WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.560 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:03.328 align:middle line:90% We'll do just two more. 00:00:03.328 --> 00:00:05.370 align:middle line:84% This one, I'll try to raise the mood with a joke. 00:00:05.370 --> 00:00:08.910 align:middle line:90% 00:00:08.910 --> 00:00:11.070 align:middle line:84% In the southeastern United States, 00:00:11.070 --> 00:00:14.820 align:middle line:84% there are all these big cypress forests and swamp lands. 00:00:14.820 --> 00:00:18.270 align:middle line:84% And for a long time, this was the habitat 00:00:18.270 --> 00:00:20.460 align:middle line:90% of the ivory-billed woodpecker. 00:00:20.460 --> 00:00:23.850 align:middle line:84% And there was some uncertainty about 00:00:23.850 --> 00:00:26.550 align:middle line:84% whether the ivory-billed woodpecker was still alive 00:00:26.550 --> 00:00:28.440 align:middle line:90% or whether it had gone extinct. 00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:31.920 align:middle line:84% And so, in the 1930s, I believe Cornell University 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:34.260 align:middle line:84% took a whole bunch of equipment down and camped 00:00:34.260 --> 00:00:37.590 align:middle line:84% in those woods for four to six weeks 00:00:37.590 --> 00:00:39.210 align:middle line:84% to see if they could find any evidence 00:00:39.210 --> 00:00:43.030 align:middle line:84% that the ivory-billed woodpecker was still alive. 00:00:43.030 --> 00:00:45.958 align:middle line:84% And after all that time, they'd seen no sign 00:00:45.958 --> 00:00:47.250 align:middle line:90% of the ivory-billed woodpecker. 00:00:47.250 --> 00:00:49.950 align:middle line:84% And so, they packed up all their stuff. 00:00:49.950 --> 00:00:52.380 align:middle line:84% And just as they were loading up the car, 00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:55.230 align:middle line:84% an ivory-billed woodpecker flew down 00:00:55.230 --> 00:00:57.010 align:middle line:84% and perched on somebody's shoulders. 00:00:57.010 --> 00:01:00.450 align:middle line:84% And as I understand it, this happened a number of times 00:01:00.450 --> 00:01:03.280 align:middle line:84% over the course over, like, 30-year cycles. 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:05.580 align:middle line:84% People would say, oh, they must be extinct now. 00:01:05.580 --> 00:01:08.310 align:middle line:84% And then, they'd go and look around, then 00:01:08.310 --> 00:01:10.500 align:middle line:84% find one or some sign that one was still alive. 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:12.850 align:middle line:84% I don't believe that that's the case anymore. 00:01:12.850 --> 00:01:15.540 align:middle line:84% I think, recently, ivory-billed woodpecker was 00:01:15.540 --> 00:01:18.070 align:middle line:90% declared officially extinct. 00:01:18.070 --> 00:01:23.340 align:middle line:84% So its nickname is the Lord God bird, 00:01:23.340 --> 00:01:26.400 align:middle line:84% and that's because it's a very big impressive-- it 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:31.080 align:middle line:84% was a very big, impressive bird with a big long beak, 00:01:31.080 --> 00:01:35.670 align:middle line:84% very colorful head plumage, and it would fly at your head. 00:01:35.670 --> 00:01:37.410 align:middle line:84% And people would be like, oh, Lord God. 00:01:37.410 --> 00:01:39.660 align:middle line:84% So that's why I got that nickname. 00:01:39.660 --> 00:01:42.270 align:middle line:84% This poem is called, "The Lord God 00:01:42.270 --> 00:01:45.930 align:middle line:90% Bird, Campephilus Principalis." 00:01:45.930 --> 00:01:49.290 align:middle line:84% Knock, knock on the cracked bark of the sweet gum, 00:01:49.290 --> 00:01:52.980 align:middle line:84% and knock, knock in Echo through cypress' swamp sunk 00:01:52.980 --> 00:01:54.540 align:middle line:90% to their bent knees. 00:01:54.540 --> 00:01:59.100 align:middle line:84% The punchline is that there's no punch line, only silence, 00:01:59.100 --> 00:02:02.670 align:middle line:84% closing like a cloud around the place, where from you thought 00:02:02.670 --> 00:02:04.600 align:middle line:90% you heard me call. 00:02:04.600 --> 00:02:06.970 align:middle line:90% You can yoo-hoo your heart out. 00:02:06.970 --> 00:02:10.330 align:middle line:84% I will hidden hold my operatic plumage, 00:02:10.330 --> 00:02:14.830 align:middle line:84% fold wings over my ivory and my wound red crown. 00:02:14.830 --> 00:02:18.520 align:middle line:84% I will wind so tight myself in feather and fern 00:02:18.520 --> 00:02:21.250 align:middle line:84% that you, who've tramped years through this tract 00:02:21.250 --> 00:02:26.020 align:middle line:84% with your Kodaks, your boom mic, humming dumbly reel to reel 00:02:26.020 --> 00:02:28.960 align:middle line:84% must take heavy up the bureaucratic pen 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:32.740 align:middle line:84% and scratch the fatal asterisk to my name. 00:02:32.740 --> 00:02:35.410 align:middle line:84% Then, when you've closed your logbook 00:02:35.410 --> 00:02:40.150 align:middle line:84% and loaded up your johnboat with all those unconsoling tools, 00:02:40.150 --> 00:02:42.940 align:middle line:84% then will I swoop the Spanish moss. 00:02:42.940 --> 00:02:46.960 align:middle line:84% My white wingtips aflash in the canopy like the world's 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:52.630 align:middle line:84% last morning and jaw my tinhorn squawk from trunk to trunk. 00:02:52.630 --> 00:02:55.330 align:middle line:84% It's a trick I picked up from the grubs, 00:02:55.330 --> 00:02:58.570 align:middle line:84% having the fat flow far beneath the bark. 00:02:58.570 --> 00:03:02.500 align:middle line:84% For whose love my bill evolved its ivory curve, 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:06.220 align:middle line:84% my lash-flicking tongue, it's Barb. 00:03:06.220 --> 00:03:11.900 align:middle line:84% If I made myself easy to be found, why would you look? 00:03:11.900 --> 00:03:14.000 align:middle line:90%