WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.940 align:middle line:84% Another poem takes the figure of white granular substance 00:00:05.940 --> 00:00:08.940 align:middle line:84% like snow, and makes it into white sands instead. 00:00:08.940 --> 00:00:11.640 align:middle line:84% Which brings me to an interest in the desert, 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:15.090 align:middle line:84% and makes me want to read a kind of a companion 00:00:15.090 --> 00:00:18.240 align:middle line:84% to that first sequence of sonnets that I read you. 00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:21.450 align:middle line:84% This is called series as opposed to sequence, that was 00:00:21.450 --> 00:00:23.160 align:middle line:90% a sequence, this is a series. 00:00:23.160 --> 00:00:26.520 align:middle line:84% It starts over each time and puts the problem 00:00:26.520 --> 00:00:28.710 align:middle line:90% in more abstract terms. 00:00:28.710 --> 00:00:32.770 align:middle line:90% 00:00:32.770 --> 00:00:39.100 align:middle line:84% "Number one, the overall rhythmic profile of hills, 00:00:39.100 --> 00:00:42.880 align:middle line:84% washes and alluvial fans would rise and fall 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:44.380 align:middle line:90% over the entirety. 00:00:44.380 --> 00:00:47.590 align:middle line:84% Ledges of cliffs and steep canyon walls 00:00:47.590 --> 00:00:50.530 align:middle line:84% would rise and fall over the entirety. 00:00:50.530 --> 00:00:54.340 align:middle line:84% While chattering in their midst is a thriving anthill, 00:00:54.340 --> 00:00:58.000 align:middle line:84% there are these very large clouds that seem to tilt. 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:00.130 align:middle line:84% He is looking up the sky and thinks, 00:01:00.130 --> 00:01:03.580 align:middle line:84% there's an intelligence behind all of these. 00:01:03.580 --> 00:01:06.580 align:middle line:84% Number two, the desert is associated 00:01:06.580 --> 00:01:09.670 align:middle line:84% with preserving itself as long as it can, 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:13.900 align:middle line:84% dependent upon sustaining instruments, hallucinations 00:01:13.900 --> 00:01:17.920 align:middle line:84% and insanity, a lightness, and constant ambiguity. 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:22.450 align:middle line:84% That basic ambiguity, gray green or blue green. 00:01:22.450 --> 00:01:25.240 align:middle line:84% The possibility of not necessarily listening just 00:01:25.240 --> 00:01:30.100 align:middle line:84% to one thing or the other, where there are no words at all. 00:01:30.100 --> 00:01:33.610 align:middle line:84% Number three, when the structures begin, 00:01:33.610 --> 00:01:35.530 align:middle line:84% sustained from the very beginning 00:01:35.530 --> 00:01:38.020 align:middle line:90% with very small, slow changes. 00:01:38.020 --> 00:01:41.650 align:middle line:84% Usually comprising paired mallet instruments and sometimes 00:01:41.650 --> 00:01:45.130 align:middle line:84% two pianos, each group is lightly doubled. 00:01:45.130 --> 00:01:48.820 align:middle line:84% When the structures begin where the A sections are slow 00:01:48.820 --> 00:01:52.510 align:middle line:84% and the B section moves up, just after dusk, 00:01:52.510 --> 00:01:54.820 align:middle line:90% each group is lightly doubled. 00:01:54.820 --> 00:01:58.540 align:middle line:84% And when listening in particular to two pieces primarily 00:01:58.540 --> 00:02:01.960 align:middle line:84% on one or two nights, each group is lightly doubled. 00:02:01.960 --> 00:02:04.540 align:middle line:90% Fascinated by the symmetry. 00:02:04.540 --> 00:02:06.670 align:middle line:84% Number four, usually a single plant 00:02:06.670 --> 00:02:09.699 align:middle line:84% produces only a few flowers each season. 