Barthes describes how the subject who utters the phrase, 00:06:40.730 --> 00:06:43.400 align:middle line:84% I love you, is like, quote, "the Argonaut 00:06:43.400 --> 00:06:45.350 align:middle line:84% renewing its ship during its voyage 00:06:45.350 --> 00:06:47.390 align:middle line:90% without changing its name." 00:06:47.390 --> 00:06:50.240 align:middle line:84% Just as the Argo's parts may get changed out over time 00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:53.900 align:middle line:84% but the boat is still called the Argo, whenever the lover utters 00:06:53.900 --> 00:06:55.790 align:middle line:84% the phrase, I love you, its meaning must 00:06:55.790 --> 00:06:59.570 align:middle line:84% be renewed by each use, as, Barthes says, quote, 00:06:59.570 --> 00:07:02.840 align:middle line:84% "the task of love and of language is to give to one 00:07:02.840 --> 00:07:06.050 align:middle line:84% and the same phrase inflections which will be forever new." 00:07:06.050 --> 00:07:07.610 align:middle line:90% End quote. 00:07:07.610 --> 00:07:09.440 align:middle line:84% I thought the passage was romantic. 00:07:09.440 --> 00:07:11.510 align:middle line:90% You thought it was a retraction. 00:07:11.510 --> 00:07:15.260 align:middle line:84% In retrospect, I guess, it was both. 00:07:15.260 --> 00:07:18.590 align:middle line:84% My friend later suggests I order a mug for my mother in response 00:07:18.590 --> 00:07:22.010 align:middle line:84% to her mug that features a photo of Iggy's head crowning 00:07:22.010 --> 00:07:23.210 align:middle line:90% in all its bloody glory. 00:07:23.210 --> 00:07:24.290 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:24.290 --> 00:07:26.390 align:middle line:90% This is a funny friend. 00:07:26.390 --> 00:07:28.175 align:middle line:84% I had told her earlier that day I 00:07:28.175 --> 00:07:30.050 align:middle line:84% was vaguely hurt that my mother hadn't wanted 00:07:30.050 --> 00:07:31.760 align:middle line:90% to look at my birth photos. 00:07:31.760 --> 00:07:33.740 align:middle line:84% Harry reminded me, then, that few people ever 00:07:33.740 --> 00:07:36.130 align:middle line:84% want to look at anyone's birth photos. 00:07:36.130 --> 00:07:37.880 align:middle line:84% And I was forced to admit my past feelings 00:07:37.880 --> 00:07:39.680 align:middle line:84% about other people's birth photos bore out 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:41.660 align:middle line:90% the truth of this statement. 00:07:41.660 --> 00:07:44.390 align:middle line:84% But in my postpartum haze I felt as though giving birth to Iggy 00:07:44.390 --> 00:07:46.265 align:middle line:84% was such an achievement and doesn't my mother 00:07:46.265 --> 00:07:48.410 align:middle line:84% like to be proud of my achievements? 00:07:48.410 --> 00:07:50.550 align:middle line:84% She laminated the page in the New York Times 00:07:50.550 --> 00:07:54.260 align:middle line:84% that listed me as a Guggenheim recipient, for god's sake. 00:07:54.260 --> 00:07:56.910 align:middle line:84% Unable to throw the Guggenheim placemat away, 00:07:56.910 --> 00:08:00.770 align:middle line:84% which would signify ingratitude, but not knowing what else 00:08:00.770 --> 00:08:03.890 align:middle line:84% to do with it, I've since placed it below Iggy's high chair 00:08:03.890 --> 00:08:06.705 align:middle line:84% to catch the food that flows downward. 00:08:06.705 --> 00:08:08.330 align:middle line:84% Given that the fellowship, essentially, 00:08:08.330 --> 00:08:11.030 align:middle line:84% paid for his conception, each time I sponge 00:08:11.030 --> 00:08:14.120 align:middle line:84% tidbits of shredded wheat or block broccoli florets off it 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:15.650 align:middle line:90% I feel a loose sense of justice. 00:08:15.650 --> 00:08:17.900 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:17.900 --> 00:08:19.610 align:middle line:84% About two months after our first date 00:08:19.610 --> 00:08:21.740 align:middle line:84% we spent Christmas together in a seedy hotel 00:08:21.740 --> 00:08:23.720 align:middle line:90% in downtown San Francisco. 