WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.872 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.872 --> 00:00:04.980 align:middle line:84% And I'll finish with this poem called "Wild is the Wind" 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:08.790 align:middle line:84% as I was also sharing in this class that 00:00:08.790 --> 00:00:13.080 align:middle line:84% had amazing questions and observations today. 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:17.400 align:middle line:84% It is a song, "Wild is the Wind." 00:00:17.400 --> 00:00:21.840 align:middle line:84% And it's a song that has been done by David Bowie 00:00:21.840 --> 00:00:23.890 align:middle line:84% and by Cat Power, probably other-- 00:00:23.890 --> 00:00:28.010 align:middle line:84% oh, Johnny Mathis somebody told me once. 00:00:28.010 --> 00:00:31.420 align:middle line:84% But I know it is the Nina Simone song 00:00:31.420 --> 00:00:35.230 align:middle line:84% after they played at the end of an episode of Mad Men. 00:00:35.230 --> 00:00:38.410 align:middle line:84% And I thought, huh, that's pretty good. 00:00:38.410 --> 00:00:40.570 align:middle line:90% Nina Simone. 00:00:40.570 --> 00:00:42.972 align:middle line:84% So it's about fragility of love and all of that. 00:00:42.972 --> 00:00:44.305 align:middle line:90% And that's why it's called that. 00:00:44.305 --> 00:00:47.440 align:middle line:84% And I guess that's maybe why the book is called that. 00:00:47.440 --> 00:00:50.320 align:middle line:90% And here is this poem. 00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:52.263 align:middle line:84% Oh, it mentions metaphysical poets. 00:00:52.263 --> 00:00:52.930 align:middle line:90% Don't be afraid. 00:00:52.930 --> 00:00:53.620 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:53.620 --> 00:00:56.080 align:middle line:90% You don't have to know anything. 00:00:56.080 --> 00:01:01.742 align:middle line:84% And I like the idea that, yes, on one hand, 00:01:01.742 --> 00:01:02.950 align:middle line:90% there are metaphysical poets. 00:01:02.950 --> 00:01:05.950 align:middle line:84% There's also a mechanical ball early on. 00:01:05.950 --> 00:01:08.230 align:middle line:90% So it all works out. 00:01:08.230 --> 00:01:10.000 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:11.230 align:middle line:90% And thanks for staying here. 00:01:11.230 --> 00:01:12.535 align:middle line:90% And it's been nice. 00:01:12.535 --> 00:01:14.410 align:middle line:84% Oh, except I guess I'm staying here and doing 00:01:14.410 --> 00:01:15.640 align:middle line:90% a Q and A or something. 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:19.310 align:middle line:90% Oh, so, you know-- 00:01:19.310 --> 00:01:20.210 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:01:20.210 --> 00:01:20.710 align:middle line:90% No. 00:01:20.710 --> 00:01:22.000 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:23.420 align:middle line:90% Wild is the wind. 00:01:23.420 --> 00:01:25.000 align:middle line:90% Here's what it is. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:29.920 align:middle line:84% About what's past, hold on when you can, I used to say. 00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:33.520 align:middle line:84% And when you can't, let go as if memory 00:01:33.520 --> 00:01:35.920 align:middle line:84% were one of those mechanical bulls, 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:40.240 align:middle line:84% easily dismountable should the ride turn rough. 00:01:40.240 --> 00:01:44.980 align:middle line:84% I lived in those days at the forest's edge, 00:01:44.980 --> 00:01:48.940 align:middle line:84% metaphorically, so it can sometimes seem now. 00:01:48.940 --> 00:01:53.920 align:middle line:84% Though the forest was real, as my life beside it was. 00:01:53.920 --> 00:01:56.020 align:middle line:84% I spent much of my time listening 00:01:56.020 --> 00:01:59.290 align:middle line:84% to the sounds of random, unknowable things 00:01:59.290 --> 00:02:02.860 align:middle line:84% dropping or being dropped from, variously, 00:02:02.860 --> 00:02:05.800 align:middle line:84% a middling height or a great one, 00:02:05.800 --> 00:02:09.940 align:middle line:84% until, by winter, it was just the snow falling. 