WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.350 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.350 --> 00:00:06.410 align:middle line:84% I thought I would read a little bit first 00:00:06.410 --> 00:00:10.610 align:middle line:84% from work in progress, because it's difficult for me 00:00:10.610 --> 00:00:14.180 align:middle line:84% to read only work that's already published. 00:00:14.180 --> 00:00:17.030 align:middle line:90% I feel constrained by it. 00:00:17.030 --> 00:00:20.660 align:middle line:84% Work in progress still seems living to me, 00:00:20.660 --> 00:00:25.250 align:middle line:84% and mutable, and possible in ways 00:00:25.250 --> 00:00:27.950 align:middle line:84% that the books, once they become books, 00:00:27.950 --> 00:00:29.630 align:middle line:90% have a certain kind of stasis. 00:00:29.630 --> 00:00:31.370 align:middle line:84% So I thought I would read a little bit 00:00:31.370 --> 00:00:33.440 align:middle line:84% from a very large book I'm working 00:00:33.440 --> 00:00:36.590 align:middle line:90% on called The Bay of Angels. 00:00:36.590 --> 00:00:42.980 align:middle line:84% It's a book that's related to my 1993 novel called Ava. 00:00:42.980 --> 00:00:48.680 align:middle line:84% In that book, a woman named Ava Klein, who is 33 years old-- 00:00:48.680 --> 00:00:50.375 align:middle line:90% 39 years old is-- 00:00:50.375 --> 00:00:52.970 align:middle line:90% 00:00:52.970 --> 00:00:54.230 align:middle line:90% it's the last day of her life. 00:00:54.230 --> 00:00:57.020 align:middle line:84% She's dying of a rare blood disease. 00:00:57.020 --> 00:01:04.349 align:middle line:84% And the book is simply in sections, morning, afternoon, 00:01:04.349 --> 00:01:05.239 align:middle line:90% and night. 00:01:05.239 --> 00:01:07.100 align:middle line:84% This book, The Bay of Angels will 00:01:07.100 --> 00:01:12.530 align:middle line:84% go earlier, by about eight years or so, 00:01:12.530 --> 00:01:14.910 align:middle line:84% but still be a chronicle of her illness. 00:01:14.910 --> 00:01:17.630 align:middle line:84% She'll be in the hospital again this time, 00:01:17.630 --> 00:01:21.090 align:middle line:84% only she will be receiving a bone marrow transplant. 00:01:21.090 --> 00:01:24.050 align:middle line:84% And she will receive that from her mother. 00:01:24.050 --> 00:01:28.580 align:middle line:84% Her mother is a survivor of the Treblinka death camp. 00:01:28.580 --> 00:01:31.430 align:middle line:84% And I think that's pretty much all 00:01:31.430 --> 00:01:34.715 align:middle line:84% you need to know for the sections I'll read tonight. 00:01:34.715 --> 00:01:45.510 align:middle line:90% 00:01:45.510 --> 00:01:48.810 align:middle line:84% In this section she'll be reminded of another hospital 00:01:48.810 --> 00:01:52.155 align:middle line:84% room she was once in, and that was in a maternity ward. 00:01:52.155 --> 00:01:54.850 align:middle line:90% 00:01:54.850 --> 00:01:57.360 align:middle line:90% "The names." 00:01:57.360 --> 00:02:05.910 align:middle line:84% "I named my child Mercy, Lamb, Seraphina, The Burning One. 00:02:05.910 --> 00:02:09.990 align:middle line:84% I named my child the one who predicts the future though I 00:02:09.990 --> 00:02:16.950 align:middle line:84% never wanted that. I named my child Pillar, Staff, 00:02:16.950 --> 00:02:22.590 align:middle line:84% Henry, from the old High German, Haginrich, which means ruler 00:02:22.590 --> 00:02:26.400 align:middle line:90% of the enclosure, how awful. 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:31.470 align:middle line:84% I named my baby Plum, Pear Blossom, Shining Path. 00:02:31.470 --> 00:02:36.570 align:middle line:84% I named my child Rose Chloe, that's Blooming Horse. 00:02:36.570 --> 00:02:39.810 align:middle line:84% I almost named her Rose Seraphina, that 00:02:39.810 --> 00:02:43.140 align:middle line:90% would have been Horse on Fire. 00:02:43.140 --> 00:02:48.240 align:middle line:84% Kame, which is tortoise, the name denotes long life. 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:54.640 align:middle line:84% Kameko, tortoise child, Kameyo, Tortoise Generation, 00:02:54.640 --> 00:02:57.630 align:middle line:90% so she might live forever. 