00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:25.850 align:middle line:84% I had booked the room for us online 00:08:25.850 --> 00:08:28.130 align:middle line:84% hoping my booking the room and our time in the room 00:08:28.130 --> 00:08:30.500 align:middle line:90% would make you love me forever. 00:08:30.500 --> 00:08:32.225 align:middle line:84% It turned out to be one of those hotels 00:08:32.225 --> 00:08:34.100 align:middle line:84% that book for cheap because it was undergoing 00:08:34.100 --> 00:08:37.580 align:middle line:84% an astonishingly rude renovation and because it was smack 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:40.190 align:middle line:84% in the middle of the cracked out Tenderloin. 00:08:40.190 --> 00:08:41.120 align:middle line:90% No matter. 00:08:41.120 --> 00:08:43.850 align:middle line:84% We had other business to attend to. 00:08:43.850 --> 00:08:45.740 align:middle line:84% As we attended to it the sun filtered 00:08:45.740 --> 00:08:48.020 align:middle line:84% in through the skanky Venetian blinds 00:08:48.020 --> 00:08:50.690 align:middle line:84% which barely obscured the construction workers hammering 00:08:50.690 --> 00:08:53.060 align:middle line:90% away just steps outside. 00:08:53.060 --> 00:08:56.390 align:middle line:84% Just don't kill me, I said as you took off your leather belt. 00:08:56.390 --> 00:09:00.500 align:middle line:84% You cracked a big smile, charmed. 00:09:00.500 --> 00:09:04.160 align:middle line:84% In his book Bubbles, German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk 00:09:04.160 --> 00:09:06.710 align:middle line:84% elaborates something he calls quote, "The basic rule 00:09:06.710 --> 00:09:09.800 align:middle line:90% of a negative gynecology." 00:09:09.800 --> 00:09:13.160 align:middle line:84% This rule holds quote, "that one must reject the temptation 00:09:13.160 --> 00:09:16.940 align:middle line:84% to extricate oneself from the affair with outside views 00:09:16.940 --> 00:09:18.950 align:middle line:90% of a mother-child relationship. 00:09:18.950 --> 00:09:22.100 align:middle line:84% Where the concern is insight into intimate connections, 00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:26.720 align:middle line:84% outside observation is already the fundamental mistake." 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:29.450 align:middle line:84% I cheer this appeal to immersive experience. 00:09:29.450 --> 00:09:31.700 align:middle line:84% This resistance to interpretation. 00:09:31.700 --> 00:09:35.780 align:middle line:84% This a priori rejection of external mastery. 00:09:35.780 --> 00:09:37.910 align:middle line:84% At the same time I am annoyed with myself 00:09:37.910 --> 00:09:41.090 align:middle line:84% for consulting a 700 page treatise by a male heavyweight 00:09:41.090 --> 00:09:43.580 align:middle line:84% to tell me something revelatory about the bubble of mother 00:09:43.580 --> 00:09:46.850 align:middle line:84% and child in which I am currently ensconced. 00:09:46.850 --> 00:09:50.660 align:middle line:84% I have no desire to extricate myself from this bubble. 00:09:50.660 --> 00:09:53.870 align:middle line:84% But, literally, physically, I cannot hold my baby at the same 00:09:53.870 --> 00:09:56.480 align:middle line:90% time as I write. 00:09:56.480 --> 00:09:59.090 align:middle line:84% Winnicott wrote, "Sometimes mothers 00:09:59.090 --> 00:10:01.190 align:middle line:84% find it alarming to think that what they are doing 00:10:01.190 --> 00:10:04.430 align:middle line:84% is so important and in that case it is better not to tell them. 00:10:04.430 --> 00:10:05.990 align:middle line:84% It makes them self-conscious and then 00:10:05.990 --> 00:10:07.730 align:middle line:90% they do everything less well. 00:10:07.730 --> 00:10:10.790 align:middle line:84% When a mother has a capacity quite simply to be a mother 00:10:10.790 --> 00:10:12.407 align:middle line:90% we must never interfere. 