WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thanks, Tyler.

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That was really--

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I don't feel like I
can live up to it.

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But you know.

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So this is OK?

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You can hear me?

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OK.

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Can you see my
shadow puppet here?

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That's a deer.

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[LAUGHTER]

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It's going to read
the whole poem.

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So I'm going to--

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and you've had time to
fill it out this thing?

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How would you rate this event?

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I'm just going to suggest,
excellent, you know.

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Maybe before we even begin.

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Yeah, just get out of the way.

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So I'm going to
read from a new book

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that I'm working
on now that is--

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I have no idea how it's going.

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But I won't really
say much about it.

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It's a long, long poem,
probably too long.

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It's called "Underworld Lit."

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Yeah, I won't say much about it.

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It's in three sections,
it's about a year.

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The first section
is called Fall Term.

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Any resemblance to
persons historical or--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--real, is purely coincidental.

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And I'll jump around.

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So I'm going to read the
numbers for each section.

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But you'll get a feeling
that I'm just jumping around.

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One, it's in prose
sections, and I'm

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going to time myself so I
don't outstay my welcome.

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In the inky, dismal, and
unprofitable research

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of a recent leave of absence
from the middle of my life,

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I came across an inscription
on a historical prism

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of Ashurbanipal that I found
to be somewhat disquieting.

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Of an enemy, whose remains he
had abused in a manner that

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does not bear repeating here,
this most studious and exacting

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of Mesopotamian
kings professes, I

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made him more dead
than he was before.

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Prisms of this sort
were often buried

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in the foundations of
government buildings

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and therefore intended to be
read by gods, but not men.

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Somewhere in the maze
of carols and stacks,

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I thought I could hear a low
dial tone humming without end.

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In Ashurbanipal's
library, there is a poem

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written on clay that corrects
various commonly held errors

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regarding the world of the dead.

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Pache, Mulian, Odysseus, Madam
Blavatsky, and Kwasi Benefo,

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it is not customarily permitted
to visit the underworld.

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No, the underworld visits you.

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