00:02:09.699 --> 00:02:12.220 align:middle line:84% This, of course, is an old technique, 00:02:12.220 --> 00:02:14.710 align:middle line:84% it threatens one's normal thinking. 00:02:14.710 --> 00:02:17.770 align:middle line:84% The percussion is omnipresent, clicking 00:02:17.770 --> 00:02:19.930 align:middle line:90% sticks just after dusk. 00:02:19.930 --> 00:02:23.020 align:middle line:84% They're pulsed, the realm of pulsation 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:27.340 align:middle line:84% to supply the ongoing pulse, the pulse which begins and ends 00:02:27.340 --> 00:02:29.110 align:middle line:90% after about 40 minutes. 00:02:29.110 --> 00:02:33.370 align:middle line:84% After more than 1,000 years, a series of spasmodic jerks, 00:02:33.370 --> 00:02:36.370 align:middle line:84% he sort of reaches out a wordless response 00:02:36.370 --> 00:02:39.250 align:middle line:90% to purely rapid eighth notes. 00:02:39.250 --> 00:02:43.000 align:middle line:84% This is an extremely emotional moment. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:44.740 align:middle line:90% Number five. 00:02:44.740 --> 00:02:48.640 align:middle line:84% A vision, at 2,000 to 4,000 feet elevation, 00:02:48.640 --> 00:02:51.460 align:middle line:84% that you'd never get if the notes were sustained. 00:02:51.460 --> 00:02:55.600 align:middle line:84% Begins with this pulsation of available vibrations. 00:02:55.600 --> 00:03:00.010 align:middle line:84% Fruit red, of the most intense and sophisticated sort, 00:03:00.010 --> 00:03:02.950 align:middle line:84% ripening in the desert or in grassland, 00:03:02.950 --> 00:03:06.100 align:middle line:84% like strings or the electric organ repeating 00:03:06.100 --> 00:03:09.430 align:middle line:90% over and over again, fruit red. 00:03:09.430 --> 00:03:14.490 align:middle line:84% Gravel or coarse sandy soil sets up a kind of rhythmic energy. 00:03:14.490 --> 00:03:16.240 align:middle line:84% It's as if you're in the desert and you're 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:18.740 align:middle line:90% running as fast as you can. 00:03:18.740 --> 00:03:20.080 align:middle line:90% Number six. 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:23.410 align:middle line:84% Gray green or blue green, birds open the fleshy fruit 00:03:23.410 --> 00:03:27.190 align:middle line:84% from the side going into a text and then out of it again, 00:03:27.190 --> 00:03:29.680 align:middle line:84% that constant flickering of attention. 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:33.430 align:middle line:84% All sequences simultaneously continued 00:03:33.430 --> 00:03:37.720 align:middle line:84% between what the text says and it's pure sensual sound. 00:03:37.720 --> 00:03:42.070 align:middle line:84% A light radiating out of the dark infinitude, out 00:03:42.070 --> 00:03:51.790 align:middle line:84% of this complete continuity aba, abcba, from beginning to end. 00:03:51.790 --> 00:03:53.050 align:middle line:90% Number seven. 00:03:53.050 --> 00:03:55.630 align:middle line:84% Reading his work to the present, with regard 00:03:55.630 --> 00:03:59.020 align:middle line:84% to where the stresses and where the beginnings and endings are, 00:03:59.020 --> 00:04:02.830 align:middle line:84% dependent upon the recipient with the epical cup not 00:04:02.830 --> 00:04:06.490 align:middle line:84% prominent, but more chromatic and darker in harmony, 00:04:06.490 --> 00:04:08.500 align:middle line:90% its own harmonic cycle. 00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:13.300 align:middle line:84% He then goes on to more complex pieces with a few scales, 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:17.200 align:middle line:84% slowly, in the desert in a land belonging to no one. 00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:20.709 align:middle line:84% It is to this possibility that the words refer, 00:04:20.709 --> 00:04:22.780 align:middle line:90% and no more, and no less. 00:04:22.780 --> 00:04:25.580 align:middle line:90% 00:04:25.580 --> 00:04:26.840 align:middle line:90% Number eight. 