00:10:12.407 --> 00:10:14.240 align:middle line:84% She will not be able to fight for her rights 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:17.530 align:middle line:84% because she will not understand." 00:10:17.530 --> 00:10:19.280 align:middle line:84% As if mothers thought they were performing 00:10:19.280 --> 00:10:21.290 align:middle line:84% their ordinary devotions in the wild, 00:10:21.290 --> 00:10:24.110 align:middle line:84% and then are stunned to look up, and see a peanut crunching 00:10:24.110 --> 00:10:27.440 align:middle line:90% crowd across the moat. 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:30.433 align:middle line:84% After I sent you the Barthes passage I tried again. 00:10:30.433 --> 00:10:31.850 align:middle line:84% This time I sent you a little poem 00:10:31.850 --> 00:10:34.760 align:middle line:84% by Michael Ondaatje titled "Skin Boat." 00:10:34.760 --> 00:10:37.850 align:middle line:90% This is the poem "Skin Boat." 00:10:37.850 --> 00:10:39.560 align:middle line:90% "Kissing the stomach. 00:10:39.560 --> 00:10:42.290 align:middle line:90% Kissing your scarred skin boat. 00:10:42.290 --> 00:10:45.650 align:middle line:84% History is what you've traveled on and take with you. 00:10:45.650 --> 00:10:48.230 align:middle line:84% We've each had our stomachs kissed by strangers 00:10:48.230 --> 00:10:49.640 align:middle line:90% to the other. 00:10:49.640 --> 00:10:54.470 align:middle line:84% As for me, I bless everyone who kissed you here." 00:10:54.470 --> 00:10:56.810 align:middle line:84% I didn't send this poem to you because I had in any way 00:10:56.810 --> 00:10:58.610 align:middle line:90% achieved its serenity. 00:10:58.610 --> 00:11:01.450 align:middle line:84% I sent it with the aspiration that one day I might. 00:11:01.450 --> 00:11:03.200 align:middle line:84% Because by the time you're falling in love 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:04.640 align:middle line:84% anew if with both parties have had 00:11:04.640 --> 00:11:07.520 align:middle line:84% two or three or more decades of relations prior, 00:11:07.520 --> 00:11:10.580 align:middle line:84% what other sentiment could there be in contending 00:11:10.580 --> 00:11:12.200 align:middle line:90% with each other's pasts. 00:11:12.200 --> 00:11:13.910 align:middle line:90% Repression? 00:11:13.910 --> 00:11:17.660 align:middle line:84% Alas, we tried that too, even more than we tried skin boat. 00:11:17.660 --> 00:11:19.790 align:middle line:90% All your goddamn tattoos. 00:11:19.790 --> 00:11:22.400 align:middle line:84% Early on we made a romantic visit to Dr. Tattoff 00:11:22.400 --> 00:11:24.350 align:middle line:84% on Wilshire Boulevard, both of us 00:11:24.350 --> 00:11:27.710 align:middle line:84% giddy at the prospect of clearing your slate. 00:11:27.710 --> 00:11:30.290 align:middle line:84% We left crestfallen at the price, 00:11:30.290 --> 00:11:32.360 align:middle line:84% the improbability of ever, completely, 00:11:32.360 --> 00:11:35.360 align:middle line:90% eradicating the ink. 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:37.250 align:middle line:84% The jacket of the book Bubbles proclaims 00:11:37.250 --> 00:11:40.190 align:middle line:84% it to be a bookend to Heidegger's Being and Time. 00:11:40.190 --> 00:11:42.530 align:middle line:84% This, despite its ridiculous name 00:11:42.530 --> 00:11:45.950 align:middle line:84% which it shares with Michael Jackson's pet chimpanzee, 00:11:45.950 --> 00:11:47.930 align:middle line:90% Bubbles. 00:11:47.930 --> 00:11:51.230 align:middle line:84% Michael Jackson doted on Bubbles but Michael Jackson 00:11:51.230 --> 00:11:53.330 align:middle line:84% would also rotate the chimp out of service 00:11:53.330 --> 00:11:56.510 align:middle line:84% as it aged and replaced it with a new younger monkey who 00:11:56.510 --> 00:11:58.550 align:middle line:90% he also always named, Bubbles. 