WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.840 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.840 --> 00:00:02.340 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:00:02.340 --> 00:00:03.990 align:middle line:84%
This is like the
seventh inning stretch,

00:00:03.990 --> 00:00:05.573 align:middle line:84%
because I'm going
to read a long poem.

00:00:05.573 --> 00:00:08.250 align:middle line:84%
And I hope it keeps
you interested.

00:00:08.250 --> 00:00:12.125 align:middle line:84%
But it will take a while to
read, so, take a deep breath.

00:00:12.125 --> 00:00:15.520 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHS]

00:00:15.520 --> 00:00:18.430 align:middle line:90%


00:00:18.430 --> 00:00:22.350 align:middle line:90%
"Poem for Women and for Men."

00:00:22.350 --> 00:00:26.010 align:middle line:84%
"Do you want to know the
disadvantages"-- excuse me.

00:00:26.010 --> 00:00:29.700 align:middle line:84%
"Do you want to know the
disadvantages of having sex

00:00:29.700 --> 00:00:30.960 align:middle line:90%
at my age?"

00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:32.910 align:middle line:90%
the old woman asked.

00:00:32.910 --> 00:00:37.710 align:middle line:84%
Flatulence, incontinence,
and bruising.

00:00:37.710 --> 00:00:42.330 align:middle line:84%
Sex will make a fool of us
from the end to the beginning.

00:00:42.330 --> 00:00:45.510 align:middle line:84%
At age 10 in the
stacks of the library,

00:00:45.510 --> 00:00:50.250 align:middle line:84%
in the pages of a medical
book of anatomical freeze,

00:00:50.250 --> 00:00:52.420 align:middle line:90%
I saw a teenage girl.

00:00:52.420 --> 00:00:56.700 align:middle line:84%
She was naked from the waist up,
porcelain in a black and white

00:00:56.700 --> 00:01:01.500 align:middle line:84%
photograph, one arm raised in
neither surrender nor salute,

00:01:01.500 --> 00:01:05.730 align:middle line:84%
and in the armpit,
small, but fully formed,

00:01:05.730 --> 00:01:08.790 align:middle line:84%
like an overturned
doll house teacup,

00:01:08.790 --> 00:01:11.550 align:middle line:84%
a perfectly shaped,
perfectly rounded,

00:01:11.550 --> 00:01:14.070 align:middle line:90%
miniature human breast.

00:01:14.070 --> 00:01:17.820 align:middle line:84%
And for a while, afterwards,
whenever a girl or woman

00:01:17.820 --> 00:01:21.240 align:middle line:84%
would raise her arm, I'd
do the quick eye dance

00:01:21.240 --> 00:01:26.160 align:middle line:84%
for the third, the hidden,
mysterious, rare, forbidden,

00:01:26.160 --> 00:01:29.820 align:middle line:84%
the one part nobody
ever mentions.

00:01:29.820 --> 00:01:34.290 align:middle line:84%
When desire begins to merge with
imagination, under the blanket,

00:01:34.290 --> 00:01:36.990 align:middle line:90%
you pump the silky skin madly.

00:01:36.990 --> 00:01:40.470 align:middle line:84%
Probably, no one told
you how, or told you why,

00:01:40.470 --> 00:01:43.590 align:middle line:84%
with the full firm
grip of a boy's fist,

00:01:43.590 --> 00:01:46.560 align:middle line:90%
from top to bottom and back up.

00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:49.980 align:middle line:84%
The rush of fluid passing
over exquisite nerves

00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:53.190 align:middle line:84%
mixes with an irritating
pain, as though you've

00:01:53.190 --> 00:01:56.640 align:middle line:84%
fallen off your sled
and careened, scraped,

00:01:56.640 --> 00:01:59.520 align:middle line:84%
and bleeding, wild
with exhilaration

00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:01.650 align:middle line:90%
down the snowy hill.

00:02:01.650 --> 00:02:05.250 align:middle line:84%
You don't yet know about
the rounded sensitive rim,

00:02:05.250 --> 00:02:07.950 align:middle line:84%
the pacing, or the
tenderness you're

00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:12.040 align:middle line:84%
supposed to show yourself as
though you are another person.

00:02:12.040 --> 00:02:16.860 align:middle line:84%
And that other person is
supposed to be a girl.

