WEBVTT

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In Ondaatje's novel
The English Patient,

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a character named Kip
is listening to a radio

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when suddenly he screams.

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He has just heard the
report about the atomic bomb

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being dropped on Hiroshima.

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His lover watches at a distance
as Kip sinks to his knees,

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as if unbuckled.

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When he closes his eyes,
He sees the streets

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of Asia full of fire.

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It rolls across cities
like a burst map.

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When he closes his eyes,
he sees people screaming.

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The brilliant bomb carried
over the sea and a plane

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passing the moon in the East
toward the green archipelago

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and released.

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The scene is not included in
the movie adaptation, The Green

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Archipelago

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When I was growing up, we had
a Richard Diebenkorn poster

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on the kitchen wall of
an etching called Green.

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On the lower left,
there's a white object

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which is like a white mountain,
but is also like a person

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sitting cross-legged who is
being covered by a sheet.

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Above, the white shape echoes
as if its heft has sent

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out a ripple with sharp edges.

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There's a circle into which the
colors and lines dip and curve.

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Online, a US military
target map from World War II

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shows Japanese airfields
on the New Ireland Islands

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with a slumping shape
like a mountain.

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On the bottom of
the page there's

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also a circle meant to indicate
the cardinal directions

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like the compass.

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I noticed the flashing
light, one survivor says,

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of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.

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It was not really a big flash,
but it still drew my attention.

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In a few seconds the
heat wave arrived.

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After I noticed the flash, white
cloud spread over the blue sky.

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It was amazing.

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It was as if blue morning
glories had suddenly

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bloomed in the sky.

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A science writer from
the New York Times

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describes the explosion from the
viewpoint of the aircraft that

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dropped the bomb.

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As the first
mushroom floated off

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into the blue it changed its
shape into a flower-like form,

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its giant petal curving
downward, creamy white outside,

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rose colored inside.

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It still retained that
shape when we last

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gazed at it from a
distance of about 20 miles.

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Grizzly bear sings.

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And those figures through
the leaves and that light

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through the smoke.

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Had he gone to Japan,
Diebenkorn would

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have been part of
a team of three:

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a photographer, a writer,
and a graphic artist.

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In an interview for
the Smithsonian,

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Diebenkorn explains,
"So there was

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that which loomed in my future.

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And so, I have to admit,
when the news came--

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and it came gradually,
of the bomb--

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the word, "We've dropped a
huge bomb that's wiped out

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Japan," or something like that.

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A crazy story.

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So it took about three
days, to really get

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it straight-- what happened.

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And I have to admit I looked
at the whole bomb thing

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as with immense relief."

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Smithsonian, "Mm-hmm, sure."

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Deibenkorn, "The war
clearly was going

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to be over shortly, and--"

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Smithsonian, "And wouldn't
depend on your group going out

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with a sketch pad."

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Deibenkorn, "Exactly, so the
connotations of the atomic bomb

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really didn't sink in for
a little while for me."

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Smithsonian, "Most people
didn't understand."

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Diebenkorn, "For most people.

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Yeah."

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The English Patient is about
a Hungarian cartographer named

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László Almásy.

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In the film adaptation
of Ondaatje's novel,

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he slips off while his
travel companions prostrate

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during the call to prayer.

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He's been searching for the
oasis in the deserts of Egypt

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following a map that
he drew while listening

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to a man who told him
to look for a mountain

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the shape of a woman's back.

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When he enters into the
cave, he finds paintings

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on the wall depicting swimmers,
and he begins to laugh.

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On the Wikipedia page
for cave of swimmers,

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someone has written, Almásy
devoted a chapter to the cave

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in his 1934 book,
The Unknown Sahara.

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In it, he postulates that
the swimming scenes are

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real depictions of life
at the time of painting,

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and that there had been a
climate change from temperate

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to xeric desert since that time.

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Online, there are arguments
about Ondaatje's rendering

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of the truth, whether it fairly
interprets the motivations

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of Almásy who sold his maps of
Egypt to the Germans in World

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War II.

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Ondaatje's Almásy sells the
maps because he is desperate.

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The woman he loves
is in need of rescue,

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and he exchanges
the maps for a plane

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with which to retrieve her.

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I imagine Juliet, years
before he got sick,

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noticing the way that some
paintings in the Ocean Park

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Series, Number 11, for
instance, resemble waves.

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Red, pink, aqua, and
pale blue planes of paint

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gesturing toward the way
it might feel for waves

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to collide against
a surfer's body.

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Or to hold him as if
between cupped palms.

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"Have you ever seen those
videos where surfers ride inside

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of a wave."

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I never ask her.

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In the mornings Raman
would put on his wet suit

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and walk with his surfboard from
7th Street toward the beach.

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"If someone were to tell me
that he were a special being,

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brought here for some
special purpose."

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my father tells me, choking on
his words, "I'd believe them."

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Juliet wrote for the
National Enquirer.

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She would mostly leak
spoilers about soap operas,

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but every now and then she
took on bigger stories.

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When it came out that Michael
Jackson was building Neverland

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Ranch, she invented all kinds
of details about his plans

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for construction.

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"He sleeps underneath
a pyramid,"

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she remembers writing
in the article.

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"When you sleep under a pyramid
you get wonderful energy."

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Her rendering was eerily
close to the truth.

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A tabloid newspaper recently
published an article

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about a scientist who
discovered two huge pyramids

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underneath the Bermuda Triangle.

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The material used for
their construction

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was thought to be both
transparent and durable,

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perhaps crystal.

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When I read this, I'm
listening to an album

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by Philip Glass that
has an illustration

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of a prism on the cover.

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Light refracts in
all directions,

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each ray a different color.

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In Einstein on the Beach,
a musical co-created

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by Philip Glass, one
character explains,

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"I was in this prematurely
air-conditioned supermarket,

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and there were all these aisles,
and there are all these bathing

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caps that you could buy, which
have these kind of 4th of July

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plumes on them.

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They were red, and
yellow, and blue.

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I wasn't tempted to buy one,
but I was reminded of the fact

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that I had been
avoiding the beach."

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