00:02:57.630 --> 00:03:01.350 align:middle line:90% And Tori, Turtle Dove. 00:03:01.350 --> 00:03:04.080 align:middle line:84% I named my child Sorrow inadvertently. 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:05.910 align:middle line:90% I did not mean to. 00:03:05.910 --> 00:03:08.160 align:middle line:84% In the darkness I named her Rebecca, 00:03:08.160 --> 00:03:11.130 align:middle line:90% that is noose, to tie or bind. 00:03:11.130 --> 00:03:15.870 align:middle line:84% In the gloom I named my baby Mary, which means bitter, 00:03:15.870 --> 00:03:19.110 align:middle line:84% but I am happier than before, and named my baby 00:03:19.110 --> 00:03:23.040 align:middle line:90% Day, and Star, and Emblem. 00:03:23.040 --> 00:03:25.200 align:middle line:84% I named my child Viola so that she 00:03:25.200 --> 00:03:29.080 align:middle line:84% might be musical, and Cecilia, patron Saint of music 00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:31.200 align:middle line:90% so she might play the violin. 00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:34.630 align:middle line:84% Vigilant was the name of my child, 00:03:34.630 --> 00:03:37.350 align:middle line:90% daughter of the Oath, Defiance. 00:03:37.350 --> 00:03:40.920 align:middle line:84% I named my child Sylvie so that she will not be frightened 00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:43.260 align:middle line:90% of the sunless forest. 00:03:43.260 --> 00:03:47.190 align:middle line:84% I named my child War by mistake, that 00:03:47.190 --> 00:03:50.550 align:middle line:90% would be Marcela or Martine. 00:03:50.550 --> 00:03:55.560 align:middle line:84% I named my child Ulrich, Wolf Power, oh my son. 00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:58.230 align:middle line:84% After a while though, I wised up, 00:03:58.230 --> 00:04:05.130 align:middle line:84% and passed on Brunhilda, Helmut, Hermann, Walter, and Aegon, 00:04:05.130 --> 00:04:07.260 align:middle line:90% the point of the sword. 00:04:07.260 --> 00:04:12.450 align:middle line:84% I did not value power in battle, and so skipped over Maud. 00:04:12.450 --> 00:04:15.960 align:middle line:84% Instead, I named my child Sibeta, the one 00:04:15.960 --> 00:04:19.410 align:middle line:90% who finds a fish under a rock. 00:04:19.410 --> 00:04:25.620 align:middle line:84% Sacred Bells, and Ray of Light, and Durga, unattainable. 00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:31.860 align:middle line:84% Olwen, White Footprint, Monica, Solitary One. 00:04:31.860 --> 00:04:36.210 align:middle line:84% I named my child Babette, that is Stranger. 00:04:36.210 --> 00:04:41.520 align:middle line:84% I named her Claudia, lame without realizing it. 00:04:41.520 --> 00:04:45.090 align:middle line:90% How are you feeling Ava Klein? 00:04:45.090 --> 00:04:47.430 align:middle line:90% Perdita. 00:04:47.430 --> 00:04:51.660 align:middle line:84% I named her Thirst, and Miriam, Sea of Sorrow, 00:04:51.660 --> 00:04:54.570 align:middle line:90% and Cendrine, that's Ashes. 00:04:54.570 --> 00:04:57.300 align:middle line:84% But I am feeling better now, thank you. 00:04:57.300 --> 00:05:03.150 align:middle line:84% I named my child, God is with Thee, though I do not feel Him. 00:05:03.150 --> 00:05:07.710 align:middle line:84% I named her Isolde, Ruler of Ice, Giselle, Pledge 00:05:07.710 --> 00:05:12.060 align:middle line:84% and Hostage, Harita, a lovely name derived from the Sanskrit 00:05:12.060 --> 00:05:14.340 align:middle line:84% denotes a color of yellow, or green, 00:05:14.340 --> 00:05:20.910 align:middle line:84% or brown, a monkey, the sun, the wind, and several other things. 00:05:20.910 --> 00:05:23.850 align:middle line:84% I named her Clothed in Red because I never 00:05:23.850 --> 00:05:26.160 align:middle line:90% stopped bleeding. 00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:29.940 align:middle line:84% I named my son Yitzchak, that's he will laugh. 00:05:29.940 --> 00:05:33.060 align:middle line:90% And Isaiah, Salvation. 00:05:33.060 --> 00:05:39.150 align:middle line:84% I named him Salvation and Rescue five minutes to midnight. 