WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.410 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.410 --> 00:00:06.345 align:middle line:84% When Frida is 19, she has a terrible accident. 00:00:06.345 --> 00:00:09.240 align:middle line:84% I'm sure most of you know, she was a bus accident 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:15.600 align:middle line:84% and she was pierced by a steel pillar, 00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:18.360 align:middle line:84% and for the rest of her life she was 00:00:18.360 --> 00:00:21.870 align:middle line:84% in horrendous pain of varying degrees 00:00:21.870 --> 00:00:23.670 align:middle line:84% had I don't know how many operations-- 00:00:23.670 --> 00:00:29.010 align:middle line:90% and began to paint after that. 00:00:29.010 --> 00:00:31.320 align:middle line:84% This is the very last piece of the book, 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:35.280 align:middle line:84% and the last thing I'll read tonight. 00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:37.500 align:middle line:84% When I was writing it the only thing 00:00:37.500 --> 00:00:41.640 align:middle line:84% I really thought of the whole time I was writing it was to-- 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:46.170 align:middle line:84% how to get Frida's limp into the prose. 00:00:46.170 --> 00:00:47.670 align:middle line:90% How to feel it. 00:00:47.670 --> 00:00:50.850 align:middle line:84% How to palpably get that body to feel what 00:00:50.850 --> 00:00:54.690 align:middle line:84% it must have been like for her, all that 00:00:54.690 --> 00:00:56.370 align:middle line:90% into the prose somehow. 00:00:56.370 --> 00:00:58.350 align:middle line:84% That prose and poetry, and all those things 00:00:58.350 --> 00:01:01.380 align:middle line:84% should be able to do things on certain levels 00:01:01.380 --> 00:01:03.610 align:middle line:90% and in certain ways. 00:01:03.610 --> 00:01:05.640 align:middle line:90% If you ask it to-- 00:01:05.640 --> 00:01:13.500 align:middle line:84% if you sort of propose it as the thing 00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:18.810 align:middle line:84% that dictates and makes the peace 00:01:18.810 --> 00:01:21.040 align:middle line:90% and gives it its integrity. 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:22.530 align:middle line:84% So this is called, "World Tonight". 00:01:22.530 --> 00:01:26.400 align:middle line:84% In the book-- in this book, Frida has already died 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:29.790 align:middle line:84% and this is sort of conjuring that I do at the end. 00:01:29.790 --> 00:01:40.570 align:middle line:90% 00:01:40.570 --> 00:01:42.370 align:middle line:90% "World Tonight". 00:01:42.370 --> 00:01:44.260 align:middle line:84% "You are walking down a dirt road 00:01:44.260 --> 00:01:47.830 align:middle line:84% alone, free for a moment from the sorrow 00:01:47.830 --> 00:01:57.310 align:middle line:84% and drama of your life, free of your body's pain, free of free. 00:01:57.310 --> 00:02:00.820 align:middle line:84% You are walking without physical pain for a moment 00:02:00.820 --> 00:02:06.310 align:middle line:84% though it informs each step, drawn to the swirling. 00:02:06.310 --> 00:02:15.040 align:middle line:84% A little free, a little free of dragging a right foot. 00:02:15.040 --> 00:02:17.950 align:middle line:84% Well, you have not forgotten it for a moment 00:02:17.950 --> 00:02:20.710 align:middle line:84% sucking on a paintbrush and looking up 00:02:20.710 --> 00:02:22.960 align:middle line:90% into the fiesta of the sun. 00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:27.400 align:middle line:84% You see yourself walk away, walk out, 00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:32.290 align:middle line:84% out of your leather corset, your steel corset, your plaster 00:02:32.290 --> 00:02:36.670 align:middle line:84% corset, your corset of thorns and tears, 00:02:36.670 --> 00:02:39.380 align:middle line:90% your abyss of dark birds. 00:02:39.380 --> 00:02:42.490 align:middle line:90% Diego, Diego. 