00:04:26.840 --> 00:04:30.800 align:middle line:84% Produced 31 flowers, produced 31 flowers, 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:33.320 align:middle line:90% repetitive in any literal sense. 00:04:33.320 --> 00:04:37.020 align:middle line:84% In order to set up the feeling, structure, and harmony, 00:04:37.020 --> 00:04:41.090 align:middle line:84% the surrounding woody vegetation for protection from animals. 00:04:41.090 --> 00:04:44.300 align:middle line:84% Different things are happening at the same time, 00:04:44.300 --> 00:04:46.640 align:middle line:90% or later if the weather is cool. 00:04:46.640 --> 00:04:49.640 align:middle line:84% Often move at a very slow rate of change, 00:04:49.640 --> 00:04:52.580 align:middle line:84% are fast and use the same harmonic cycle. 00:04:52.580 --> 00:04:58.100 align:middle line:84% So the voices continue without words, with 24 open blossoms. 00:04:58.100 --> 00:05:00.080 align:middle line:84% Another plant on the desert at Sacaton 00:05:00.080 --> 00:05:03.110 align:middle line:84% was photographed, normally over by 7 o'clock 00:05:03.110 --> 00:05:04.700 align:middle line:90% the following morning. 00:05:04.700 --> 00:05:06.530 align:middle line:84% Another plant on the desert at Sacaton 00:05:06.530 --> 00:05:09.230 align:middle line:84% was photographed, for the lower part of it is brittle 00:05:09.230 --> 00:05:10.760 align:middle line:90% and easily broken. 00:05:10.760 --> 00:05:13.490 align:middle line:84% Another plant on the desert at Sacaton was photographed 00:05:13.490 --> 00:05:18.080 align:middle line:84% and a single flower may scent the air for 100 feet. 00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:19.280 align:middle line:90% Number nine. 00:05:19.280 --> 00:05:22.520 align:middle line:84% But one unusually large plant in Tucson, 00:05:22.520 --> 00:05:27.860 align:middle line:84% just after dusk, a kind of barge of light just after dusk, 00:05:27.860 --> 00:05:33.050 align:middle line:84% a large arch just after dusk, his death at age 80 00:05:33.050 --> 00:05:34.700 align:middle line:90% just after dusk. 00:05:34.700 --> 00:05:38.990 align:middle line:84% At which point the chorus sings didididi and is itself 00:05:38.990 --> 00:05:43.820 align:middle line:84% an arch form without anything else added or subtracted. 00:05:43.820 --> 00:05:48.350 align:middle line:84% Number 10 of hills, of washes, of alluvial fans, 00:05:48.350 --> 00:05:52.280 align:middle line:84% ledges of cliffs, and steep Canyon walls, late in May 00:05:52.280 --> 00:05:55.520 align:middle line:84% or in June with a few scales floating down 00:05:55.520 --> 00:05:57.770 align:middle line:84% a river in very dark surroundings. 00:05:57.770 --> 00:06:02.360 align:middle line:84% In complete darkness, Lazondos, which with contact microphones 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:05.540 align:middle line:84% attached, resolved to put a plant of light 00:06:05.540 --> 00:06:07.280 align:middle line:90% in the last part. 00:06:07.280 --> 00:06:09.800 align:middle line:84% Between fascinated by the symmetry, 00:06:09.800 --> 00:06:12.830 align:middle line:84% different from the recipient, he sort of 00:06:12.830 --> 00:06:16.370 align:middle line:84% reaches out a series of spasmodic jerks, 00:06:16.370 --> 00:06:20.180 align:middle line:84% the perfume is liberated in profusion. 00:06:20.180 --> 00:06:26.110 align:middle line:90% Number 11, silent." 00:06:26.110 --> 00:06:29.780 align:middle line:90% Oh, I was really quiet. 00:06:29.780 --> 00:06:32.170 align:middle line:84% It's a page, but someone else could-- 00:06:32.170 --> 00:06:36.630 align:middle line:84% in fact Frances did continue this poem, which was the idea.