00:02:16.860 --> 00:02:20.550 align:middle line:84%
Every child's organ
with its own biography.

00:02:20.550 --> 00:02:24.210 align:middle line:84%
Like a 12-year-old who
unzipped my fly expertly

00:02:24.210 --> 00:02:28.110 align:middle line:84%
with one hand, plucked my
penis from my underpants,

00:02:28.110 --> 00:02:31.900 align:middle line:84%
the way a man will arrange a
book of matches with one hand,

00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:35.190 align:middle line:84%
fold the match forward
to scratch it into flame.

00:02:35.190 --> 00:02:38.880 align:middle line:84%
Then slowly, idly, roughly
with the smallest part

00:02:38.880 --> 00:02:42.120 align:middle line:84%
of her attention, while she
chatted on the telephone,

00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:43.920 align:middle line:90%
jerked me off.

00:02:43.920 --> 00:02:46.710 align:middle line:84%
I was also 12 and
frequently nudged

00:02:46.710 --> 00:02:50.190 align:middle line:84%
her, stroke, stroke until
the white rope of marrow

00:02:50.190 --> 00:02:52.380 align:middle line:90%
would geyser up and over us.

00:02:52.380 --> 00:02:56.151 align:middle line:84%
Then, with a Kleenex,
she wiped away the cum.

00:02:56.151 --> 00:02:57.840 align:middle line:90%
"She did what?"

00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:00.450 align:middle line:84%
That's Gail, with
her commentary.

00:03:00.450 --> 00:03:05.370 align:middle line:84%
And of her girlfriend, she says,
"At the cafe, a really intimate

00:03:05.370 --> 00:03:07.980 align:middle line:84%
conversation, the
best of girl talk,

00:03:07.980 --> 00:03:10.380 align:middle line:84%
it had nothing to do
with men, by the way.

00:03:10.380 --> 00:03:13.260 align:middle line:84%
Then a man slides over
to our table, and what?"

00:03:13.260 --> 00:03:17.070 align:middle line:84%
She fluffs up her entire
body like a cat in heat.

00:03:17.070 --> 00:03:20.490 align:middle line:90%
"She forgot I was even there."

00:03:20.490 --> 00:03:23.100 align:middle line:84%
And somewhere, between
two cars locked

00:03:23.100 --> 00:03:28.980 align:middle line:84%
bumpers, a clever, angry woman
saying calmly to an angry man,

00:03:28.980 --> 00:03:32.580 align:middle line:90%
"You can suck my cock."

00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:39.210 align:middle line:84%
Anger, indignation, competition,
confusion, sometimes, beauty.

00:03:39.210 --> 00:03:42.570 align:middle line:84%
In the metro from
Bastille to Opera,

00:03:42.570 --> 00:03:45.480 align:middle line:84%
an aged couple
elegantly, shabbily

00:03:45.480 --> 00:03:48.240 align:middle line:84%
dressed, their
skin so opaque, you

00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:51.120 align:middle line:84%
can see the jugulars
flutter at their necks.

00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:55.440 align:middle line:84%
And their mouths, dry leaves
whispering into each other,

00:03:55.440 --> 00:03:58.590 align:middle line:84%
kissing past station
after station

00:03:58.590 --> 00:04:01.530 align:middle line:84%
with a certain
passionate restraint.

00:04:01.530 --> 00:04:07.320 align:middle line:84%
We chased them, we turned away,
amazed, turned back to watch.

00:04:07.320 --> 00:04:11.070 align:middle line:84%
All night of sleep,
a woman I just met

00:04:11.070 --> 00:04:15.010 align:middle line:84%
held my penis
sleeping in her hand.

00:04:15.010 --> 00:04:16.980 align:middle line:84%
Another night, a
woman and I were

00:04:16.980 --> 00:04:20.640 align:middle line:84%
having this passionate
conversation, half intellect,

00:04:20.640 --> 00:04:23.820 align:middle line:84%
half sexual tension,
as though we've

00:04:23.820 --> 00:04:27.580 align:middle line:84%
known each other for years and
picked up where we left off.

00:04:27.580 --> 00:04:29.370 align:middle line:84%
And I could feel
the nightcrawler

00:04:29.370 --> 00:04:30.960 align:middle line:90%
stirring in my lap.