00:02:42.490 --> 00:02:45.940 align:middle line:84% I am sweeping the Earth, I am soaking the Earth 00:02:45.940 --> 00:02:50.350 align:middle line:84% with my tears dragging a right foot. 00:02:50.350 --> 00:02:55.780 align:middle line:84% Sorrow brushing up, rubbing up slightly against her. 00:02:55.780 --> 00:03:00.490 align:middle line:84% I am sweeping the Earth with my hair, with my grief. 00:03:00.490 --> 00:03:04.540 align:middle line:84% All is failed, but the light is not failed. 00:03:04.540 --> 00:03:07.150 align:middle line:84% Walking away from your marriage, which 00:03:07.150 --> 00:03:11.050 align:middle line:84% seems to be failing for a second time. 00:03:11.050 --> 00:03:13.240 align:middle line:90% One good leg. 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:14.830 align:middle line:90% You take her hand. 00:03:14.830 --> 00:03:18.130 align:middle line:84% She pulls on your necklace of swallows and thorns. 00:03:18.130 --> 00:03:21.700 align:middle line:84% You take her to the ditch at the end of the dirt road. 00:03:21.700 --> 00:03:24.790 align:middle line:84% You chew the Earth at her door screaming for her 00:03:24.790 --> 00:03:28.360 align:middle line:84% to come with you down the dirt road home. 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:32.050 align:middle line:84% You take her hand and pull her with you free. 00:03:32.050 --> 00:03:36.640 align:middle line:90% A little free, free of-- 00:03:36.640 --> 00:03:40.360 align:middle line:84% You have come to the place of utter sorrow and coast 00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:42.070 align:middle line:90% as the end approaches. 00:03:42.070 --> 00:03:45.010 align:middle line:90% Smoke rising from the river. 00:03:45.010 --> 00:03:50.350 align:middle line:84% As the end nears, you cradle a sugar skull. 00:03:50.350 --> 00:03:54.550 align:middle line:84% And the small boats put up their white sails and your workers 00:03:54.550 --> 00:03:57.490 align:middle line:90% of the world unite once more. 00:03:57.490 --> 00:04:02.350 align:middle line:84% See how the shoreline recedes and the boats and the dirt road 00:04:02.350 --> 00:04:04.850 align:middle line:90% you loved and walked. 00:04:04.850 --> 00:04:07.570 align:middle line:90% No, and the roses. 00:04:07.570 --> 00:04:09.910 align:middle line:84% You were dragging her here to this, 00:04:09.910 --> 00:04:13.120 align:middle line:84% and your country soaked in blood and broken. 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:16.300 align:middle line:84% Yes, you whirl in your comunista, 00:04:16.300 --> 00:04:19.810 align:middle line:84% raising a fist, and cigarette, and swagger, 00:04:19.810 --> 00:04:23.800 align:middle line:84% mouthing Trotsky all your thorns and roses. 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:28.180 align:middle line:84% Your country body gone to blood and broken. 00:04:28.180 --> 00:04:30.970 align:middle line:84% And you charm her with your fetish, and image, 00:04:30.970 --> 00:04:32.260 align:middle line:90% and promises. 00:04:32.260 --> 00:04:35.960 align:middle line:84% And she watches as you suck on the edge of your corset. 00:04:35.960 --> 00:04:39.130 align:middle line:84% You swear into her ear as you lower her. 00:04:39.130 --> 00:04:42.580 align:middle line:84% You bisect in every possible way her body 00:04:42.580 --> 00:04:46.510 align:middle line:84% in the ditch laughing maniacally left for dead 00:04:46.510 --> 00:04:53.860 align:middle line:84% on the dirt road home without pain, in pain, in dread 00:04:53.860 --> 00:04:57.670 align:middle line:84% you are devouring time and the Earth and the woman. 00:04:57.670 --> 00:05:01.090 align:middle line:84% You were devouring women in your bravado 00:05:01.090 --> 00:05:05.800 align:middle line:84% and the woman mud had smeared all over her breathless points 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:10.930 align:middle line:84% and gasps at the little deer pierced by arrows. 00:05:10.930 --> 00:05:14.800 align:middle line:84% Laugh and cuss scrawl of her body with Earth and blood 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:18.490 align:middle line:84% you whisper, I hope the exit is joyful 00:05:18.490 --> 00:05:21.750 align:middle line:90% and I hope never to come back. 00:05:21.750 --> 00:05:31.270 align:middle line:84% Hourglass because I am running out of legs life free, free 00:05:31.270 --> 00:05:32.500 align:middle line:90% of." 00:05:32.500 --> 00:05:33.000 align:middle line:90%