00:02:09.940 --> 00:02:14.890 align:middle line:84% Each time like a new, unnecessary taxonomy or syntax 00:02:14.890 --> 00:02:17.230 align:middle line:90% for how to parse what's plain. 00:02:17.230 --> 00:02:21.340 align:middle line:84% Snow from which the occasional lost hunter would 00:02:21.340 --> 00:02:24.250 align:middle line:90% emerge every few or so seasons. 00:02:24.250 --> 00:02:30.820 align:middle line:84% And just once, a runaway child, whom I gave some money to and 00:02:30.820 --> 00:02:35.610 align:middle line:84% told no one about, having promised. 00:02:35.610 --> 00:02:37.560 align:middle line:84% You must keep what you've promised 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:39.660 align:middle line:90% very close to your heart. 00:02:39.660 --> 00:02:41.980 align:middle line:84% That way, you'll never forget it. 00:02:41.980 --> 00:02:44.550 align:middle line:90% It's what I've always been told. 00:02:44.550 --> 00:02:47.640 align:middle line:84% I've been told quite a lot of things. 00:02:47.640 --> 00:02:51.420 align:middle line:84% They hover, some more unbidden than others, 00:02:51.420 --> 00:02:55.050 align:middle line:84% in that part of the mind where mistakes and torn wishes 00:02:55.050 --> 00:02:59.400 align:middle line:84% echo, as in a room that's been newly cathedraled so that the 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:01.410 align:middle line:90% echo surprises. 00:03:01.410 --> 00:03:04.050 align:middle line:84% Though, lately, it's less the echo itself 00:03:04.050 --> 00:03:07.410 align:middle line:84% that can still most surprise me about memory. 00:03:07.410 --> 00:03:10.980 align:middle line:84% It's more the time it takes going away. 00:03:10.980 --> 00:03:14.700 align:middle line:84% A mouth opening to say, I love sex with you too. 00:03:14.700 --> 00:03:19.330 align:middle line:84% It doesn't mean I want to stop my life for it, for example. 00:03:19.330 --> 00:03:24.720 align:middle line:84% Or just a voice, mouthless, asking, since when 00:03:24.720 --> 00:03:27.150 align:middle line:84% does the different indifference of the body's stance 00:03:27.150 --> 00:03:33.240 align:middle line:84% when we're alone, unwatched, in late light amount to cruelty? 00:03:33.240 --> 00:03:36.000 align:middle line:84% For the metaphysical poets, the problem 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:38.640 align:middle line:84% with weeping for what's been lost 00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:42.630 align:middle line:84% is that tears wash out memory, and by extension, 00:03:42.630 --> 00:03:45.420 align:middle line:90% what we'd hoped to remember. 00:03:45.420 --> 00:03:49.050 align:middle line:84% If I refuse increasingly to explain, 00:03:49.050 --> 00:03:51.600 align:middle line:84% isn't explanation, at the end of the day, 00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:55.410 align:middle line:84% what the sturdier truths most resist? 00:03:55.410 --> 00:03:57.900 align:middle line:84% It's been my experience that tears 00:03:57.900 --> 00:04:02.820 align:middle line:84% are useless against all the rest of it that, if I could, 00:04:02.820 --> 00:04:05.220 align:middle line:90% I'd forget. 00:04:05.220 --> 00:04:07.710 align:middle line:84% That I keep wanting to stay should 00:04:07.710 --> 00:04:10.670 align:middle line:90% count at least for something. 00:04:10.670 --> 00:04:12.920 align:middle line:90% I'm not done with you yet. 00:04:12.920 --> 00:04:14.250 align:middle line:90% Thanks very much. 00:04:14.250 --> 00:04:15.800 align:middle line:90% Thanks.