WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.870 align:middle line:90%
OK, so last poem.

00:00:04.870 --> 00:00:11.070 align:middle line:84%
This is called "The World
as Will and Representation."

00:00:11.070 --> 00:00:16.690 align:middle line:90%


00:00:16.690 --> 00:00:21.130 align:middle line:84%
"When I was a child, my
father, every morning--

00:00:21.130 --> 00:00:24.990 align:middle line:90%


00:00:24.990 --> 00:00:30.480 align:middle line:84%
some mornings, for a
time, when I was 10 or so,

00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:35.910 align:middle line:84%
my father gave my mother
a drug called antabuse.

00:00:35.910 --> 00:00:39.990 align:middle line:84%
It makes you sick if
you drink alcohol.

00:00:39.990 --> 00:00:42.570 align:middle line:90%
They were little yellow pills.

00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:47.100 align:middle line:84%
He ground them in a glass,
dissolved them in water,

00:00:47.100 --> 00:00:50.820 align:middle line:84%
handed her the glass,
and watched her closely

00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:53.070 align:middle line:90%
while she drank.

00:00:53.070 --> 00:00:59.490 align:middle line:84%
It was the late 1940s,
a time, a social world,

00:00:59.490 --> 00:01:03.420 align:middle line:84%
in which the men got up
and went to work, leaving

00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:06.150 align:middle line:90%
the women with the children.

00:01:06.150 --> 00:01:10.800 align:middle line:90%
His wink at me was a 1940s wink.

00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:14.310 align:middle line:84%
He watched her closely so
she couldn't pull a fast one

00:01:14.310 --> 00:01:20.970 align:middle line:84%
or put anything over on a pair
as shrewd as the two of us.

00:01:20.970 --> 00:01:24.360 align:middle line:84%
I hear those phrases
in old movies

00:01:24.360 --> 00:01:28.140 align:middle line:90%
and my mind begins to drift.

00:01:28.140 --> 00:01:31.740 align:middle line:84%
The reason he ground
the medication fine

00:01:31.740 --> 00:01:34.680 align:middle line:84%
was that pills could be
hidden under the tongue

00:01:34.680 --> 00:01:37.380 align:middle line:90%
and spit out later.

00:01:37.380 --> 00:01:41.400 align:middle line:84%
The reason that this
ritual occurred so early

00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:45.900 align:middle line:84%
in the morning, I was told
and knew it to be true,

00:01:45.900 --> 00:01:48.600 align:middle line:84%
was that she could,
if she wanted,

00:01:48.600 --> 00:01:51.210 align:middle line:84%
induce herself to
vomit, so she had

00:01:51.210 --> 00:01:57.060 align:middle line:84%
to be watched until her
system had absorbed the drug.

00:01:57.060 --> 00:02:02.100 align:middle line:84%
Hard to render in these
lines the rhythm of the act.

00:02:02.100 --> 00:02:06.060 align:middle line:84%
He ground two of them
to powder in a glass,

00:02:06.060 --> 00:02:11.910 align:middle line:84%
filled it with water, held it
to her, and watched her drink.

00:02:11.910 --> 00:02:17.495 align:middle line:84%
In my memory, he's wearing
a suit, gray herringbone,

00:02:17.495 --> 00:02:20.940 align:middle line:90%
a white shirt she had ironed.

00:02:20.940 --> 00:02:24.720 align:middle line:84%
Some mornings, as
in the comic strips

00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:30.090 align:middle line:84%
we read where Dagwood went
off to placate Mr. Dithers,

00:02:30.090 --> 00:02:32.610 align:middle line:84%
leaving Blondie
with crusts of toast

00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:36.660 align:middle line:84%
and yellow rivulets of egg yolk
to be cleared before she went

00:02:36.660 --> 00:02:40.650 align:middle line:84%
shopping, before she went
on what the comic called

00:02:40.650 --> 00:02:45.180 align:middle line:84%
a shopping spree with Trixie
the next door neighbor,

00:02:45.180 --> 00:02:48.060 align:middle line:84%
my father, like
Dagwood, would have

00:02:48.060 --> 00:02:53.910 align:middle line:84%
to leave early and give the
task of vigilance to me.

00:02:53.910 --> 00:02:55.410 align:middle line:90%
Keep an eye on mama, partner.

00:02:55.410 --> 00:02:58.140 align:middle line:90%


00:02:58.140 --> 00:03:02.430 align:middle line:84%
You know, in the passage
in the Aeneid, the man who

00:03:02.430 --> 00:03:07.590 align:middle line:84%
leaves the burning city with
his father on his shoulders,

00:03:07.590 --> 00:03:11.520 align:middle line:84%
holding his young
son's hand, means

00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:18.210 align:middle line:84%
to do well among the flaming
arras and the falling columns,

00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:22.290 align:middle line:84%
while the blind
prophet, arms upraised,

00:03:22.290 --> 00:03:27.720 align:middle line:84%
howls from the inner chamber,
"Great Troy is fallen.

00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:32.370 align:middle line:90%
Great Troy is no more."

00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:38.370 align:middle line:84%
Slumped in a bathrobe,
penitent and biddable,

00:03:38.370 --> 00:03:45.450 align:middle line:84%
my mother at the kitchen
table gagged and drank, drank

00:03:45.450 --> 00:03:48.120 align:middle line:90%
and gagged.

00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:53.100 align:middle line:84%
We get our first moral
idea about the world

00:03:53.100 --> 00:03:59.190 align:middle line:84%
of justice, power, gender,
about what we have to take,

00:03:59.190 --> 00:04:01.170 align:middle line:90%
from somewhere.

00:04:01.170 --> 00:04:01.920 align:middle line:90%
This was mine."

00:04:01.920 --> 00:04:04.620 align:middle line:90%


00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:05.520 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:08.570 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:04:08.570 --> 00:04:21.000 align:middle line:90%