WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.570 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.570 --> 00:00:07.120 align:middle line:84% I'm still not used to writing 2001 on checks. 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:11.380 align:middle line:84% In my generation, 2001 symbolized the future. 00:00:11.380 --> 00:00:15.790 align:middle line:84% And now here it is, and it's like flipping by us a day 00:00:15.790 --> 00:00:16.720 align:middle line:90% at a time. 00:00:16.720 --> 00:00:18.940 align:middle line:90% But back in the 20th century-- 00:00:18.940 --> 00:00:21.820 align:middle line:84% and it seems odd even to say that. 00:00:21.820 --> 00:00:23.500 align:middle line:84% Back in the 20th century, which seemed 00:00:23.500 --> 00:00:28.030 align:middle line:90% to be a very long century to me. 00:00:28.030 --> 00:00:29.530 align:middle line:84% I think it will go down ultimately 00:00:29.530 --> 00:00:34.540 align:middle line:90% as one of the longest centuries. 00:00:34.540 --> 00:00:37.000 align:middle line:90% And so much took place. 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:40.420 align:middle line:84% There's like skateboarding, World War 00:00:40.420 --> 00:00:46.102 align:middle line:84% I. You probably have your own memories that 00:00:46.102 --> 00:00:47.770 align:middle line:90% are more prominent. 00:00:47.770 --> 00:00:49.660 align:middle line:84% But we did have a habit in the 20th century 00:00:49.660 --> 00:00:51.910 align:middle line:90% of dealing with the past. 00:00:51.910 --> 00:00:55.630 align:middle line:84% And we dealt with it by slicing it into decades 00:00:55.630 --> 00:00:59.380 align:middle line:84% and providing these decades with a kind of personality. 00:00:59.380 --> 00:01:02.050 align:middle line:84% Like the '50s and the '60s and the '70s. 00:01:02.050 --> 00:01:05.260 align:middle line:84% And then there was a kind of enforced nostalgia, 00:01:05.260 --> 00:01:07.270 align:middle line:84% a kind of enforced bittersweet feeling 00:01:07.270 --> 00:01:12.910 align:middle line:84% about the passing of these personality-infused periods, 00:01:12.910 --> 00:01:14.920 align:middle line:84% as if we would want to be stuck in one of them 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:16.840 align:middle line:90% in a kind of perpetual loop. 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:19.540 align:middle line:90% 00:01:19.540 --> 00:01:25.090 align:middle line:84% So the poem is kind of takeoff on that habit. 00:01:25.090 --> 00:01:26.770 align:middle line:90% And it's called "Nostalgia." 00:01:26.770 --> 00:01:30.400 align:middle line:90% 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:35.290 align:middle line:90% "Remember the 1340s? 00:01:35.290 --> 00:01:40.480 align:middle line:84% We were doing a dance called the catapult. You 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:44.830 align:middle line:84% always wore brown, the color craze of the decade. 00:01:44.830 --> 00:01:47.770 align:middle line:84% And I was draped in one of those capes that were popular, 00:01:47.770 --> 00:01:52.210 align:middle line:84% the ones with unicorns and pomegranates and needlework. 00:01:52.210 --> 00:01:56.200 align:middle line:84% Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon. 00:01:56.200 --> 00:02:01.860 align:middle line:84% And at night, we would play a game called "find the cow". 00:02:01.860 --> 00:02:06.350 align:middle line:84% Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today. 00:02:06.350 --> 00:02:09.620 align:middle line:84% Where has the summer of 1572 gone? 00:02:09.620 --> 00:02:12.350 align:middle line:84% Brocade and sonnet marathons were the rage. 00:02:12.350 --> 00:02:15.350 align:middle line:84% We used to dress up in the flags of rival baronies 00:02:15.350 --> 00:02:19.160 align:middle line:84% and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone. 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:22.940 align:middle line:84% Out on the dance floor, we were all doing the struggle. 00:02:22.940 --> 00:02:27.690 align:middle line:84% While your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room. 00:02:27.690 --> 00:02:30.230 align:middle line:84% We borrowed the jargon of ferriers for our slang. 00:02:30.230 --> 00:02:32.720 align:middle line:84% These days, language seems transparent, 00:02:32.720 --> 00:02:35.690 align:middle line:90% a badly broken code. 00:02:35.690 --> 00:02:38.480 align:middle line:90% The 1790s will never come again. 00:02:38.480 --> 00:02:40.310 align:middle line:90% Childhood was big. 00:02:40.310 --> 00:02:43.040 align:middle line:84% People would take walks to the very tops of hills 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:45.020 align:middle line:84% and write down what they saw in their journals 00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:46.520 align:middle line:90% without speaking. 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:48.380 align:middle line:90% Our collars were high. 00:02:48.380 --> 00:02:50.690 align:middle line:90% Our hats were extremely soft. 00:02:50.690 --> 00:02:54.410 align:middle line:84% We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs. 00:02:54.410 --> 00:02:56.900 align:middle line:84% It was a wonderful time to be alive. 00:02:56.900 --> 00:03:00.140 align:middle line:90% Or even dead. 00:03:00.140 --> 00:03:04.610 align:middle line:84% I'm very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821. 00:03:04.610 --> 00:03:08.090 align:middle line:84% Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits. 00:03:08.090 --> 00:03:11.480 align:middle line:84% And I would love to return to 1901, if only for a moment. 00:03:11.480 --> 00:03:15.740 align:middle line:84% Time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps. 00:03:15.740 --> 00:03:21.050 align:middle line:84% Or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941. 00:03:21.050 --> 00:03:25.190 align:middle line:84% Or at least let me recapture the serenity of last month 00:03:25.190 --> 00:03:27.800 align:middle line:84% when we picked berries together and glided 00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:31.010 align:middle line:90% through afternoons in a canoe. 00:03:31.010 --> 00:03:33.515 align:middle line:84% Even this morning would be an improvement over the present. 00:03:33.515 --> 00:03:36.260 align:middle line:90% 00:03:36.260 --> 00:03:39.470 align:middle line:84% I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees 00:03:39.470 --> 00:03:43.970 align:middle line:84% and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light flash 00:03:43.970 --> 00:03:46.490 align:middle line:84% off the slanted windows of the greenhouse 00:03:46.490 --> 00:03:50.960 align:middle line:84% and silver, the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks. 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:54.590 align:middle line:84% As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past, 00:03:54.590 --> 00:03:58.670 align:middle line:84% letting my memory rush over them like water rushing over 00:03:58.670 --> 00:04:01.430 align:middle line:84% the stones on the bottom of a stream. 00:04:01.430 --> 00:04:04.820 align:middle line:84% I was even thinking a little about the future, 00:04:04.820 --> 00:04:08.510 align:middle line:84% that place where people are doing a dance we cannot 00:04:08.510 --> 00:04:13.360 align:middle line:84% imagine, a dance whose name we can only guess." 00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:20.000 align:middle line:90%