00:05:39.150 --> 00:05:41.910 align:middle line:84% I named my daughter Esme, the past participle 00:05:41.910 --> 00:05:44.850 align:middle line:90% of the verb esmer, to love. 00:05:44.850 --> 00:05:49.020 align:middle line:84% I named her She Has Peace and Shining Beautiful Valley. 00:05:49.020 --> 00:05:54.790 align:middle line:84% I named my baby Farewell to Spring, just in case. 00:05:54.790 --> 00:05:58.350 align:middle line:84% I named my child Ocean for that vast mysterious shifting 00:05:58.350 --> 00:05:59.460 align:middle line:90% expanse. 00:05:59.460 --> 00:06:02.310 align:middle line:84% I named her Marissa, that's Of the Sea, 00:06:02.310 --> 00:06:05.370 align:middle line:84% because naming is what we do, I guess. 00:06:05.370 --> 00:06:08.700 align:middle line:90% There is a silliness to us. 00:06:08.700 --> 00:06:11.490 align:middle line:84% I named my child Cusp, and Cutting Edge, 00:06:11.490 --> 00:06:15.780 align:middle line:84% and Renegade to protect her from critics. 00:06:15.780 --> 00:06:19.890 align:middle line:84% I named my child Millennia because the future is now, 00:06:19.890 --> 00:06:22.680 align:middle line:90% whether we like it or not. 00:06:22.680 --> 00:06:25.830 align:middle line:84% It is a distinct pleasure to be here on this Earth 00:06:25.830 --> 00:06:28.050 align:middle line:90% naming with you. 00:06:28.050 --> 00:06:30.300 align:middle line:90% They lift a glass. 00:06:30.300 --> 00:06:34.860 align:middle line:84% New Year's Eve and the revelers, dizzy, a little more 00:06:34.860 --> 00:06:39.570 align:middle line:84% than tipsy, at the edge of what unbeknownst to them 00:06:39.570 --> 00:06:43.600 align:middle line:84% has already happened, is already happening. 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:47.630 align:middle line:84% It gives them a sepia tone in their paper hats, 00:06:47.630 --> 00:06:52.310 align:middle line:84% and goblets, and blowers, and confetti, happy. 00:06:52.310 --> 00:06:56.540 align:middle line:84% That old, sweet, and hopeful new, 00:06:56.540 --> 00:07:00.560 align:middle line:84% there is not one day that I have not thought of you, my child. 00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:06.680 align:middle line:84% Year, and time passes as if we had a choice. 00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:10.340 align:middle line:84% Estranged photographed feeling, the black hood 00:07:10.340 --> 00:07:12.410 align:middle line:90% over the box on its legs. 00:07:12.410 --> 00:07:16.640 align:middle line:84% That wobbly feeling coming from champagne and last things, 00:07:16.640 --> 00:07:21.440 align:middle line:84% as the new century moves into us, 1900. 00:07:21.440 --> 00:07:29.550 align:middle line:84% Time immemorial, so they say, what is to come, unimaginable. 00:07:29.550 --> 00:07:32.090 align:middle line:84% I named my baby Many Achievements, 00:07:32.090 --> 00:07:34.160 align:middle line:90% Five Ravens, Red Bird. 00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:39.140 align:middle line:84% I named her Goes Forth Bravely, Beautiful Lake, Shaking Snow, 00:07:39.140 --> 00:07:42.230 align:middle line:90% Red Echo, Walking by Water. 00:07:42.230 --> 00:07:45.950 align:middle line:84% And we relish the saying while we still can. 00:07:45.950 --> 00:07:49.610 align:middle line:84% And in the saying, inhabit our own vanishing 00:07:49.610 --> 00:07:52.700 align:middle line:84% in the shadow language, its after image 00:07:52.700 --> 00:07:54.750 align:middle line:90% a blue ghost in the bones. 00:07:54.750 --> 00:07:58.700 align:middle line:84% The passage of time, intimacy of the late evening, 00:07:58.700 --> 00:08:03.650 align:middle line:84% seated by a fire, embers, pipe smoke 00:08:03.650 --> 00:08:07.280 align:middle line:84% when you were a child comes from under the crack in the door, 00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:10.490 align:middle line:84% letting you know that Uncle Louis was near. 00:08:10.490 --> 00:08:12.260 align:middle line:84% The distant sound from your nursery 00:08:12.260 --> 00:08:16.520 align:middle line:84% of the revelers they come in to peer at you 00:08:16.520 --> 00:08:20.870 align:middle line:84% and your crib in the eerie masks of Victoriana on the dying 00:08:20.870 --> 00:08:22.820 align:middle line:90% years last eve. 00:08:22.820 --> 00:08:26.060 align:middle line:84% Louisa and Herman move toward the lamp light, 00:08:26.060 --> 00:08:29.120 align:middle line:90% oohs and ahs and then quiet. 