00:11:58.550 --> 00:12:01.070 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:01.070 --> 00:12:04.190 align:middle line:84% So we met in October and by February we'd moved in. 00:12:04.190 --> 00:12:07.070 align:middle line:84% It was one of those moments in a life when we both knew. 00:12:07.070 --> 00:12:09.890 align:middle line:84% We've had some hard times since and it's possible some of them 00:12:09.890 --> 00:12:12.230 align:middle line:84% had to do with our moving fast at the start 00:12:12.230 --> 00:12:13.970 align:middle line:84% but we weren't wrong about what we knew. 00:12:13.970 --> 00:12:16.580 align:middle line:84% And we still know what we knew and we know it differently 00:12:16.580 --> 00:12:17.580 align:middle line:90% but we still know it. 00:12:17.580 --> 00:12:20.090 align:middle line:84% And it's the same thing that we know. 00:12:20.090 --> 00:12:21.740 align:middle line:84% And so we found the house on a hill 00:12:21.740 --> 00:12:24.980 align:middle line:84% with gleaming dark wood floors and a view of a mountain. 00:12:24.980 --> 00:12:27.140 align:middle line:84% The day we got the keys we slept together 00:12:27.140 --> 00:12:30.680 align:middle line:84% on the wood floor of what would become our first bedroom. 00:12:30.680 --> 00:12:32.930 align:middle line:84% I will never forget that green hill. 00:12:32.930 --> 00:12:35.000 align:middle line:84% It may have been a pile of rough scrub 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:38.060 align:middle line:84% with a stagnant pond at its top, but for two years 00:12:38.060 --> 00:12:40.430 align:middle line:90% it was our mountain. 00:12:40.430 --> 00:12:43.460 align:middle line:84% And then just like that I was folding your son's laundry. 00:12:43.460 --> 00:12:45.290 align:middle line:90% He had just turned three. 00:12:45.290 --> 00:12:48.800 align:middle line:84% Such little socks, such little underwear, I marveled at them. 00:12:48.800 --> 00:12:51.830 align:middle line:84% Made him lukewarm cocoa every morning with as much powder as 00:12:51.830 --> 00:12:53.810 align:middle line:84% could fit in the rim of my fingernail. 00:12:53.810 --> 00:12:56.810 align:middle line:84% Played fallen soldier with him for hours on end. 00:12:56.810 --> 00:12:59.690 align:middle line:84% And fallen soldier he would collapse with all his gear on. 00:12:59.690 --> 00:13:02.300 align:middle line:84% Sequined chain mail, hat, sword, sheath, 00:13:02.300 --> 00:13:05.270 align:middle line:84% a limb wounded in battle tied up in a scarf. 00:13:05.270 --> 00:13:06.980 align:middle line:84% I was the good blue witch who had 00:13:06.980 --> 00:13:08.690 align:middle line:84% to sprinkle healing dust all over him 00:13:08.690 --> 00:13:10.580 align:middle line:90% to bring him back to life. 00:13:10.580 --> 00:13:12.200 align:middle line:90% I had a twin who was evil. 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:15.230 align:middle line:84% The evil twin had felled him with her poisonous blue powder 00:13:15.230 --> 00:13:17.690 align:middle line:90% but now I was here to heal him. 00:13:17.690 --> 00:13:18.860 align:middle line:90% He lay there motionless. 00:13:18.860 --> 00:13:20.030 align:middle line:90% His eyes closed. 00:13:20.030 --> 00:13:23.690 align:middle line:84% The faintest smile on his face while I recited my monologue 00:13:23.690 --> 00:13:25.560 align:middle line:84% but where could the soldier have come from? 00:13:25.560 --> 00:13:27.110 align:middle line:90% How did he get so far from home? 00:13:27.110 --> 00:13:28.460 align:middle line:90% Is he badly wounded? 00:13:28.460 --> 00:13:31.160 align:middle line:84% Will he be kind or fierce when he awakens? 00:13:31.160 --> 00:13:35.150 align:middle line:84% Will he know I'm good or will he mistake me for my evil twin? 00:13:35.150 --> 00:13:38.700 align:middle line:84% What can I say that will bring him back to life? 00:13:38.700 --> 00:13:41.330 align:middle line:84% You've punctured my solitude, I kept telling you. 00:13:41.330 --> 00:13:42.920 align:middle line:90% This was mostly a relief. 00:13:42.920 --> 00:13:46.160 align:middle line:84% My solitude had grown ripe for puncturing. 00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:48.020 align:middle line:84% As painful and strange as it was I 00:13:48.020 --> 00:13:50.000 align:middle line:84% had learned immeasurably from it. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:52.160 align:middle line:84% So much so that, early on, I told you 00:13:52.160 --> 00:13:55.580 align:middle line:84% I feel I can give you everything without giving myself away. 00:13:55.580 --> 00:14:01.220 align:middle line:84% And if one does one's solitude right, this will be the prize. 00:14:01.220 --> 00:14:04.070 align:middle line:84% Throughout the fall of 2008 those yellow prop-- 00:14:04.070 --> 00:14:06.770 align:middle line:84% Yes on Prop 8 signs were all over the place. 00:14:06.770 --> 00:14:09.680 align:middle line:84% Most notably jabbed into an otherwise bald and beautiful 00:14:09.680 --> 00:14:12.410 align:middle line:84% mountain I passed every day on my way to work. 00:14:12.410 --> 00:14:15.257 align:middle line:84% I hated seeing signs on that hillside. 00:14:15.257 --> 00:14:17.840 align:middle line:84% In part because I don't like the look of any gorgeous hillside 00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:20.330 align:middle line:84% desecrated with chintzy human signs, 00:14:20.330 --> 00:14:24.170 align:middle line:84% but also because this sign's hieroglyphics were so stupid. 00:14:24.170 --> 00:14:25.880 align:middle line:84% Four stick figures raise their hand 00:14:25.880 --> 00:14:27.980 align:middle line:90% to the sky in a paroxysm of joy. 00:14:27.980 --> 00:14:30.890 align:middle line:84% The joy, I suppose, of heteronormativity. 00:14:30.890 --> 00:14:33.500 align:middle line:84% Here indicated by the fact that one stick figure sports 00:14:33.500 --> 00:14:35.360 align:middle line:90% a triangle skirt. 00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:38.612 align:middle line:84% What is that triangle anyway, Eileen Myles asked, my pussy? 00:14:38.612 --> 00:14:40.220 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:14:40.220 --> 00:14:43.940 align:middle line:84% Protect California children, the stick figures cheered. 00:14:43.940 --> 00:14:46.430 align:middle line:84% Each time I passed the sign I thought about Cathy Opie's 00:14:46.430 --> 00:14:48.420 align:middle line:90% self-portrait from 1993. 00:14:48.420 --> 00:14:49.970 align:middle line:84% Self-Portrait/Cutting, it's called. 00:14:49.970 --> 00:14:52.820 align:middle line:84% In which Opie carved a drawing of a house and two stick figure 00:14:52.820 --> 00:14:54.830 align:middle line:84% women holding hands, two triangle 00:14:54.830 --> 00:14:58.583 align:middle line:84% skirts along with a sun, the cloud, and two birds. 00:14:58.583 --> 00:15:01.000 align:middle line:84% Opie had photographed her back while the drawing was still 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:02.950 align:middle line:90% dripping with blood. 00:15:02.950 --> 00:15:05.860 align:middle line:84% Art in America wrote, Opie, who had recently broken up 00:15:05.860 --> 00:15:08.590 align:middle line:84% with her partner was longing at the time to start a family 00:15:08.590 --> 00:15:11.050 align:middle line:84% and the image radiates all the painful contradictions 00:15:11.050 --> 00:15:13.120 align:middle line:90% inherent in that wish. 00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:15.370 align:middle line:84% Ugh, I say to Harry, I don't get it. 00:15:15.370 --> 00:15:17.500 align:middle line:84% Who wants a rehash of the Prop 8 poster 00:15:17.500 --> 00:15:19.960 align:middle line:84% but only with two triangle skirts? 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:21.850 align:middle line:90% Maybe Cathy does, said Harry. 00:15:21.850 --> 00:15:24.100 align:middle line:90% This gave me pause. 00:15:24.100 --> 00:15:25.960 align:middle line:84% Once I wrote a book about domesticity 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:29.650 align:middle line:84% in the poetry of certain gay men, Ashbery, Schuyler. 00:15:29.650 --> 00:15:33.142 align:middle line:90% And some women, Mayer, Notley. 