00:04:30.960 --> 00:04:33.180 align:middle line:84%
And then she said,
"Isn't this great?

00:04:33.180 --> 00:04:35.190 align:middle line:84%
I can have a good
talk with a man

00:04:35.190 --> 00:04:37.500 align:middle line:84%
and not worry that,
at any moment,

00:04:37.500 --> 00:04:41.130 align:middle line:84%
he'll be trying to
get into my pants?"

00:04:41.130 --> 00:04:45.330 align:middle line:84%
Separate creatures, every woman
with a rationale, every man

00:04:45.330 --> 00:04:45.870 align:middle line:90%
has planned.

00:04:45.870 --> 00:04:51.480 align:middle line:90%


00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:54.240 align:middle line:84%
And political ideas
changing the ways

00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:58.770 align:middle line:84%
we think, no room for nice
ass anymore, or let me

00:04:58.770 --> 00:05:00.400 align:middle line:90%
carry that for you.

00:05:00.400 --> 00:05:03.040 align:middle line:84%
No rude jokes even
with your wife.

00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:08.170 align:middle line:84%
And in the company of the young,
no shy and honest public airing

00:05:08.170 --> 00:05:10.870 align:middle line:84%
of the struggle
between men and women.

00:05:10.870 --> 00:05:16.750 align:middle line:84%
And in educated company, nobody
even knows what to say anymore.

00:05:16.750 --> 00:05:19.120 align:middle line:90%
"When did romantic love began?"

00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:22.720 align:middle line:84%
asked the professor
before she tells us all.

00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:25.300 align:middle line:84%
And the rooster wants
to poke its head out

00:05:25.300 --> 00:05:30.130 align:middle line:84%
for a little gloat,
rue, regret, shame.

00:05:30.130 --> 00:05:33.670 align:middle line:84%
She smelled so good, I was
sure I could inhale her

00:05:33.670 --> 00:05:36.010 align:middle line:90%
with a single breath.

00:05:36.010 --> 00:05:40.060 align:middle line:84%
All women, the same woman,
you write it in your notebook,

00:05:40.060 --> 00:05:43.180 align:middle line:84%
erase it, write
"separate creatures."

00:05:43.180 --> 00:05:48.190 align:middle line:84%
After that, you write,
"rue, regret, shame."

00:05:48.190 --> 00:05:49.330 align:middle line:90%
Do you know this?

00:05:49.330 --> 00:05:52.330 align:middle line:84%
Of course, but I hope it
doesn't strike you often

00:05:52.330 --> 00:05:55.600 align:middle line:84%
that somewhere, a man,
the husband of a friend,

00:05:55.600 --> 00:06:00.280 align:middle line:84%
and uncle in his dotage, some
invisible stranger who saw you

00:06:00.280 --> 00:06:03.040 align:middle line:84%
on the street, your
mind on groceries,

00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:07.870 align:middle line:84%
a man stands over a toilet, eyes
closed and moving, he groans.

00:06:07.870 --> 00:06:11.080 align:middle line:84%
And further, further
out, and even weirder,

00:06:11.080 --> 00:06:15.880 align:middle line:84%
a man is jerking off to the
girl you were 30 years ago.

00:06:15.880 --> 00:06:18.670 align:middle line:84%
There he was, peeping
into your cabana.

00:06:18.670 --> 00:06:22.150 align:middle line:84%
There you were, changing
out of your old bathing suit

00:06:22.150 --> 00:06:23.980 align:middle line:90%
into your new pubescence.

00:06:23.980 --> 00:06:27.880 align:middle line:84%
And in the foggy mirror,
the rosy orioles of nipples

00:06:27.880 --> 00:06:29.650 align:middle line:90%
rose to greet the cold.

00:06:29.650 --> 00:06:34.390 align:middle line:84%
And now, the man can't get
the picture to leave his bed.

00:06:34.390 --> 00:06:37.540 align:middle line:84%
You prick, you bastard,
you're all the same.

00:06:37.540 --> 00:06:40.750 align:middle line:90%
All you do is follow it around.

00:06:40.750 --> 00:06:44.230 align:middle line:84%
The elderly professor
said, "I never chased women

00:06:44.230 --> 00:06:45.130 align:middle line:90%
when I was young.

00:06:45.130 --> 00:06:46.450 align:middle line:90%
Who had the time?