00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:32.539 align:middle line:84% All disperse, a proper German gentleman, 00:08:32.539 --> 00:08:35.450 align:middle line:84% an American with a handlebar mustache, 00:08:35.450 --> 00:08:39.830 align:middle line:84% a chorus girl, a rabbit-faced widow, a bursar, 00:08:39.830 --> 00:08:45.290 align:middle line:84% a man in a turban, a geisha, a chic Orientalism, 00:08:45.290 --> 00:08:47.660 align:middle line:90% a sultry gypsy girl. 00:08:47.660 --> 00:08:50.270 align:middle line:84% They meander through the ramble weaving 00:08:50.270 --> 00:08:53.630 align:middle line:84% a little with the odd premonition 00:08:53.630 --> 00:08:58.310 align:middle line:84% that they are all playing their parts on this elaborate stage, 00:08:58.310 --> 00:09:03.980 align:middle line:84% the world hurtling forward, the year on the verge of turning. 00:09:03.980 --> 00:09:09.950 align:middle line:84% Snow begins to fall, the lights twinkling, they lift a glass. 00:09:09.950 --> 00:09:16.010 align:middle line:84% New Year's Eve and we dream of a music, a book never seen 00:09:16.010 --> 00:09:21.080 align:middle line:84% before at the edge of its obsolescence, the light, 00:09:21.080 --> 00:09:25.910 align:middle line:84% pale opal, on the shards of story and sound. 00:09:25.910 --> 00:09:28.460 align:middle line:90% What is left now? 00:09:28.460 --> 00:09:34.760 align:middle line:84% On the last day of the last year of the last 1,000 00:09:34.760 --> 00:09:39.080 align:middle line:84% and the dead stream by with their names, and all the ways 00:09:39.080 --> 00:09:46.730 align:middle line:84% they tried to say Clint Youle, 83, early weatherman on TV. 00:09:46.730 --> 00:09:51.500 align:middle line:84% H.S. Richardson, heir to Vix Cold Remedies. 00:09:51.500 --> 00:09:56.420 align:middle line:84% Hazel Bishop, an innovator who made lipstick kiss-proof. 00:09:56.420 --> 00:10:01.880 align:middle line:84% Linda Alma, 70, dancer in Greek movies. 00:10:01.880 --> 00:10:08.510 align:middle line:84% Walter O'Wells, 63, a pioneer in mobile homes. 00:10:08.510 --> 00:10:13.640 align:middle line:84% The future already with us, its advance implacable. 00:10:13.640 --> 00:10:17.720 align:middle line:84% And the revelers having rested up that afternoon 00:10:17.720 --> 00:10:23.870 align:middle line:84% begin their foray to play out the passing of time, thrilled, 00:10:23.870 --> 00:10:27.380 align:middle line:84% a little frightened, tinged with melancholy, 00:10:27.380 --> 00:10:34.040 align:middle line:84% struck as they leave now by the intense desire to stay. 00:10:34.040 --> 00:10:39.920 align:middle line:84% To earn one's death, writes Mary Cantwell, 69, author, 00:10:39.920 --> 00:10:43.070 align:middle line:84% I think of it as a kind of parlor game. 00:10:43.070 --> 00:10:46.910 align:middle line:84% How I shall ask my friends would you like to earn your deaths? 00:10:46.910 --> 00:10:50.180 align:middle line:84% And how would I like to earn mine? 00:10:50.180 --> 00:10:52.310 align:middle line:90% And we are charmed. 00:10:52.310 --> 00:10:54.980 align:middle line:84% I named my baby the Origin of Song 00:10:54.980 --> 00:11:00.260 align:middle line:84% and then the Origin of Tears, Angel Eyes, and Angel Heart, 00:11:00.260 --> 00:11:03.140 align:middle line:84% and Sweetie Pie, and Darling One. 00:11:03.140 --> 00:11:07.310 align:middle line:84% We've relished the naming, eased by it, 00:11:07.310 --> 00:11:10.010 align:middle line:84% and all the other games we made up, 00:11:10.010 --> 00:11:13.190 align:middle line:84% and all the things we thought to do. 00:11:13.190 --> 00:11:17.420 align:middle line:90% New Year's Eve and the revelers. 00:11:17.420 --> 00:11:20.390 align:middle line:84% At the end of the century, a whisper. 00:11:20.390 --> 00:11:25.310 align:middle line:84% The Berlin Philharmonic plays seven finales in a row, 00:11:25.310 --> 00:11:29.030 align:middle line:84% and the year 2000 is issued in, scraps of 00:11:29.030 --> 00:11:36.200 align:middle line:84% story and sound, that beautiful end of the century debris. 00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:39.350 align:middle line:84% We were working on an erotic song cycle, 00:11:39.350 --> 00:11:44.500 align:middle line:84% it was called The Problem Now of the Finale. 00:11:44.500 --> 00:11:48.880 align:middle line:84% Today where the sense of key is weaker or absent altogether, 00:11:48.880 --> 00:11:51.550 align:middle line:84% there is no goal to be reached as in earlier 00:11:51.550 --> 00:11:54.310 align:middle line:90% finales as a closing gesture. 00:11:54.310 --> 00:11:57.040 align:middle line:90% What now then? 00:11:57.040 --> 00:11:58.150 align:middle line:90% A joke? 00:11:58.150 --> 00:11:59.530 align:middle line:90% A dissolve? 00:11:59.530 --> 00:12:01.810 align:middle line:90% A fast faster slow tearing? 00:12:01.810 --> 00:12:05.050 align:middle line:84% Intimations of a kind of timelessness? 00:12:05.050 --> 00:12:07.090 align:middle line:90% The chiming of bells? 00:12:07.090 --> 00:12:08.950 align:middle line:90% A wing and a prayer? 00:12:08.950 --> 00:12:14.860 align:middle line:84% Perhaps a solemn procession toward what then? 00:12:14.860 --> 00:12:20.980 align:middle line:84% New Year's Eve and the revelers, another sort of progress. 00:12:20.980 --> 00:12:25.030 align:middle line:84% I named my child Farewell to Spring. 00:12:25.030 --> 00:12:28.330 align:middle line:84% How strange, the dwindling, pronounced 00:12:28.330 --> 00:12:32.920 align:middle line:84% as it is on this night where we deliberately mark its passage. 00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:38.380 align:middle line:84% Happy new year, lost in the naming in the marking of time 00:12:38.380 --> 00:12:45.280 align:middle line:84% as it slips, distracted from the strangeness for a minute. 00:12:45.280 --> 00:12:50.620 align:middle line:84% It's been a privilege, and how quickly, all of a sudden, 00:12:50.620 --> 00:12:54.700 align:middle line:84% pipe smoke when you were a child. 00:12:54.700 --> 00:13:00.070 align:middle line:84% Or the alarming, forced jollity of a Shostakovich finale. 00:13:00.070 --> 00:13:02.080 align:middle line:90% Where are you going? 00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:04.300 align:middle line:90% Where have you gone? 00:13:04.300 --> 00:13:06.400 align:middle line:90% I named her Century. 00:13:06.400 --> 00:13:09.430 align:middle line:84% I named her Bethany, House of Figs. 00:13:09.430 --> 00:13:12.970 align:middle line:84% I named her Lucia to protect her from the dark, 00:13:12.970 --> 00:13:19.420 align:middle line:84% and Xing, which is Star, Dolphin, Lion, Lover of Horses. 00:13:19.420 --> 00:13:28.120 align:middle line:84% I named her Arabella, Beautiful Alter, and Andromeda, Rescued. 00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:32.920 align:middle line:84% My child was made almost entirely of blood in the end. 00:13:32.920 --> 00:13:35.620 align:middle line:84% She slipped through my hands, they 00:13:35.620 --> 00:13:41.860 align:middle line:84% say ordinarily such a child is not named. 00:13:41.860 --> 00:13:46.030 align:middle line:84% A flock of birds, bells that descend, 00:13:46.030 --> 00:13:49.120 align:middle line:90% a rose on the open sea. 00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:53.800 align:middle line:84% The pages of the baby name book ragged, 00:13:53.800 --> 00:14:03.070 align:middle line:84% nevertheless, I could not pass up Mercy, Tenderness, Lamb. 00:14:03.070 --> 00:14:06.610 align:middle line:84% I wish I could decipher the silence, 00:14:06.610 --> 00:14:10.180 align:middle line:84% understand its whims, the century 00:14:10.180 --> 00:14:12.740 align:middle line:90% a chalice of heartbreak. 00:14:12.740 --> 00:14:18.040 align:middle line:84% We put our lips to it and whisper, what now? 00:14:18.040 --> 00:14:20.500 align:middle line:90% What next? 00:14:20.500 --> 00:14:25.570 align:middle line:84% And Bella, derived from a word that means wave, 00:14:25.570 --> 00:14:31.690 align:middle line:84% or a word that means time, or a word that means limit. 00:14:31.690 --> 00:14:37.740 align:middle line:84% It is also indicative of a type of flower or a violin." 00:14:37.740 --> 00:14:40.000 align:middle line:90%