WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.510 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:01.010 align:middle line:90% So-- 00:00:01.010 --> 00:00:06.020 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:06.020 --> 00:00:07.660 align:middle line:84% A lot of my friends have written poems 00:00:07.660 --> 00:00:12.850 align:middle line:84% about their year in Paris, or the year in Berlin, 00:00:12.850 --> 00:00:13.870 align:middle line:90% or wherever they went. 00:00:13.870 --> 00:00:18.700 align:middle line:84% And here's a poem about my first year in Paris. 00:00:18.700 --> 00:00:21.610 align:middle line:90% I hope it comes through. 00:00:21.610 --> 00:00:25.840 align:middle line:84% I lived in an old hotel, called the Hotel de Santana 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:30.430 align:middle line:84% and it was full of Romanians who were exiles-- 00:00:30.430 --> 00:00:35.170 align:middle line:84% the fascists-- and who'd got some money 00:00:35.170 --> 00:00:37.330 align:middle line:90% from a King of something. 00:00:37.330 --> 00:00:38.410 align:middle line:90% It was all mysterious. 00:00:38.410 --> 00:00:40.240 align:middle line:84% Once a month, they get a small check, 00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:42.520 align:middle line:84% and they would spend it all, get drunk, and go back 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:44.620 align:middle line:90% to bed for a month. 00:00:44.620 --> 00:00:48.100 align:middle line:84% And there was a guy that used to come out 00:00:48.100 --> 00:00:50.020 align:middle line:84% in front of a restaurant we were at, 00:00:50.020 --> 00:00:52.840 align:middle line:84% and he was selling a little red bibles. 00:00:52.840 --> 00:00:55.660 align:middle line:84% It's sort of like Mao Zedong's red books, you know? 00:00:55.660 --> 00:00:59.320 align:middle line:84% And he would say, 'fin du monde', end of the world, 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:00.910 align:middle line:90% you know, 'jeunesse passe'. 00:01:00.910 --> 00:01:03.430 align:middle line:90% 00:01:03.430 --> 00:01:04.690 align:middle line:90% And we used to laugh at him. 00:01:04.690 --> 00:01:07.150 align:middle line:84% Now I realize he was a great prophet. 00:01:07.150 --> 00:01:09.310 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:09.310 --> 00:01:11.672 align:middle line:84% And this poem is called, "Whatever Paris Meant." 00:01:11.672 --> 00:01:13.880 align:middle line:84% We used to go in the middle of the night to get soup, 00:01:13.880 --> 00:01:17.140 align:middle line:84% at a place called Les Halles, The Halls. 00:01:17.140 --> 00:01:18.730 align:middle line:84% And then when the farmers came I think 00:01:18.730 --> 00:01:21.880 align:middle line:90% Les Halles is no longer there. 00:01:21.880 --> 00:01:24.250 align:middle line:84% "It wasn't till Monday, November 14, 00:01:24.250 --> 00:01:29.140 align:middle line:84% 1994, that I decided Offenbach was too glutted, 00:01:29.140 --> 00:01:32.140 align:middle line:84% and the oom-pah-pah would have to go. 00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:33.700 align:middle line:84% Though, sometimes, my mood changed, 00:01:33.700 --> 00:01:36.370 align:middle line:84% and all the spitefulness of that half century 00:01:36.370 --> 00:01:39.880 align:middle line:84% was converted to the pleasure of understanding the, oh, yes, 00:01:39.880 --> 00:01:42.970 align:middle line:84% and ah, yes, I learned in my first 10 years, 00:01:42.970 --> 00:01:47.950 align:middle line:84% behind two pillars in a room full of starch curtains. 00:01:47.950 --> 00:01:53.230 align:middle line:84% Whatever Paris meant in 1950, whatever agit was in the air-- 00:01:53.230 --> 00:01:55.840 align:middle line:84% in pitched battles over Coca-Cola, 00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:59.050 align:middle line:84% and the wearing of black behind a piece of horsemeat, 00:01:59.050 --> 00:02:02.380 align:middle line:84% there still was enough, thanks god, of the bella, bella 00:02:02.380 --> 00:02:04.542 align:middle line:90% to last a few more years. 00:02:04.542 --> 00:02:06.250 align:middle line:84% And there was a man who carried a leather 00:02:06.250 --> 00:02:08.590 align:middle line:90% bag of small red bibles. 00:02:08.590 --> 00:02:13.270 align:middle line:84% He was our personal fury, who stood over us singing, 00:02:13.270 --> 00:02:18.370 align:middle line:84% 'jeunesse passe, jeunesse passe', something between a crow and a sparrow. 00:02:18.370 --> 00:02:20.180 align:middle line:90% It was our cry for over a year. 00:02:20.180 --> 00:02:21.700 align:middle line:90% It was a greeting between us. 00:02:21.700 --> 00:02:24.940 align:middle line:84% Once at 3:00 in the morning, when my Romanians woke me up 00:02:24.940 --> 00:02:28.210 align:middle line:84% for soup, we pounded each other on the bridge going over, 00:02:28.210 --> 00:02:30.520 align:middle line:84% and sang it in French and German. 00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:33.370 align:middle line:84% Something of Offenbach was in our hearts. 00:02:33.370 --> 00:02:36.340 align:middle line:84% We jumped up on the rails, and fell to the sidewalk 00:02:36.340 --> 00:02:37.390 align:middle line:90% on our knees. 00:02:37.390 --> 00:02:39.160 align:middle line:90% We did it all night. 00:02:39.160 --> 00:02:40.930 align:middle line:84% In the morning when I wrote and waited 00:02:40.930 --> 00:02:45.100 align:middle line:84% for my Briton to make my bed, so I could bend over her, 00:02:45.100 --> 00:02:49.150 align:middle line:84% I wiped those drums out, and buried those Romanians. 00:02:49.150 --> 00:02:50.830 align:middle line:90% I didn't know about sighing yet. 00:02:50.830 --> 00:02:54.460 align:middle line:84% I just stared at the fixture, and she fell asleep, 00:02:54.460 --> 00:02:56.710 align:middle line:90% with her hand on my shoulder. 00:02:56.710 --> 00:02:59.950 align:middle line:84% I walk with my two arms waving sometimes. 00:02:59.950 --> 00:03:02.620 align:middle line:84% I'm explaining, and I have the limp I 00:03:02.620 --> 00:03:06.700 align:middle line:84% started in Paris, a kind of rolling from side to side. 00:03:06.700 --> 00:03:09.880 align:middle line:84% I still crash into male and female hybrids. 00:03:09.880 --> 00:03:14.020 align:middle line:84% I still lean against the metal poles to stretch my hamstrings, 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:17.230 align:middle line:84% and I still do a dream walk from one end of New York 00:03:17.230 --> 00:03:18.100 align:middle line:90% to the other. 00:03:18.100 --> 00:03:20.950 align:middle line:84% West to east, and south to north. 00:03:20.950 --> 00:03:24.520 align:middle line:84% The music goes oompa, oopma, oopma. 00:03:24.520 --> 00:03:28.660 align:middle line:84% The words are 'jeunesse passe, jeunesse passe'. 00:03:28.660 --> 00:03:31.810 align:middle line:84% The window faced the Moroccan smoke shop. 00:03:31.810 --> 00:03:34.020 align:middle line:90% The street was empty." 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:35.000 align:middle line:90%