WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.040 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.040 --> 00:00:07.650 align:middle line:84% I believe it was 1849 when a slave by the name of Henry 00:00:07.650 --> 00:00:10.530 align:middle line:84% Brown, who was given the name Henry Brown, 00:00:10.530 --> 00:00:13.440 align:middle line:84% escaped from Virginia into a free state. 00:00:13.440 --> 00:00:15.990 align:middle line:90% I think Pennsylvania. 00:00:15.990 --> 00:00:18.240 align:middle line:84% With the help of some collaborators, 00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:20.520 align:middle line:84% he shipped himself-- was shipped-- 00:00:20.520 --> 00:00:23.100 align:middle line:90% in a parcel crate. 00:00:23.100 --> 00:00:28.440 align:middle line:84% And soon, after getting to freedom, he became a showman. 00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:32.040 align:middle line:84% He staged a traveling show that went 00:00:32.040 --> 00:00:34.050 align:middle line:84% throughout-- up and down the East Coast, 00:00:34.050 --> 00:00:36.030 align:middle line:90% and made it to Europe. 00:00:36.030 --> 00:00:39.750 align:middle line:84% And he used a technology, theater technology 00:00:39.750 --> 00:00:41.340 align:middle line:84% of the times, called the panorama. 00:00:41.340 --> 00:00:43.890 align:middle line:90% The scrolling panorama. 00:00:43.890 --> 00:00:49.140 align:middle line:84% And what this was was a huge painted backdrop on spools, 00:00:49.140 --> 00:00:53.610 align:middle line:84% and as the backdrop would spool from one end of the stage 00:00:53.610 --> 00:00:56.820 align:middle line:84% to the other, it would create the illusion 00:00:56.820 --> 00:01:00.940 align:middle line:84% of moving through vast distances at a great speed. 00:01:00.940 --> 00:01:03.930 align:middle line:84% So an actor on a horse or a fake horse 00:01:03.930 --> 00:01:05.760 align:middle line:84% might look like they were traveling 00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:09.600 align:middle line:84% through vast distances, vast open distances, which 00:01:09.600 --> 00:01:11.700 align:middle line:90% we have now in car commercials. 00:01:11.700 --> 00:01:16.290 align:middle line:84% And in the logic of any kind of settler colonialism, 00:01:16.290 --> 00:01:21.240 align:middle line:84% you have to first imagine a land is empty enough, or filled 00:01:21.240 --> 00:01:23.160 align:middle line:84% with bodies that don't matter enough, 00:01:23.160 --> 00:01:25.560 align:middle line:90% to do stuff with that land. 00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:29.550 align:middle line:90% And Henry Brown's genius was-- 00:01:29.550 --> 00:01:33.840 align:middle line:84% though Frederick Douglass hated him for putting on the show, 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:36.990 align:middle line:84% and exposing the way that he got free. 00:01:36.990 --> 00:01:39.120 align:middle line:84% Henry Brown's genius, in my estimation, 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:42.180 align:middle line:84% is that he used the panorama, but he 00:01:42.180 --> 00:01:48.330 align:middle line:84% made sure that it was thick with black bodies that 00:01:48.330 --> 00:01:50.520 align:middle line:90% were being tortured and burned. 00:01:50.520 --> 00:01:54.990 align:middle line:84% So as he's staging the rise, the escape from the box, 00:01:54.990 --> 00:01:59.640 align:middle line:84% like a Lazarus being born from objecthood-- 00:01:59.640 --> 00:02:05.220 align:middle line:84% from chattel slavery, from possession-- into personhood. 00:02:05.220 --> 00:02:09.680 align:middle line:84% He's emerging into that landscape. 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:10.180 align:middle line:90% Right? 00:02:10.180 --> 00:02:15.490 align:middle line:84% Which begs the question, emerging into what? 00:02:15.490 --> 00:02:18.940 align:middle line:84% The other reference in the poem, the contemporary performance 00:02:18.940 --> 00:02:20.440 align:middle line:90% artist Marina Abramovic. 00:02:20.440 --> 00:02:24.050 align:middle line:90% 00:02:24.050 --> 00:02:24.830 align:middle line:90% And night terrors. 00:02:24.830 --> 00:02:27.110 align:middle line:84% Our kid had night terrors for a few years. 00:02:27.110 --> 00:02:31.690 align:middle line:84% They're episodes that are not sleepwalking, 00:02:31.690 --> 00:02:34.950 align:middle line:84% and they're not nightmares, and they're incredibly violent. 00:02:34.950 --> 00:02:37.450 align:middle line:84% And the more that you try to comfort the child or the person 00:02:37.450 --> 00:02:39.910 align:middle line:84% experiencing them, the more violent the person becomes. 00:02:39.910 --> 00:02:43.210 align:middle line:90% 00:02:43.210 --> 00:02:48.430 align:middle line:84% Walking into a room with sadness made crystal touches me 00:02:48.430 --> 00:02:52.750 align:middle line:90% on the thigh in a brotherly way. 00:02:52.750 --> 00:02:56.800 align:middle line:84% I already know quickening flashes of teeth, 00:02:56.800 --> 00:03:02.760 align:middle line:84% as people affirming a homeland are about to come. 00:03:02.760 --> 00:03:07.920 align:middle line:84% But at any age, you can tell your architect what color glass 00:03:07.920 --> 00:03:10.080 align:middle line:90% for the office park. 00:03:10.080 --> 00:03:15.450 align:middle line:84% Low clouds reflected advance into their next sky, 00:03:15.450 --> 00:03:17.970 align:middle line:90% next weather. 00:03:17.970 --> 00:03:22.350 align:middle line:84% Let's say our right to pleasure is a withholding. 00:03:22.350 --> 00:03:26.340 align:middle line:84% As a president lies in state, do you wake in state 00:03:26.340 --> 00:03:30.090 align:middle line:90% as a medium screaming? 00:03:30.090 --> 00:03:35.220 align:middle line:84% I carry no one in my eyes, not even a lane. 00:03:35.220 --> 00:03:40.380 align:middle line:84% I don't know to where you can stretch your finitude a little. 00:03:40.380 --> 00:03:42.390 align:middle line:90% I can be your thing. 00:03:42.390 --> 00:03:48.340 align:middle line:84% You scream, you want, in your night terror, to bite my mouth. 00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:51.880 align:middle line:84% Right side up with care, Henry "Box" Brown's 00:03:51.880 --> 00:03:56.230 align:middle line:84% mirror of slavery panorama show interrupted 00:03:56.230 --> 00:03:59.590 align:middle line:90% whose idea of escape. 00:03:59.590 --> 00:04:03.670 align:middle line:84% The magisterial fields of the horse run, 00:04:03.670 --> 00:04:09.310 align:middle line:84% dotting the rolling hills with char, with effects. 00:04:09.310 --> 00:04:12.760 align:middle line:84% With bodies used for a whiteness, from which 00:04:12.760 --> 00:04:17.529 align:middle line:84% Marina Abramovic's heroics would further 00:04:17.529 --> 00:04:24.350 align:middle line:84% empty out, with a voiding majesty I don't trust. 00:04:24.350 --> 00:04:27.760 align:middle line:90% Henry's fields give the lie.