WEBVTT

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This is a selection that
I made today of poems

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that I haven't read in decades.

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And this one's
called Mummy's Curse.

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There were five movies about--
has a mummy in the title.

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Cheap, black and
white horror movies.

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I see them all, and--

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because, I mean, that's
what we did in the 50s.

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You know, go and see the
double feature, triple feature

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of horror movies.

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Take your girlfriend,
hoping that she'll be so

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scared she'll jump in your lap.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But the movies were
even, at the age

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of a teenager, looked crummy.

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I mean, I remember one
of the mummy's movies,

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and one of the actors--

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not a mummy, but
one of the actors--

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leans against the pyramid,
and the little pyramid shakes.

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It was made of
cardboard, you know.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So this is a homage to that
wonderful cinema, those

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forgotten, really bad movies
that were so bad that they

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were wonderful, actually.

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"Mummy's curse.

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Befriending an eccentric
young woman, the sole resident

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of a secluded
Victorian mansion, she

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takes long walks in
the evening rain,

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and so do I, with my
hair full of dead leaves.

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In her former life, she
was an opera singer.

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She remembers the rich,
Neapolitan pastries, points

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to a bit of fresh
whipped cream, still left

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in the corner of her lower lip.

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Tells me she dragged a wooden
cross once through a leper town

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somewhere in India.

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I was born in Copenhagen,
I confide in her.

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My father was a
successful mortician.

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My mother never lifted
her nose out of a book.

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Arthur Schopenhauer
ruined our happy home.

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Since then, a day
doesn't go by without me

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sticking a loaded
revolver inside my mouth.

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She had walked ahead of me,
and had turned like a lion

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tamer, towering
with a whip in hand.

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Luckily, in that moment, a
mummy sped by on a bicycle,

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carrying someone's
pizza order and cursing

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the mist and the potholes."

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[LAUGHTER]