00:15:33.142 --> 00:15:34.600 align:middle line:84% I wrote this book when I was living 00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:37.480 align:middle line:84% in New York City in a teeny, too hot attic apartment 00:15:37.480 --> 00:15:39.520 align:middle line:90% on a Brooklyn thoroughfare. 00:15:39.520 --> 00:15:41.050 align:middle line:84% I had not a single comfortable chair 00:15:41.050 --> 00:15:44.290 align:middle line:84% to sit in, an unusable stove full of petrified mouse 00:15:44.290 --> 00:15:47.230 align:middle line:84% droppings, an empty fridge, save a couple of beers 00:15:47.230 --> 00:15:50.590 align:middle line:84% and yogurt peanut honey flavored Balance bars, 00:15:50.590 --> 00:15:53.170 align:middle line:84% a dirty futon on a piece of plywood unevenly balanced 00:15:53.170 --> 00:15:55.780 align:middle line:84% on milk crates for a bed, and an F train station 00:15:55.780 --> 00:15:57.220 align:middle line:84% so close below I could hear, stand 00:15:57.220 --> 00:15:59.290 align:middle line:84% clear the closing doors, underneath me 00:15:59.290 --> 00:16:01.300 align:middle line:90% morning, noon, and night. 00:16:01.300 --> 00:16:03.130 align:middle line:84% I spent, approximately, seven hours a day 00:16:03.130 --> 00:16:05.830 align:middle line:84% lying in bed in this apartment, if that. 00:16:05.830 --> 00:16:07.750 align:middle line:90% Mostly, I slept elsewhere. 00:16:07.750 --> 00:16:09.520 align:middle line:84% I wrote most everything I wrote and I 00:16:09.520 --> 00:16:12.130 align:middle line:84% read most everything I read in public just as I 00:16:12.130 --> 00:16:15.010 align:middle line:90% am writing this in public now. 00:16:15.010 --> 00:16:16.840 align:middle line:84% I realize, now, I was so happy renting 00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:19.330 align:middle line:84% in New York City for so long because renting, 00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:22.030 align:middle line:84% or at least the way I rented, which 00:16:22.030 --> 00:16:25.023 align:middle line:84% involved never lifting a finger to better my surroundings, 00:16:25.023 --> 00:16:26.440 align:middle line:84% allows you to let things literally 00:16:26.440 --> 00:16:27.730 align:middle line:90% fall apart around you. 00:16:27.730 --> 00:16:31.930 align:middle line:84% And then when it gets to be too much, you just move on. 00:16:31.930 --> 00:16:34.630 align:middle line:84% Many feminists have argued for, quote, 00:16:34.630 --> 00:16:36.760 align:middle line:84% this is a woman named Susan Freeman, 00:16:36.760 --> 00:16:40.150 align:middle line:84% "the decline of the domestic as a separate inherently female 00:16:40.150 --> 00:16:42.490 align:middle line:84% sphere and the vindication of domesticity 00:16:42.490 --> 00:16:46.180 align:middle line:84% as an ethic, an affect, an aesthetic, and a public" 00:16:46.180 --> 00:16:47.590 align:middle line:90% end quote. 00:16:47.590 --> 00:16:49.360 align:middle line:84% I'm not sure what this vindication would 00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:51.370 align:middle line:84% mean, exactly, though I think in my book 00:16:51.370 --> 00:16:53.890 align:middle line:84% I had been angling for something of the same. 00:16:53.890 --> 00:16:56.200 align:middle line:84% But even then I suspected that I was angling 00:16:56.200 --> 00:16:58.090 align:middle line:84% for it because I didn't have a domestic 00:16:58.090 --> 00:17:00.880 align:middle line:90% and I liked it that way. 00:17:00.880 --> 00:17:03.220 align:middle line:84% Like much of Opie's work, Self-Portrait/Cutting 00:17:03.220 --> 00:17:06.460 align:middle line:84% gains a meaning in series, in context. 00:17:06.460 --> 00:17:08.650 align:middle line:84% The bloody stick figures are in conversation 00:17:08.650 --> 00:17:11.560 align:middle line:84% with the finely carved script of the word, pervert, 00:17:11.560 --> 00:17:15.200 align:middle line:84% which Opie had carved into her chest a year later. 