00:06:46.450 --> 00:06:50.720 align:middle line:84%
And wouldn't that mean all of
them would become as objects?"

00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:54.430 align:middle line:84%
But the breast, every year,
they drop another inch.

00:06:54.430 --> 00:06:58.480 align:middle line:84%
I still can't take
my eyes off them.

00:06:58.480 --> 00:06:59.860 align:middle line:90%
"Are they sensitive?"

00:06:59.860 --> 00:07:01.090 align:middle line:90%
Gail shrugged.

00:07:01.090 --> 00:07:02.230 align:middle line:90%
"Can I touch them?"

00:07:02.230 --> 00:07:03.580 align:middle line:90%
She wouldn't let me.

00:07:03.580 --> 00:07:06.190 align:middle line:84%
We were looking for a
place to put our blanket.

00:07:06.190 --> 00:07:09.430 align:middle line:84%
And to please me, she scanned
the women on the beach.

00:07:09.430 --> 00:07:12.430 align:middle line:84%
This was neat, she was
pregnant, her breasts

00:07:12.430 --> 00:07:13.810 align:middle line:90%
are already swollen.

00:07:13.810 --> 00:07:17.620 align:middle line:84%
So despite my protestations,
she kept them covered.

00:07:17.620 --> 00:07:21.010 align:middle line:84%
And with the artist's
quick eye, located

00:07:21.010 --> 00:07:23.530 align:middle line:84%
what she saw to be the
most beautiful, most

00:07:23.530 --> 00:07:27.700 align:middle line:84%
various congregations, spread
our blanket out, and began.

00:07:27.700 --> 00:07:31.780 align:middle line:84%
This pair that pair, the
melons, the rockets, the wings

00:07:31.780 --> 00:07:33.910 align:middle line:90%
of angels lie on their backs.

00:07:33.910 --> 00:07:37.630 align:middle line:84%
And at a distance, two
pretty teenage topless girls

00:07:37.630 --> 00:07:38.800 align:middle line:90%
at volleyball.

00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:42.190 align:middle line:84%
"You see?" she said, as though
it were perfectly obvious,

00:07:42.190 --> 00:07:43.540 align:middle line:90%
"It's not the size.

00:07:43.540 --> 00:07:46.120 align:middle line:84%
It's the shape, the
shapeliness, it's

00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:48.760 align:middle line:90%
the proportion to the body."

00:07:48.760 --> 00:07:50.440 align:middle line:90%
What does a man want?

00:07:50.440 --> 00:07:52.210 align:middle line:90%
Are we all the same?

00:07:52.210 --> 00:07:54.760 align:middle line:84%
And what to do about
the elderly woman who

00:07:54.760 --> 00:07:58.570 align:middle line:84%
sat beside us at summer's
ease, and beside her,

00:07:58.570 --> 00:08:02.290 align:middle line:84%
the granddaughter, both,
unmindful of my stare,

00:08:02.290 --> 00:08:05.440 align:middle line:84%
both topless,
serious as gamblers

00:08:05.440 --> 00:08:07.030 align:middle line:90%
at their game of cards?

00:08:07.030 --> 00:08:10.930 align:middle line:84%
The cute little girl as
yet unburdened by a man's

00:08:10.930 --> 00:08:12.790 align:middle line:90%
inappropriate attention.

00:08:12.790 --> 00:08:16.750 align:middle line:84%
The woman's breast, unmindful
after all these years,

00:08:16.750 --> 00:08:20.710 align:middle line:84%
were leathery and dark as
emptied Spanish wine skins,

00:08:20.710 --> 00:08:24.010 align:middle line:84%
wrinkled as an old
man's pair of slippers.

00:08:24.010 --> 00:08:26.060 align:middle line:90%
What would I have done for them?

00:08:26.060 --> 00:08:27.970 align:middle line:90%
"You're just a boy," Gail said.

00:08:27.970 --> 00:08:31.390 align:middle line:84%
All breasts are
beautiful, I countered.

00:08:31.390 --> 00:08:32.750 align:middle line:90%
"She'll do it with anyone.

00:08:32.750 --> 00:08:34.990 align:middle line:84%
She doesn't care,"
my friend said.

00:08:34.990 --> 00:08:39.428 align:middle line:84%
We walked up 3 flights of stairs
and rapped at Bunny's door.

