WEBVTT

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That wasn't last.

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Here we go.

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Robert Rauschenberg did a
series of illustrations too,

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which are really amazing.

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They're very difficult
because they're--

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especially in reproduction
because they're a little pale

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and they've got like 200
different parts to them all.

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But his version of the
three giants is out there

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and what it is is it looks
like three Russian wrestlers

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on the Olympic
stand after a meet.

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So he has a lot of
strange, private--

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and not so private--

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allusions in it, including
the one for the place where

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the sodomites are in
hell and talk to-- they

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have to walk on the sand in bare
feet and their feet are burned.

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And he has a picture
of himself in that one

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and the little footprint
at the top of it.

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So there they repay some study.

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And I just want
to end by reading,

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if I can, a little bit
of my favorite piece.

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This whole book
is about, I think,

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transformations
and transferences

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and transcendence.

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And like Ovid, everybody is
turning into everybody else.

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But in particular in its 20--

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canto 25, lizards and
people change places.

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It starts off by
this lizard attacking

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this man over his back.

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And they melt,
after many stanzas,

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into the same creature.

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And it shuttles off.

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And then there's
another lizard--

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here's-- this is Richard Wilbur.

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"As lizards, in the
cruelest heat of day,

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skitter from hedge to
hedge along the lane,

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and flash like lightning
if they cross the way, so

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toward the bellies
of the other twain,

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there spread a little reptile,
fiery hot and blackly glinting

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as a pepper grain.

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It now transfixed in one of
them the spot through which

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our earliest nourishment
must come then

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fell and sprawled
before him like a sock.

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The victim gazed at
it and yet was dumb.

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He stood stock still
and did but yawn a bit

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as if some drowsy
fever made him numb."

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It goes on-- blah blah blah.

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"Incited by their
mutual sympathies,

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the serpent caused
its tail now to divide

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and the rich pressed
together his feet and knees.

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His legs and thighs
adhered then side to side

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soon blended so that
nowhere, low or high,

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could any seam or
juncture be described.

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Cloven tail took on the form
that by degrees the other lost.

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And now its skin turned
soft while the other

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is hardened in reply.

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I saw the armpits
of the man begin

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to engulf the arms while the
beast's short four legs--

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four legs grew by just that
length to which the arms sank

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in.

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Now, while the smoke by
which they both were veiled

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transposed their hues
and planted on one crown

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the hair that from the
other it plucked and peeled,

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the one arose, the
other toppled down.

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And each, still
grimly staring, set

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about to make the others
liniment his own."

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Then it goes on.

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It's an amazing piece
of writing, I think.

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Anyway, thank you
all for listening

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and I hope you have the time
to spend with the exhibit.

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[APPLAUSE]

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