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:17.057 align:middle line:84% It's also in conversation with the portraits 00:17:17.057 --> 00:17:19.599 align:middle line:84% of all the leather people who have long been Opie's community 00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:23.230 align:middle line:84% and inspiration as well as the heterogeneous lesbian couples 00:17:23.230 --> 00:17:25.480 align:middle line:90% of her domestics series. 00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:28.600 align:middle line:84% And it is in conversation with her Self-Portrait/Nursing from 00:17:28.600 --> 00:17:29.950 align:middle line:90% 2004. 00:17:29.950 --> 00:17:33.070 align:middle line:84% Taken about a decade after Self-Portrait/Cutting, 00:17:33.070 --> 00:17:37.030 align:middle line:84% in which Opie holds and beholds her son Oliver while he nurses 00:17:37.030 --> 00:17:40.655 align:middle line:84% with her, pervert, scar still visible albeit ghosted across 00:17:40.655 --> 00:17:41.155 align:middle line:90% her chest. 00:17:41.155 --> 00:17:45.770 align:middle line:90% 00:17:45.770 --> 00:17:49.580 align:middle line:84% The 2004 portrait, Nursing, offers a rebus 00:17:49.580 --> 00:17:52.070 align:middle line:90% of sodomitical maternity. 00:17:52.070 --> 00:17:56.030 align:middle line:84% The pervert need not die or even go into hiding per se, 00:17:56.030 --> 00:17:58.190 align:middle line:84% but nor is adult sexuality foisted 00:17:58.190 --> 00:18:01.430 align:middle line:90% upon the child made its burden. 00:18:01.430 --> 00:18:03.500 align:middle line:90% This balance is admirable. 00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:05.960 align:middle line:84% It is also not always easy to maintain. 00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:08.600 align:middle line:84% In a recent interview Opie said, "Between being 00:18:08.600 --> 00:18:10.225 align:middle line:84% a full-time professor, and an artist, 00:18:10.225 --> 00:18:11.600 align:middle line:84% and a mom, and a partner it's not 00:18:11.600 --> 00:18:16.150 align:middle line:84% like I have that much time to go and explore and play S & M style. 00:18:16.150 --> 00:18:18.650 align:middle line:84% Also, all of a sudden you're taking care of a child all day, 00:18:18.650 --> 00:18:20.480 align:middle line:84% your brain doesn't easily switch to, oh great, 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:21.813 align:middle line:90% now I'm going to hurt somebody." 00:18:21.813 --> 00:18:23.138 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:18:23.138 --> 00:18:25.940 align:middle line:90% End quote. 00:18:25.940 --> 00:18:27.450 align:middle line:84% There is something profound here, 00:18:27.450 --> 00:18:30.200 align:middle line:84% which I will draw but a circle around for you to ponder. 00:18:30.200 --> 00:18:32.630 align:middle line:84% As you ponder, however, know that a difficulty 00:18:32.630 --> 00:18:35.240 align:middle line:84% in shifting gears or a struggle to find the time 00:18:35.240 --> 00:18:40.460 align:middle line:84% is not the same thing as an ontological either/or. 00:18:40.460 --> 00:18:43.430 align:middle line:84% I liked the game Fallen Soldier because it gave me time 00:18:43.430 --> 00:18:46.520 align:middle line:84% to gaze upon Lenny's face in mute repose. 00:18:46.520 --> 00:18:50.300 align:middle line:84% His big almond eyes, his skin just starting to freckle, 00:18:50.300 --> 00:18:52.850 align:middle line:84% and he clearly found some novel relaxing pleasure 00:18:52.850 --> 00:18:56.180 align:middle line:84% in just lying there, protected by his imaginary armor, 00:18:56.180 --> 00:18:59.450 align:middle line:84% while a near stranger, who was quickly becoming family, 00:18:59.450 --> 00:19:01.100 align:middle line:84% picked up each limb and turned it 00:19:01.100 --> 00:19:04.540 align:middle line:90% over trying to find the wound. 00:19:04.540 --> 00:19:05.540 align:middle line:90% I think I'll stop there. 00:19:05.540 --> 00:19:06.957 align:middle line:84% So, thanks you guys for listening. 00:19:06.957 --> 00:19:08.770 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:19:08.770 --> 00:19:10.230 align:middle line:90%