00:08:39.428 --> 00:08:41.500 align:middle line:90%
"Shh, my mother's sleeping."

00:08:41.500 --> 00:08:44.440 align:middle line:84%
One stuffed chair,
one standing lamp,

00:08:44.440 --> 00:08:47.710 align:middle line:84%
one dove overhead, she
didn't say another word,

00:08:47.710 --> 00:08:51.400 align:middle line:84%
took off her blouse, and
dungarees, her underpants,

00:08:51.400 --> 00:08:54.940 align:middle line:84%
unhooked her bra, the
breasts released full,

00:08:54.940 --> 00:08:58.060 align:middle line:84%
and with the largest
nipples I've ever seen--

00:08:58.060 --> 00:09:03.010 align:middle line:90%
sag, circles, dark as plum.

00:09:03.010 --> 00:09:06.580 align:middle line:84%
She knelt, put her mouth
on me till I got hard,

00:09:06.580 --> 00:09:10.030 align:middle line:84%
pulled me down, pulled me
into her, and we fucked.

00:09:10.030 --> 00:09:12.220 align:middle line:90%
So this was what it was.

00:09:12.220 --> 00:09:15.340 align:middle line:84%
My friend, on the
stuffed chair, watching.

00:09:15.340 --> 00:09:18.520 align:middle line:84%
"At the door, kiss
me," Bunny said.

00:09:18.520 --> 00:09:22.630 align:middle line:84%
At the dinner party, the guests
were telling their shy stories,

00:09:22.630 --> 00:09:26.680 align:middle line:84%
their earliest, most revealing,
worst, and best, and most

00:09:26.680 --> 00:09:29.710 align:middle line:90%
bizarre sexual experiences.

00:09:29.710 --> 00:09:30.730 align:middle line:90%
"How old were you?"

00:09:30.730 --> 00:09:32.230 align:middle line:90%
A woman asked me.

00:09:32.230 --> 00:09:34.450 align:middle line:90%
"13," silence.

00:09:34.450 --> 00:09:39.130 align:middle line:84%
"Jesus," the woman said,
then, "Did you kiss her?"

00:09:39.130 --> 00:09:42.610 align:middle line:84%
And that remembered pick
up in a bar 20 years ago

00:09:42.610 --> 00:09:46.510 align:middle line:84%
before disease gave
its dire instructions.

00:09:46.510 --> 00:09:50.110 align:middle line:84%
Or your own wife, who is
the same woman each time

00:09:50.110 --> 00:09:51.790 align:middle line:90%
but somehow different.

00:09:51.790 --> 00:09:53.510 align:middle line:90%
One night, you talk about it.

00:09:53.510 --> 00:09:55.100 align:middle line:90%
And she pulls it out of you.

00:09:55.100 --> 00:09:57.160 align:middle line:90%
"You think we're all the same?"

00:09:57.160 --> 00:10:01.830 align:middle line:84%
"Rue, regret," you write it
in your notebook, then this,

00:10:01.830 --> 00:10:06.540 align:middle line:84%
"Harder, slower, I'm
a grown up woman now."

00:10:06.540 --> 00:10:08.730 align:middle line:84%
In the medical book"--
it's almost over--

00:10:08.730 --> 00:10:11.400 align:middle line:84%
"in the medical book
of anatomical freeze,

00:10:11.400 --> 00:10:15.930 align:middle line:84%
the girl with a breast in her
armpit looked to be about 16.

00:10:15.930 --> 00:10:19.500 align:middle line:84%
I don't remember what she looked
like, but she was smiling.

00:10:19.500 --> 00:10:22.350 align:middle line:84%
And I couldn't make out
the meaning of the smile.

00:10:22.350 --> 00:10:25.080 align:middle line:84%
If still alive,
she's old by now.

00:10:25.080 --> 00:10:27.930 align:middle line:84%
At best, she found
a man who loved her,

00:10:27.930 --> 00:10:30.660 align:middle line:84%
a man with two
hands, and one mouth.

00:10:30.660 --> 00:10:33.780 align:middle line:84%
But where to put this,
even after all these years,

00:10:33.780 --> 00:10:36.170 align:middle line:90%
and in which order?"

00:10:36.170 --> 00:10:39.000 align:middle line:90%