WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.230 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.230 --> 00:00:03.180 align:middle line:84% So that poem, it's called "Lifespan Addenda. " 00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:08.070 align:middle line:84% And it comes after a suite of 12 poems that together are titled 00:00:08.070 --> 00:00:14.580 align:middle line:90% The History of Ideas, 1973-2012. 00:00:14.580 --> 00:00:20.550 align:middle line:84% A cheeky title that kind of refers to, for one thing, 00:00:20.550 --> 00:00:24.270 align:middle line:84% a five volume reference work that continues to amaze me 00:00:24.270 --> 00:00:28.170 align:middle line:84% called The Dictionary of the History of Ideas. 00:00:28.170 --> 00:00:30.510 align:middle line:84% In five volumes, so one of the volumes 00:00:30.510 --> 00:00:36.330 align:middle line:84% is like Despotism to Protestantism or something. 00:00:36.330 --> 00:00:38.550 align:middle line:84% And so there are 12 poems in here, 00:00:38.550 --> 00:00:41.400 align:middle line:84% all with titles of abstractions-- 00:00:41.400 --> 00:00:47.700 align:middle line:84% space, casuistry, alienation, authority. 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:52.680 align:middle line:84% And the poems begin with a statement of fact lifted out 00:00:52.680 --> 00:00:53.970 align:middle line:90% of that reference work. 00:00:53.970 --> 00:00:59.730 align:middle line:84% And end, each of them, with a platitude or an aphorism that's 00:00:59.730 --> 00:01:02.730 align:middle line:84% kind of snatched from the intellectual ether 00:01:02.730 --> 00:01:04.420 align:middle line:90% of the last few years. 00:01:04.420 --> 00:01:12.300 align:middle line:84% So some of the ending quotes are by Tyra Banks, Thomas Friedman, 00:01:12.300 --> 00:01:17.010 align:middle line:84% Malcolm Gladwell, Temple Grandin. 00:01:17.010 --> 00:01:19.140 align:middle line:84% A lot of them are sort of specious or bothersome 00:01:19.140 --> 00:01:19.770 align:middle line:90% in some way. 00:01:19.770 --> 00:01:24.783 align:middle line:84% And the poems kind of drift from the fact to the platitude. 00:01:24.783 --> 00:01:25.950 align:middle line:90% I want to read one of these. 00:01:25.950 --> 00:01:28.860 align:middle line:90% 00:01:28.860 --> 00:01:32.010 align:middle line:90% This one is called "Symmetry." 00:01:32.010 --> 00:01:36.030 align:middle line:84% and I ascribe the closing quote to Chuck Palahniuk 00:01:36.030 --> 00:01:39.570 align:middle line:84% but I think it belongs to like Century 21 or some sort 00:01:39.570 --> 00:01:40.560 align:middle line:90% of realtor instead. 00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:43.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:01:43.860 --> 00:01:44.610 align:middle line:90% "Symmetry." 00:01:44.610 --> 00:01:47.280 align:middle line:90% 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:49.920 align:middle line:84% "Whenever a form or unit of life comes 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:52.530 align:middle line:84% into being on any spot of the universe, 00:01:52.530 --> 00:01:55.800 align:middle line:84% then any such occurrence taken by itself 00:01:55.800 --> 00:01:58.350 align:middle line:84% runs counter to the general trend 00:01:58.350 --> 00:02:00.435 align:middle line:84% towards an increase of the entropy. 00:02:00.435 --> 00:02:03.610 align:middle line:90% 00:02:03.610 --> 00:02:07.570 align:middle line:84% By what shade stain was left, we told aptitude 00:02:07.570 --> 00:02:10.000 align:middle line:90% and woke him at last. 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:13.450 align:middle line:84% Where prior elders may have swabbed with resin 00:02:13.450 --> 00:02:17.950 align:middle line:84% and covered properly as he lay the birthday boy with falcon 00:02:17.950 --> 00:02:23.620 align:middle line:84% down, we borrow from the annals only the prior elder prayer. 00:02:23.620 --> 00:02:25.330 align:middle line:90% Not that he'd remember. 00:02:25.330 --> 00:02:28.840 align:middle line:84% We couldn't get the recitation solemn enough. 00:02:28.840 --> 00:02:31.930 align:middle line:84% Worse, worse the huddle more worrisome 00:02:31.930 --> 00:02:35.530 align:middle line:84% when legislative is men's agreement going in 00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:39.760 align:middle line:84% to raise temerity from downcast scrutiny. 00:02:39.760 --> 00:02:43.990 align:middle line:84% Piteous the metal taste of smoking and crying. 00:02:43.990 --> 00:02:50.140 align:middle line:84% Bereft the transactive sacrament until the lashes flutter. 00:02:50.140 --> 00:02:54.220 align:middle line:84% Saw him later in the same puny dyad we'd all had, 00:02:54.220 --> 00:02:57.010 align:middle line:84% rocking the subdivision no one in the rumble seat 00:02:57.010 --> 00:02:58.690 align:middle line:90% 'sides his baby. 00:02:58.690 --> 00:03:01.180 align:middle line:84% Down Alvernon we dressed the tracking 00:03:01.180 --> 00:03:05.470 align:middle line:84% shot to dolly with his figure in the Tyvek home wrap, 00:03:05.470 --> 00:03:07.240 align:middle line:90% should he turn. 00:03:07.240 --> 00:03:11.500 align:middle line:84% It's my experience the event gets less eccentric, not more, 00:03:11.500 --> 00:03:15.070 align:middle line:84% becoming plainly a circle by the end, like the soil 00:03:15.070 --> 00:03:17.920 align:middle line:90% spot you tell ripeness by. 00:03:17.920 --> 00:03:20.920 align:middle line:84% A tart disclosure asks that you blush back 00:03:20.920 --> 00:03:25.360 align:middle line:84% if you're going to stay for the drop like an illness welling, 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:26.590 align:middle line:90% awaiting him. 00:03:26.590 --> 00:03:29.200 align:middle line:84% It came upon me to redraw our crest, 00:03:29.200 --> 00:03:34.030 align:middle line:84% to entwine the filigree, tie compunction about belief. 00:03:34.030 --> 00:03:37.360 align:middle line:84% The bird on the cadge sorting through its bib 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:41.680 align:middle line:84% in a final administration as if undoing the torse. 00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:46.180 align:middle line:84% Grant, to be born and live as variously as possible. 00:03:46.180 --> 00:03:49.330 align:middle line:84% Unless this takes, whereby togetherness, 00:03:49.330 --> 00:03:53.440 align:middle line:84% our given and ground, would lift or even belie the law. 00:03:53.440 --> 00:03:58.300 align:middle line:84% It intermits the trend: alone is always alone again. 00:03:58.300 --> 00:04:02.020 align:middle line:90% Grant, we turn you down. 00:04:02.020 --> 00:04:05.350 align:middle line:84% If you lived here, you'd be home by now. 00:04:05.350 --> 00:04:07.200 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING]