WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.920 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.920 --> 00:00:04.080 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read from Against Joie de 00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:07.620 align:middle line:84% Vivre from the first essay called, "Samson 00:00:07.620 --> 00:00:10.860 align:middle line:90% and Delilah and the Kids." 00:00:10.860 --> 00:00:13.530 align:middle line:84% It's a long essay so I can't read all of it, 00:00:13.530 --> 00:00:17.220 align:middle line:84% but I'll read some of the early sections. 00:00:17.220 --> 00:00:18.840 align:middle line:84% This essay came about because there 00:00:18.840 --> 00:00:23.130 align:middle line:84% was a book called Congregation in which various essayists were 00:00:23.130 --> 00:00:27.780 align:middle line:84% asked to take a different book of the Old Testament 00:00:27.780 --> 00:00:30.840 align:middle line:84% and to write a personal essay about it. 00:00:30.840 --> 00:00:35.970 align:middle line:84% I was asked to write, and I chose the book of Judges, 00:00:35.970 --> 00:00:38.940 align:middle line:84% because it had the Samson and Delilah story. 00:00:38.940 --> 00:00:43.180 align:middle line:84% And I thought that I might be able to do something with it. 00:00:43.180 --> 00:00:45.420 align:middle line:84% So I wrote this essay in which I bring 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:50.910 align:middle line:84% in all kinds of different texts including my own experiences, 00:00:50.910 --> 00:00:53.680 align:middle line:90% and make a stew out of it. 00:00:53.680 --> 00:01:00.930 align:middle line:84% So without further ado "Samson, Delilah, and the Kids." 00:01:00.930 --> 00:01:04.680 align:middle line:84% "I grew up in the era of the great Jewish lovers. 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:09.600 align:middle line:84% Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba, Solomon and Sheba 00:01:09.600 --> 00:01:13.230 align:middle line:84% were burning up screens across the land. 00:01:13.230 --> 00:01:15.750 align:middle line:84% I never managed to see David and Bathsheba 00:01:15.750 --> 00:01:18.270 align:middle line:84% though I knew the coming attractions by heart, 00:01:18.270 --> 00:01:20.760 align:middle line:84% because the movie industry and its wisdom decreed 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:23.920 align:middle line:84% that I was too young for this adulterous tale. 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:26.760 align:middle line:84% Inconsistently they let me into Samson and Delilah 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:29.070 align:middle line:90% when I was seven. 00:01:29.070 --> 00:01:31.290 align:middle line:84% I still remember my excitement when I first 00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:33.840 align:middle line:84% saw the poster announcing its imminent arrival 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:35.580 align:middle line:90% in our neighborhood. 00:01:35.580 --> 00:01:39.180 align:middle line:84% See Samson battle a lion with his own hands, 00:01:39.180 --> 00:01:42.480 align:middle line:84% see Samson tear down the temple of dagon, 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:45.810 align:middle line:90% see Delilah tame the strong man. 00:01:45.810 --> 00:01:47.850 align:middle line:84% I was so crazy about movies that I 00:01:47.850 --> 00:01:51.270 align:middle line:84% saw everything connected to them as a promise of happiness. 00:01:51.270 --> 00:01:55.440 align:middle line:84% Lobby stills, newspaper ads on the entertainment pages, 00:01:55.440 --> 00:01:57.780 align:middle line:84% and especially the 10 foot billboards 00:01:57.780 --> 00:02:00.450 align:middle line:84% displayed outside the Commodore, where 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:04.440 align:middle line:84% giants held at bay an encircling, ungrounded chaos 00:02:04.440 --> 00:02:06.900 align:middle line:90% of tempting panoramas. 00:02:06.900 --> 00:02:09.210 align:middle line:84% My tolerance for celluloid had been built up 00:02:09.210 --> 00:02:13.560 align:middle line:84% over the long Saturday matinees that my siblings and I attended 00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:18.420 align:middle line:84% regularly and which included a double feature, seven cartoons, 00:02:18.420 --> 00:02:23.760 align:middle line:84% newsreels, coming attractions, and a Flash Gordon or Hopalong 00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:26.220 align:middle line:90% Cassidy serial. 00:02:26.220 --> 00:02:30.090 align:middle line:84% Oh dark, dark, dark amid the blaze of noon, 00:02:30.090 --> 00:02:33.120 align:middle line:90% says Milton in Samson Agonistes. 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:36.000 align:middle line:84% By the time we had stumbled onto the streets sated 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:39.325 align:middle line:84% with the blood of scalped cavalryman, the high balls 00:02:39.325 --> 00:02:42.750 align:middle line:84% served by Veronica Lake, the dynamite set off 00:02:42.750 --> 00:02:47.220 align:middle line:84% by a Bugs Bunny in drag, it was already dinnertime. 00:02:47.220 --> 00:02:49.380 align:middle line:84% We would walk under the elevated train, 00:02:49.380 --> 00:02:52.720 align:middle line:84% past the discount stores serving our ghetto in Williamsburg, 00:02:52.720 --> 00:02:55.440 align:middle line:84% Brooklyn, past Stephen's bakery which 00:02:55.440 --> 00:02:59.340 align:middle line:84% specializes in white icing, past the fish restaurant 00:02:59.340 --> 00:03:02.940 align:middle line:84% with its grotesque lobster tank in the window, 00:03:02.940 --> 00:03:07.350 align:middle line:84% past the tough shoeshine boys on the corner, past the synagogue 00:03:07.350 --> 00:03:10.290 align:middle line:84% quickly and guiltily because it was Sabbath, 00:03:10.290 --> 00:03:12.480 align:middle line:84% and make our way back to the tenement where 00:03:12.480 --> 00:03:15.690 align:middle line:84% we lived, debating our favorite scenes all the while. 00:03:15.690 --> 00:03:18.630 align:middle line:90% 00:03:18.630 --> 00:03:21.420 align:middle line:84% If you ask me what the Bible meant to me as a child, 00:03:21.420 --> 00:03:24.690 align:middle line:84% I can tell you it signified two things. 00:03:24.690 --> 00:03:26.760 align:middle line:84% Those awkwardly drawn comic strips 00:03:26.760 --> 00:03:29.460 align:middle line:84% the Brooklyn Eagle would run next to Dick Tracy or Mary 00:03:29.460 --> 00:03:33.600 align:middle line:84% Worth each Sunday, tales from the scriptures featuring stern 00:03:33.600 --> 00:03:36.240 align:middle line:84% bearded patriarchs and women with pitchers 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:38.670 align:middle line:90% on their shoulders. 00:03:38.670 --> 00:03:40.980 align:middle line:84% And the biblical spectacles we were constantly 00:03:40.980 --> 00:03:44.790 align:middle line:84% told cost millions and had casts of thousands. 00:03:44.790 --> 00:03:46.770 align:middle line:84% Whatever possessed Hollywood to turn out 00:03:46.770 --> 00:03:50.670 align:middle line:84% all those biblical Roman clinkers throughout the 50s? 00:03:50.670 --> 00:03:54.300 align:middle line:84% The postwar audience's abandonment of a neo realistic 00:03:54.300 --> 00:03:58.590 align:middle line:84% aesthetic for the escapist anodynes of costumed bloodshed, 00:03:58.590 --> 00:04:02.040 align:middle line:84% the advent of widescreen technologies that cried out 00:04:02.040 --> 00:04:05.820 align:middle line:84% for spectacle, the more conservative political mood, 00:04:05.820 --> 00:04:09.750 align:middle line:84% the irresistible formula of having one's cake, sin, 00:04:09.750 --> 00:04:14.940 align:middle line:84% and eating it too, piety, the collapse of the studio system 00:04:14.940 --> 00:04:17.790 align:middle line:84% and its replacement by international package deals , 00:04:17.790 --> 00:04:23.100 align:middle line:84% all must have contributed to the zenith of this ill-fated genre. 00:04:23.100 --> 00:04:26.460 align:middle line:84% Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah, 1949, 00:04:26.460 --> 00:04:30.420 align:middle line:84% was one of the first of the postwar biblical spectacles. 00:04:30.420 --> 00:04:33.720 align:middle line:84% Watching a VCR tape of it some 35 years later, 00:04:33.720 --> 00:04:37.620 align:middle line:84% I am struck by how dioramic and artificial, 00:04:37.620 --> 00:04:40.560 align:middle line:84% if entertaining in a kitschy way, it looks now. 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:43.740 align:middle line:84% It's drama as stylized as kabuki, 00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:46.520 align:middle line:84% its sets like an old World's Fair made 00:04:46.520 --> 00:04:50.340 align:middle line:84% of endless lathe and temporary grandeur. 00:04:50.340 --> 00:04:52.830 align:middle line:84% The virtues of the biblical epic which 00:04:52.830 --> 00:04:54.900 align:middle line:84% DeMille had a large hand in shaping 00:04:54.900 --> 00:04:57.930 align:middle line:84% were mainly to be found in art direction, costumes, 00:04:57.930 --> 00:04:59.980 align:middle line:90% and special effects. 00:04:59.980 --> 00:05:02.380 align:middle line:84% DeMille began in the silent era, and there 00:05:02.380 --> 00:05:05.170 align:middle line:84% is an echo of Griffith's Babylonianism 00:05:05.170 --> 00:05:10.120 align:middle line:84% in the idol-gargoyled Temple of Dagon. 00:05:10.120 --> 00:05:13.750 align:middle line:84% Before the dawn of time, intones the narrator in the opening 00:05:13.750 --> 00:05:16.420 align:middle line:84% shot, we see clouds and marching feet 00:05:16.420 --> 00:05:19.060 align:middle line:84% and are treated to a little lecture about the struggle 00:05:19.060 --> 00:05:21.160 align:middle line:90% between tyranny and freedom. 00:05:21.160 --> 00:05:24.580 align:middle line:84% Biblical epics tended to be made after both world wars 00:05:24.580 --> 00:05:27.340 align:middle line:84% when America as quote, leader of the free world, 00:05:27.340 --> 00:05:29.680 align:middle line:84% unquote had a need to wrap itself 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:34.540 align:middle line:84% in the sanctimonious mantle of previous chosen peoples. 00:05:34.540 --> 00:05:38.350 align:middle line:84% Curiously the word Jew is never mentioned in the DeMille film, 00:05:38.350 --> 00:05:41.560 align:middle line:84% nor other words Hebrew or Israelite. 00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:45.190 align:middle line:84% Samson's people are referred to only as Danites, 00:05:45.190 --> 00:05:48.010 align:middle line:84% in what may have been nervousness about anti-Semitism 00:05:48.010 --> 00:05:50.230 align:middle line:90% during the McCarthy era. 00:05:50.230 --> 00:05:54.010 align:middle line:84% Samson and Delilah boasted one of those international casts. 00:05:54.010 --> 00:05:58.870 align:middle line:84% The star Hedy Lamarr spoke Viennese scented English. 00:05:58.870 --> 00:06:03.100 align:middle line:84% Her leading man Victor Mature hailed from Kentucky, 00:06:03.100 --> 00:06:06.700 align:middle line:84% and all the Philistine opponents of Judeo-Christianity 00:06:06.700 --> 00:06:10.330 align:middle line:84% had, in the curious convention of such films, British accents. 00:06:10.330 --> 00:06:13.570 align:middle line:90% 00:06:13.570 --> 00:06:17.110 align:middle line:84% A DeMille scholar told me--" there are DeMille scholars 00:06:17.110 --> 00:06:18.820 align:middle line:84% by the way, "that the director had wanted 00:06:18.820 --> 00:06:21.640 align:middle line:84% to make Samson and Delilah 10 years earlier, 00:06:21.640 --> 00:06:24.080 align:middle line:84% but that he couldn't secure the financing. 00:06:24.080 --> 00:06:26.020 align:middle line:84% By the time the deal had come together 00:06:26.020 --> 00:06:29.140 align:middle line:84% with the actress he wanted, a certain freshness 00:06:29.140 --> 00:06:30.640 align:middle line:90% had gone out of Lamarr. 00:06:30.640 --> 00:06:33.310 align:middle line:84% She looked bruised by another decade's strain 00:06:33.310 --> 00:06:35.560 align:middle line:84% of holding together her glamor, but 00:06:35.560 --> 00:06:39.400 align:middle line:84% her worldly mocking Viennese air had some of Marlene Dietrich's 00:06:39.400 --> 00:06:41.800 align:middle line:84% alluring melancholy, especially when 00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:45.550 align:middle line:84% it came up against the younger, oafish, Victor Mature. 00:06:45.550 --> 00:06:49.930 align:middle line:84% It was the old world seducing the new world yet again. 00:06:49.930 --> 00:06:52.360 align:middle line:84% Hedy's basic Delilah costume consisted 00:06:52.360 --> 00:06:56.050 align:middle line:84% of a sleeveless halter that stopped just below her breasts. 00:06:56.050 --> 00:06:59.980 align:middle line:84% A long skirt usually with a slit to show off her nice legs 00:06:59.980 --> 00:07:05.110 align:middle line:84% and anachronistically, a pair of pumps as well. 00:07:05.110 --> 00:07:08.920 align:middle line:84% After she becomes a Bad Woman--" capitals, "she 00:07:08.920 --> 00:07:11.960 align:middle line:84% is never seen without a feather duster plume, which 00:07:11.960 --> 00:07:14.590 align:middle line:84% she which she waves around to make her points 00:07:14.590 --> 00:07:17.620 align:middle line:84% and which is color coordinated to match her silver, 00:07:17.620 --> 00:07:21.490 align:middle line:84% turquoise, rose, and sapphire gowns. 00:07:21.490 --> 00:07:26.940 align:middle line:84% At times she seems to act mainly with her midriff, midriff 00:07:26.940 --> 00:07:30.270 align:middle line:84% eroticism being a staple of these epics rendered 00:07:30.270 --> 00:07:36.180 align:middle line:84% more piquant by the cold rule forbidding umbilicus on screen, 00:07:36.180 --> 00:07:38.370 align:middle line:84% or with her eloquent shoulder blades 00:07:38.370 --> 00:07:42.330 align:middle line:84% as she leans against a wall thrusting her breasts forward. 00:07:42.330 --> 00:07:45.630 align:middle line:84% Even though she seems rather diminutive next to Mature, 00:07:45.630 --> 00:07:49.530 align:middle line:84% she is altogether luscious with her upturned nose, saucy gazes, 00:07:49.530 --> 00:07:52.350 align:middle line:90% and spit curls. 00:07:52.350 --> 00:07:55.200 align:middle line:84% Mature's response was a supercilious sneer 00:07:55.200 --> 00:07:57.690 align:middle line:84% like a country bumpkin who knows they're putting something 00:07:57.690 --> 00:08:00.810 align:middle line:90% over on him but isn't sure what. 00:08:00.810 --> 00:08:03.630 align:middle line:84% And hopes his cynicism will distract attention 00:08:03.630 --> 00:08:06.420 align:middle line:90% from his slowness. 00:08:06.420 --> 00:08:10.110 align:middle line:84% It was about this actor that David Thompson wrote memorably 00:08:10.110 --> 00:08:15.150 align:middle line:84% if cruelly, quote, It is too easy to dismiss Victor Mature, 00:08:15.150 --> 00:08:17.760 align:middle line:90% for he surpasses badness. 00:08:17.760 --> 00:08:21.390 align:middle line:84% He's a strong man in the land of nine stone weaklings, 00:08:21.390 --> 00:08:24.300 align:middle line:84% an incredible concoction of corned beef, 00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:26.880 align:middle line:90% husky voice, and brilliantine. 00:08:26.880 --> 00:08:31.980 align:middle line:84% A barely concealed sexual advertisement for soiled goods. 00:08:31.980 --> 00:08:33.990 align:middle line:84% Remarkably, he is as much himself 00:08:33.990 --> 00:08:37.049 align:middle line:84% in the cheerfully meretricious as the potentially 00:08:37.049 --> 00:08:39.490 align:middle line:90% serious, unquote. 00:08:39.490 --> 00:08:41.730 align:middle line:84% Here however he seems bewildered, 00:08:41.730 --> 00:08:44.760 align:middle line:84% his eyes looked dead when he is called upon to say things 00:08:44.760 --> 00:08:46.995 align:middle line:90% like you daughter of hell. 00:08:46.995 --> 00:08:49.360 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:51.580 align:middle line:84% He wears a green leather jerkin that 00:08:51.580 --> 00:08:53.920 align:middle line:84% leaves most of his chest uncovered, 00:08:53.920 --> 00:08:56.920 align:middle line:84% and his broad body, by our more stringent 00:08:56.920 --> 00:09:00.535 align:middle line:84% Schwarzenegger standards of muscular definition, looks fat. 00:09:00.535 --> 00:09:03.100 align:middle line:90% 00:09:03.100 --> 00:09:05.620 align:middle line:84% Incidentally, there is nothing in the Bible 00:09:05.620 --> 00:09:08.920 align:middle line:84% that says Samson was a brawny muscular person. 00:09:08.920 --> 00:09:12.190 align:middle line:84% Since his strength came from God's spirit inhabiting him, 00:09:12.190 --> 00:09:14.500 align:middle line:84% the theological point might have been better made 00:09:14.500 --> 00:09:17.080 align:middle line:84% by casting Mickey Rooney or Arnold Stang. 00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:23.110 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:23.110 --> 00:09:25.300 align:middle line:84% Yet by that familiar phenomenon that 00:09:25.300 --> 00:09:28.690 align:middle line:84% makes it difficult to picture a story's characters afterward, 00:09:28.690 --> 00:09:30.970 align:middle line:84% except in the physical shape of the actors 00:09:30.970 --> 00:09:34.150 align:middle line:84% who played them on screen, however miscast they may have 00:09:34.150 --> 00:09:38.350 align:middle line:84% been, the past her prime Lamarr and the stalwart ham 00:09:38.350 --> 00:09:41.830 align:middle line:84% Mature will always remain in my imagination. 00:09:41.830 --> 00:09:47.200 align:middle line:84% The quintessential, the actual Samson and Delilah. 00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:50.290 align:middle line:84% As a child I was a very forgiving moviegoer. 00:09:50.290 --> 00:09:52.360 align:middle line:84% If a picture had one or two scenes that 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:54.820 align:middle line:84% excited my imagination, I would simply 00:09:54.820 --> 00:09:57.430 align:middle line:84% evacuate the duller parts from consciousness 00:09:57.430 --> 00:10:00.730 align:middle line:84% and concentrate on these privileged images carrying them 00:10:00.730 --> 00:10:03.520 align:middle line:84% around like mental slides long afterward 00:10:03.520 --> 00:10:07.450 align:middle line:84% and consulting them solidly in bad moments. 00:10:07.450 --> 00:10:10.630 align:middle line:84% Such a scene was the destruction of the Philistine hall 00:10:10.630 --> 00:10:14.380 align:middle line:84% in Samson and Delilah, where the pillars crumbled in sections 00:10:14.380 --> 00:10:17.950 align:middle line:84% like gigantic white Tootsie Rolls. 00:10:17.950 --> 00:10:21.220 align:middle line:84% For me Samson was essentially a Superman figure, 00:10:21.220 --> 00:10:23.410 align:middle line:84% just as I would jump off a chair and pretend 00:10:23.410 --> 00:10:25.750 align:middle line:90% to fly like the man of steel. 00:10:25.750 --> 00:10:28.390 align:middle line:84% So I used to play a time, my hands together 00:10:28.390 --> 00:10:31.090 align:middle line:84% and ripping the ropes off, eyes closed. 00:10:31.090 --> 00:10:33.640 align:middle line:84% I would grip my grit my teeth and fantasize 00:10:33.640 --> 00:10:36.940 align:middle line:84% pulling a building down by straining with all my might. 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:41.650 align:middle line:84% I had dreams of toppling PS11, breaking everything I hated 00:10:41.650 --> 00:10:45.670 align:middle line:84% into rubble like the newsreels of bombed Berlin. 00:10:45.670 --> 00:10:47.800 align:middle line:84% As it happened many blocks in Williamsburg 00:10:47.800 --> 00:10:49.840 align:middle line:84% already looked that way, torn down 00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:53.860 align:middle line:84% to make way for the future of Brooklyn, Queens Expressway. 00:10:53.860 --> 00:10:55.840 align:middle line:84% I prayed to get back at everyone who 00:10:55.840 --> 00:10:58.810 align:middle line:84% had humiliated me in one blow like poor Samson 00:10:58.810 --> 00:11:00.730 align:middle line:90% the blind giant. 00:11:00.730 --> 00:11:03.910 align:middle line:84% Not that I had so many enemies, but every child suffers 00:11:03.910 --> 00:11:07.150 align:middle line:84% from powerlessness, bossed around by adults, older 00:11:07.150 --> 00:11:09.580 align:middle line:90% brothers, classroom bullies. 00:11:09.580 --> 00:11:13.270 align:middle line:84% There was one tormentor, Ronald, big for his age who used 00:11:13.270 --> 00:11:15.520 align:middle line:90% to beat me up after school. 00:11:15.520 --> 00:11:19.030 align:middle line:84% I would imagine ways to torture him, a new one each night 00:11:19.030 --> 00:11:21.520 align:middle line:90% like Scheherazade. 00:11:21.520 --> 00:11:24.730 align:middle line:84% As I grew older, I began to concoct more subtle revenge 00:11:24.730 --> 00:11:28.870 align:middle line:84% fantasies, sometimes even letting my prisoner go. 00:11:28.870 --> 00:11:32.050 align:middle line:84% Curiously, this reprieve gave me a greater frisson. 00:11:32.050 --> 00:11:35.350 align:middle line:84% I enjoyed the idea of playing cat and mouse with my victim. 00:11:35.350 --> 00:11:39.850 align:middle line:84% One day vicious, the next unexpectedly benevolent. 00:11:39.850 --> 00:11:44.710 align:middle line:84% Control, restraint, sadism, creativity. 00:11:44.710 --> 00:11:48.550 align:middle line:84% I was only a few years from eroticizing this fantasy 00:11:48.550 --> 00:11:51.520 align:middle line:90% with a chivalric twist. 00:11:51.520 --> 00:11:53.920 align:middle line:84% In sixth grade, I was attracted to a girl 00:11:53.920 --> 00:11:58.720 align:middle line:84% with a Roman nose named Felicia, as were all the boys since she 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:01.210 align:middle line:84% already had the curves of a woman. 00:12:01.210 --> 00:12:03.470 align:middle line:84% She was from a better family than ours. 00:12:03.470 --> 00:12:05.710 align:middle line:84% Her father was a lawyer and she carried 00:12:05.710 --> 00:12:07.870 align:middle line:90% herself rather heartily. 00:12:07.870 --> 00:12:10.240 align:middle line:84% She thinks she's Cleopatra or Delilah, 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:12.310 align:middle line:84% we would say behind her back, because she 00:12:12.310 --> 00:12:14.860 align:middle line:90% knew all the boys fancied her. 00:12:14.860 --> 00:12:17.800 align:middle line:84% Secretly I imagined myself drawing daily closer 00:12:17.800 --> 00:12:20.500 align:middle line:84% to the beautiful Felicia and impressing her 00:12:20.500 --> 00:12:22.750 align:middle line:90% with my intelligence. 00:12:22.750 --> 00:12:25.810 align:middle line:84% One afternoon when I tried to make friendly conversation, 00:12:25.810 --> 00:12:28.150 align:middle line:84% she ridiculed me, saying that I wore 00:12:28.150 --> 00:12:32.770 align:middle line:84% the same clothes, the same ugly sweater every day. 00:12:32.770 --> 00:12:36.910 align:middle line:84% It was true, I had taken no notice of what I had on 00:12:36.910 --> 00:12:38.830 align:middle line:84% and neither apparently had my parents. 00:12:38.830 --> 00:12:41.650 align:middle line:90% 00:12:41.650 --> 00:12:43.720 align:middle line:84% After she had humiliated me I began 00:12:43.720 --> 00:12:45.700 align:middle line:84% to have dreams in which Felicia would 00:12:45.700 --> 00:12:49.210 align:middle line:84% knock on my door completely naked and defenseless. 00:12:49.210 --> 00:12:52.300 align:middle line:90% Someone had stolen her clothing. 00:12:52.300 --> 00:12:55.300 align:middle line:84% Not only did I not take advantage of the situation, 00:12:55.300 --> 00:12:58.360 align:middle line:84% I would immediately throw a coat or blanket around her shoulders 00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:00.580 align:middle line:90% and escort her home. 00:13:00.580 --> 00:13:03.100 align:middle line:84% This chaperonage which would sometimes take us down 00:13:03.100 --> 00:13:05.020 align:middle line:84% dank castle steps in which I would 00:13:05.020 --> 00:13:08.650 align:middle line:84% have to protect our honor by sword fight. 00:13:08.650 --> 00:13:12.400 align:middle line:84% Never did I ask her for so much as a kiss in payment, 00:13:12.400 --> 00:13:14.290 align:middle line:84% though sometimes she would reward me 00:13:14.290 --> 00:13:17.640 align:middle line:90% with a feast of kisses. 00:13:17.640 --> 00:13:20.670 align:middle line:84% The closeness with which dreams of gallantry and revenge 00:13:20.670 --> 00:13:24.060 align:middle line:84% were tangled in my brain must be why, even today when 00:13:24.060 --> 00:13:26.370 align:middle line:84% I remember to act in a polite manner, 00:13:26.370 --> 00:13:29.310 align:middle line:84% for instance, giving up my seat to a woman in the bus 00:13:29.310 --> 00:13:32.100 align:middle line:84% and I'm thanked for being chivalrous, 00:13:32.100 --> 00:13:35.790 align:middle line:84% I instantly feel a twinge of guilty conscience. 00:13:35.790 --> 00:13:39.220 align:middle line:84% But then I am chronically guilt ridden about my virtuous side, 00:13:39.220 --> 00:13:40.800 align:middle line:90% if you will. 00:13:40.800 --> 00:13:43.920 align:middle line:84% You are always a good boy, my mother told me so often. 00:13:43.920 --> 00:13:46.530 align:middle line:90% You, I never had to worry about. 00:13:46.530 --> 00:13:49.740 align:middle line:84% Even as a baby before I had any choice in the matter 00:13:49.740 --> 00:13:51.570 align:middle line:90% I was good. 00:13:51.570 --> 00:13:53.640 align:middle line:84% When my mother was in the maternity ward 00:13:53.640 --> 00:13:56.130 align:middle line:84% when all the other babies were wailing from the air raid 00:13:56.130 --> 00:14:00.450 align:middle line:84% sirens, I quietly found her breast. 00:14:00.450 --> 00:14:03.420 align:middle line:84% One of my earliest memories from about the age of 4 00:14:03.420 --> 00:14:05.550 align:middle line:84% is of my older brother and younger sister 00:14:05.550 --> 00:14:08.040 align:middle line:90% experimenting with matches. 00:14:08.040 --> 00:14:10.590 align:middle line:84% They shouldn't be doing that I thought, 00:14:10.590 --> 00:14:12.510 align:middle line:84% sure enough the kitchen curtain caught 00:14:12.510 --> 00:14:15.415 align:middle line:90% fire there was smoke, flames. 00:14:15.415 --> 00:14:17.040 align:middle line:84% My mother came home in the nick of time 00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:19.500 align:middle line:84% and doused the fire with pots of water. 00:14:19.500 --> 00:14:22.290 align:middle line:84% When it was over she demanded to know what had happened. 00:14:22.290 --> 00:14:25.140 align:middle line:84% My brother and sister pointed fingers at each other. 00:14:25.140 --> 00:14:29.250 align:middle line:84% I didn't do anything, I kept telling her, finally she said, 00:14:29.250 --> 00:14:31.980 align:middle line:84% I know cookie, I know you didn't." 00:14:31.980 --> 00:14:37.260 align:middle line:84% The question years later is, why didn't I do anything? 00:14:37.260 --> 00:14:39.540 align:middle line:90% Why was I such a goody-goody? 00:14:39.540 --> 00:14:43.170 align:middle line:84% Was I good because I chose to be or because I was too timid, too 00:14:43.170 --> 00:14:46.170 align:middle line:90% programmed to do otherwise? 00:14:46.170 --> 00:14:48.150 align:middle line:84% There were rewards for being the good boy, 00:14:48.150 --> 00:14:50.610 align:middle line:84% but sometimes it came as a mixed blessing. 00:14:50.610 --> 00:14:53.160 align:middle line:84% I was both my mother's favorite and the one 00:14:53.160 --> 00:14:55.170 align:middle line:84% to whom she paid the least attention because I 00:14:55.170 --> 00:14:57.180 align:middle line:90% didn't cause her trouble. 00:14:57.180 --> 00:14:59.220 align:middle line:84% By nursery school I had already developed 00:14:59.220 --> 00:15:01.440 align:middle line:90% a reputation for honesty. 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:04.680 align:middle line:84% Phillip never lies, my nursery teacher said. 00:15:04.680 --> 00:15:08.190 align:middle line:84% My mother, pleased to hear it, nevertheless insisted healthily 00:15:08.190 --> 00:15:10.170 align:middle line:90% every child lies. 00:15:10.170 --> 00:15:13.290 align:middle line:84% Not Phillip, said this woman, whom I had clearly managed 00:15:13.290 --> 00:15:15.840 align:middle line:90% to make fall in love with me. 00:15:15.840 --> 00:15:18.570 align:middle line:84% One day not long thereafter, I was jumping up and down 00:15:18.570 --> 00:15:23.010 align:middle line:84% on my parents' bed using their mattress as a trampoline. 00:15:23.010 --> 00:15:26.550 align:middle line:84% I was no angel, I wanted to have a good time to break the rules, 00:15:26.550 --> 00:15:28.920 align:middle line:90% to become an evil doer. 00:15:28.920 --> 00:15:31.710 align:middle line:84% In mid jump I heard my mother coming. 00:15:31.710 --> 00:15:33.340 align:middle line:90% What were you doing? 00:15:33.340 --> 00:15:36.640 align:middle line:84% Were you jumping on my bed like I told you not to? 00:15:36.640 --> 00:15:39.090 align:middle line:90% No, I protested. 00:15:39.090 --> 00:15:43.140 align:middle line:84% I saw you do it, she exclaimed, don't fib to me. 00:15:43.140 --> 00:15:44.820 align:middle line:84% Though I got a beating afterward, 00:15:44.820 --> 00:15:46.350 align:middle line:90% we were both relieved. 00:15:46.350 --> 00:15:47.100 align:middle line:90% He lies. 00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:49.990 align:middle line:90% 00:15:49.990 --> 00:15:52.150 align:middle line:84% In Judges the story of Samson begins 00:15:52.150 --> 00:15:53.950 align:middle line:90% with his mother's barrenness. 00:15:53.950 --> 00:15:57.430 align:middle line:84% An angel appears to the wife of Manoah and tells her 00:15:57.430 --> 00:15:59.590 align:middle line:84% she is going to have a son, but you 00:15:59.590 --> 00:16:03.640 align:middle line:84% should drink no wine nor eat anything unclean, and quote, 00:16:03.640 --> 00:16:06.130 align:middle line:84% no razor shall come upon his head, 00:16:06.130 --> 00:16:09.520 align:middle line:84% for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from birth, 00:16:09.520 --> 00:16:11.710 align:middle line:84% and he shall begin to deliver Israel 00:16:11.710 --> 00:16:15.250 align:middle line:84% from the hand of the Philistines, unquote. 00:16:15.250 --> 00:16:18.520 align:middle line:84% She runs and tells her husband what the stranger has said 00:16:18.520 --> 00:16:21.310 align:middle line:84% and Manoah gets the angel to repeat these instructions 00:16:21.310 --> 00:16:22.720 align:middle line:90% a third time. 00:16:22.720 --> 00:16:26.380 align:middle line:84% Then a puff of smoke, flames, and the couple 00:16:26.380 --> 00:16:30.160 align:middle line:84% realizes that the stranger is indeed an angel of the Lord. 00:16:30.160 --> 00:16:32.890 align:middle line:84% They fall on their faces to the ground. 00:16:32.890 --> 00:16:35.620 align:middle line:84% This angelic visitation to a barren woman 00:16:35.620 --> 00:16:38.200 align:middle line:90% is a recurrent biblical formula. 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:43.210 align:middle line:84% Only in the context of Judges with its dense narrative style, 00:16:43.210 --> 00:16:47.320 align:middle line:84% why does the incident-- oh only in the context of Judges, 00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:50.200 align:middle line:84% with a dense narrative style, does the incident's 00:16:50.200 --> 00:16:52.960 align:middle line:90% leisurely redundancy surprise. 00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:57.220 align:middle line:84% Why is the whole chapter of 25 verses wasted on this business? 00:16:57.220 --> 00:16:59.080 align:middle line:84% Certainly no other judge is accorded 00:16:59.080 --> 00:17:00.850 align:middle line:90% such preliminary buildup. 00:17:00.850 --> 00:17:02.950 align:middle line:84% It is almost as though the whole book of Judges 00:17:02.950 --> 00:17:06.069 align:middle line:84% were taking a breath before launching into the Samson 00:17:06.069 --> 00:17:07.720 align:middle line:90% story. 00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:09.609 align:middle line:84% In a way also the chapter lets us 00:17:09.609 --> 00:17:11.980 align:middle line:84% know that before Samson is even born, 00:17:11.980 --> 00:17:15.280 align:middle line:84% he is in God's debt, his body itself doesn't quite 00:17:15.280 --> 00:17:16.390 align:middle line:90% belong to him. 00:17:16.390 --> 00:17:19.359 align:middle line:84% It's a sacred weapon for God to inhabit with the spirit 00:17:19.359 --> 00:17:21.369 align:middle line:90% when he so desires. 00:17:21.369 --> 00:17:23.560 align:middle line:84% Moreover without any choice in the matter, 00:17:23.560 --> 00:17:26.349 align:middle line:84% Samson has pledged to be an Israelite, one 00:17:26.349 --> 00:17:30.970 align:middle line:84% who is consecrated, abstinent, separate from others, pure. 00:17:30.970 --> 00:17:33.490 align:middle line:84% No wonder Samson acts bad, he is trying 00:17:33.490 --> 00:17:37.660 align:middle line:84% to make a space for his own life inside the one already owed 00:17:37.660 --> 00:17:40.180 align:middle line:90% to his parents and God. 00:17:40.180 --> 00:17:42.940 align:middle line:90% So he indulges in skirt chasing. 00:17:42.940 --> 00:17:46.600 align:middle line:84% All his troubles, but also all his heroic deeds 00:17:46.600 --> 00:17:49.300 align:middle line:84% stem from whoring and womanizing. 00:17:49.300 --> 00:17:51.580 align:middle line:84% He falls in love easily and it seems 00:17:51.580 --> 00:17:54.400 align:middle line:90% purely on a physical basis. 00:17:54.400 --> 00:17:58.060 align:middle line:84% Like Portnoy he is drawn to shiksas. 00:17:58.060 --> 00:18:00.910 align:middle line:84% In our very first encounter with the adult Samson, 00:18:00.910 --> 00:18:02.860 align:middle line:84% he has just seen a woman in Timnah, 00:18:02.860 --> 00:18:06.410 align:middle line:84% the daughter of Philistines and wants her for a wife. 00:18:06.410 --> 00:18:09.970 align:middle line:84% His parents object, Is there not a woman among the daughters 00:18:09.970 --> 00:18:11.950 align:middle line:84% of your kinsmen or among all the people 00:18:11.950 --> 00:18:15.190 align:middle line:84% that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised 00:18:15.190 --> 00:18:17.050 align:middle line:90% Philistines? 00:18:17.050 --> 00:18:20.440 align:middle line:84% But Samson said to his father, get her for me, 00:18:20.440 --> 00:18:23.440 align:middle line:90% for she pleases me well. 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:26.680 align:middle line:84% Now this first time he is exonerated from blame 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:28.900 align:middle line:84% because the text immediately assures us 00:18:28.900 --> 00:18:31.390 align:middle line:84% that Samson's romantic entanglement was 00:18:31.390 --> 00:18:33.490 align:middle line:84% the doing of the Lord, who was seeking 00:18:33.490 --> 00:18:36.160 align:middle line:84% an occasion against the Philistines. 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:40.390 align:middle line:84% Later in the Delilah episode, this cosmic alibi is withdrawn. 00:18:40.390 --> 00:18:42.940 align:middle line:84% Samson will be made to stand completely alone 00:18:42.940 --> 00:18:44.213 align:middle line:90% with his mistake. 00:18:44.213 --> 00:18:45.630 align:middle line:84% [RECORDING INTERRUPTED BY A BEEP] 00:18:45.630 --> 00:18:48.690 align:middle line:84% Everything in the Samson story happens twice, sometimes 00:18:48.690 --> 00:18:52.830 align:middle line:84% thrice, repetitions establishes character patterns. 00:18:52.830 --> 00:18:55.770 align:middle line:84% Thus if he had only let Delilah wheedle secret out of him 00:18:55.770 --> 00:18:56.980 align:middle line:90% that would be one thing. 00:18:56.980 --> 00:18:59.940 align:middle line:84% But before he go, he does so, he gives the woman of Timnah 00:18:59.940 --> 00:19:04.290 align:middle line:84% the answer to his wedding riddle because she pressed him hard. 00:19:04.290 --> 00:19:07.530 align:middle line:84% Samson is a man woman nag, for all his strength 00:19:07.530 --> 00:19:10.230 align:middle line:84% he seems not to engender their full respect much 00:19:10.230 --> 00:19:11.640 align:middle line:90% less their obedience. 00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:15.210 align:middle line:84% They know how to plan his guilt with tears and reproaches. 00:19:15.210 --> 00:19:17.820 align:middle line:84% You don't really love me or you tell me your secret. 00:19:17.820 --> 00:19:19.860 align:middle line:84% To twist him around their fingers 00:19:19.860 --> 00:19:22.650 align:middle line:84% and ultimately they betray him, not 00:19:22.650 --> 00:19:24.570 align:middle line:84% only does the woman of Timnah broadcast 00:19:24.570 --> 00:19:28.080 align:middle line:84% a little secret forcing Samson to pay everyone the betting 00:19:28.080 --> 00:19:31.290 align:middle line:84% price, but she cuckolds Samson by giving herself 00:19:31.290 --> 00:19:34.500 align:middle line:84% to his companion who had been his best man. 00:19:34.500 --> 00:19:37.200 align:middle line:84% Delilah does even worse she ruins him. 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:38.850 align:middle line:84% Sandwiched between these two women 00:19:38.850 --> 00:19:42.660 align:middle line:84% is the harlot of Gaza, who also endangers Samson 00:19:42.660 --> 00:19:46.620 align:middle line:84% by keeping him occupied while his enemies surround his house. 00:19:46.620 --> 00:19:49.740 align:middle line:84% He escapes by lifting the city gates on his shoulders, 00:19:49.740 --> 00:19:52.770 align:middle line:90% but he is clearly tempting fate. 00:19:52.770 --> 00:19:55.110 align:middle line:84% Samson also is a man who seems to enjoy 00:19:55.110 --> 00:19:57.780 align:middle line:90% being self-righteously angry. 00:19:57.780 --> 00:19:59.820 align:middle line:84% If you had not plowed with my heifer, 00:19:59.820 --> 00:20:01.680 align:middle line:84% you would not have found out my riddle, 00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:04.620 align:middle line:84% he tells the wedding guests, kills 30 men 00:20:04.620 --> 00:20:07.650 align:middle line:90% and stomps off in hot anger. 00:20:07.650 --> 00:20:09.630 align:middle line:84% Later when he returns to Timnah and finds 00:20:09.630 --> 00:20:11.400 align:middle line:84% his wife has been given to another man, 00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:14.610 align:middle line:84% he rejects the offer of marrying her younger sister. 00:20:14.610 --> 00:20:17.130 align:middle line:84% This time he says, I shall be blameless in regard 00:20:17.130 --> 00:20:19.810 align:middle line:84% to the Philistines, when I do them mischief. 00:20:19.810 --> 00:20:23.850 align:middle line:84% Then he ties 300 foxes together, attaches lit torches on 00:20:23.850 --> 00:20:27.120 align:middle line:84% between their tails, and lets them burn up all the Philistine 00:20:27.120 --> 00:20:28.890 align:middle line:90% orchids and grain. 00:20:28.890 --> 00:20:30.930 align:middle line:84% The Philistines retaliate by torching 00:20:30.930 --> 00:20:34.650 align:middle line:84% his wife, who had already abandoned him and her father. 00:20:34.650 --> 00:20:37.560 align:middle line:84% Samson retorts, if this is what you do, 00:20:37.560 --> 00:20:41.920 align:middle line:84% I swear I'll be avenged upon you and after that I will quit. 00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:46.020 align:middle line:84% And he smoked them hip and thigh with great slaughter. 00:20:46.020 --> 00:20:48.720 align:middle line:84% The implication is that any destruction, however 00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:54.270 align:middle line:84% disproportionate is justifiable if interpreted as retaliation. 00:20:54.270 --> 00:20:57.990 align:middle line:84% No wonder Samson allows himself so often to be betrayed. 00:20:57.990 --> 00:21:02.040 align:middle line:84% It frees him to do what he wants. 00:21:02.040 --> 00:21:04.080 align:middle line:84% I grew up in a household where there was much 00:21:04.080 --> 00:21:06.510 align:middle line:84% arguing and yelling, even hitting, 00:21:06.510 --> 00:21:08.250 align:middle line:84% but it was necessary, as we learned 00:21:08.250 --> 00:21:10.650 align:middle line:84% from imitating my mother, always to lay 00:21:10.650 --> 00:21:12.480 align:middle line:84% a groundwork of self-righteousness 00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:14.700 align:middle line:90% before any explosion. 00:21:14.700 --> 00:21:16.740 align:middle line:84% I am only doing this to you because you 00:21:16.740 --> 00:21:19.170 align:middle line:90% did x and y to me first. 00:21:19.170 --> 00:21:21.840 align:middle line:84% Within the never ending chain of injured feelings 00:21:21.840 --> 00:21:24.060 align:middle line:84% that is family history, it is not always 00:21:24.060 --> 00:21:27.030 align:middle line:84% easy to find the beginning of a causal series, which 00:21:27.030 --> 00:21:29.550 align:middle line:84% is why the person with the loudest voice or the longest 00:21:29.550 --> 00:21:33.810 align:middle line:84% memory is generally able to make the best tit for tat. 00:21:33.810 --> 00:21:36.780 align:middle line:84% My older brother Hal, whose voice is very strong, 00:21:36.780 --> 00:21:40.920 align:middle line:84% was for a while the undisputed king of righteous explosions. 00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:43.380 align:middle line:84% Fortunately, Hal would fulminate so long 00:21:43.380 --> 00:21:45.470 align:middle line:84% on the heinousness of the wrong done him, 00:21:45.470 --> 00:21:47.220 align:middle line:84% that it was possible to get out of the way 00:21:47.220 --> 00:21:51.090 align:middle line:84% of any serious physical harm before he swung into action. 00:21:51.090 --> 00:21:53.430 align:middle line:84% We were much more terrified of my father, 00:21:53.430 --> 00:21:57.280 align:middle line:84% who was phlegmatic, quiet, and withdrawn for the most part. 00:21:57.280 --> 00:22:00.870 align:middle line:84% But if he blew up, you had less than a second's warning. 00:22:00.870 --> 00:22:03.840 align:middle line:84% When my father got physical, the slaps and punches 00:22:03.840 --> 00:22:06.870 align:middle line:84% came hard and fast, as in a street fight. 00:22:06.870 --> 00:22:09.840 align:middle line:84% He had powerful bony hands, and sharp elbows, 00:22:09.840 --> 00:22:13.350 align:middle line:84% and in anger he seemed to lose control with white spittle 00:22:13.350 --> 00:22:15.600 align:middle line:84% foaming at his mouth like a mad dog 00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:19.350 align:middle line:84% or at least that was how it looked to us as children. 00:22:19.350 --> 00:22:22.020 align:middle line:84% Curiously, he always tried to get out of spanking us, 00:22:22.020 --> 00:22:24.780 align:middle line:84% he had no heart for premeditated disciplining, 00:22:24.780 --> 00:22:27.870 align:middle line:84% leaving such beatings to my mother. 00:22:27.870 --> 00:22:31.590 align:middle line:84% She would take out her ironing cord, a black and white fabric 00:22:31.590 --> 00:22:35.423 align:middle line:84% switch, which we thought of as a live creature. 00:22:35.423 --> 00:22:36.840 align:middle line:84% What was interesting about the way 00:22:36.840 --> 00:22:39.420 align:middle line:84% she beat us was that she would herself grunt and make 00:22:39.420 --> 00:22:42.630 align:middle line:84% awful faces each time she picked up her arm. 00:22:42.630 --> 00:22:45.540 align:middle line:84% You had enough? she would demand after each blow. 00:22:45.540 --> 00:22:47.580 align:middle line:90% Going to try that again? 00:22:47.580 --> 00:22:49.260 align:middle line:84% It was a dialogue, we were supposed 00:22:49.260 --> 00:22:53.970 align:middle line:84% to respond correctly so that she would know when to quit. 00:22:53.970 --> 00:22:56.580 align:middle line:84% My brother would take his punishment like a man, 00:22:56.580 --> 00:22:59.370 align:middle line:84% howling only when he was in pain. 00:22:59.370 --> 00:23:01.260 align:middle line:90% I was more of a faker. 00:23:01.260 --> 00:23:04.120 align:middle line:84% Very early I caught on that it was all symbolic. 00:23:04.120 --> 00:23:07.140 align:middle line:84% And I would scream and carry on from the first hand raise, 00:23:07.140 --> 00:23:10.350 align:middle line:84% so that you would let me go with next to nothing. 00:23:10.350 --> 00:23:13.770 align:middle line:84% My sister Molly however, would laugh in my mother's face. 00:23:13.770 --> 00:23:17.490 align:middle line:84% Would giggle or hum a tune to herself, refusing 00:23:17.490 --> 00:23:20.640 align:middle line:84% to concede even when I could see tears welling in her eyes, 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:23.280 align:middle line:84% until finally my mother would stop baffled, 00:23:23.280 --> 00:23:26.910 align:middle line:90% her arm exhausted. 00:23:26.910 --> 00:23:29.190 align:middle line:84% I'm struggling to find the pattern between all 00:23:29.190 --> 00:23:30.090 align:middle line:90% these pieces. 00:23:30.090 --> 00:23:33.420 align:middle line:84% I have the sense that the Samson story and my family story 00:23:33.420 --> 00:23:34.860 align:middle line:90% touch in odd ways. 00:23:34.860 --> 00:23:37.990 align:middle line:84% I tried to put the stencil of one over the other. 00:23:37.990 --> 00:23:40.290 align:middle line:84% And while they occasionally overlapped, just as often 00:23:40.290 --> 00:23:42.840 align:middle line:90% the connection seems farfetched. 00:23:42.840 --> 00:23:45.490 align:middle line:84% Nonetheless I am convinced that the center of both 00:23:45.490 --> 00:23:49.480 align:middle line:84% is a mystery of power relations between men and women. 00:23:49.480 --> 00:23:52.270 align:middle line:84% I start to write, how did it come about 00:23:52.270 --> 00:23:54.760 align:middle line:84% that I started mistrusting women or thought 00:23:54.760 --> 00:23:56.530 align:middle line:90% they would betray me? 00:23:56.530 --> 00:23:57.850 align:middle line:90% But then I pause. 00:23:57.850 --> 00:23:59.260 align:middle line:90% Do I really? 00:23:59.260 --> 00:24:01.030 align:middle line:84% Aren't I often less guarded around 00:24:01.030 --> 00:24:03.340 align:middle line:90% women than I am with men? 00:24:03.340 --> 00:24:04.960 align:middle line:84% Well let us say that a part of me 00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:10.090 align:middle line:84% still fears or hopes that women are treacherous creatures. 00:24:10.090 --> 00:24:12.430 align:middle line:84% I know that growing up, watching the unhappiness 00:24:12.430 --> 00:24:15.160 align:middle line:84% between my parents, watching my mother disparage 00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:17.200 align:middle line:84% my father every day, and my father 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:19.870 align:middle line:84% refuse to let her go, made me cautious 00:24:19.870 --> 00:24:22.240 align:middle line:90% toward the opposite sex. 00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:25.220 align:middle line:84% Then too, my mother was very insecure as a young woman. 00:24:25.220 --> 00:24:27.310 align:middle line:84% We would climb into her lap and she would suddenly 00:24:27.310 --> 00:24:31.150 align:middle line:84% push us away saying, don't start that Mommy I love you crap, 00:24:31.150 --> 00:24:32.050 align:middle line:90% you're only doing-- 00:24:32.050 --> 00:24:34.630 align:middle line:84% being lovey dovey because you want something out of me. 00:24:34.630 --> 00:24:35.980 align:middle line:90% Okay, what is it this time? 00:24:35.980 --> 00:24:37.150 align:middle line:90% An ice cream? 00:24:37.150 --> 00:24:38.680 align:middle line:90% A quarter? 00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:41.740 align:middle line:84% Naturally I learned to be skeptical of affection, 00:24:41.740 --> 00:24:45.460 align:middle line:84% almost to want a barbed hurt to accompany love. 00:24:45.460 --> 00:24:48.100 align:middle line:84% As for my father, he had been treated wretchedly 00:24:48.100 --> 00:24:51.010 align:middle line:84% by his stepmother who put him to work all the time. 00:24:51.010 --> 00:24:54.610 align:middle line:84% So he was both desperate for maternal warmth and suspicious 00:24:54.610 --> 00:24:56.860 align:middle line:90% of any feminine softness. 00:24:56.860 --> 00:24:59.200 align:middle line:84% When these two hurt, insecure people, 00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:01.840 align:middle line:84% the black sheep of both their middle class families, 00:25:01.840 --> 00:25:05.440 align:middle line:84% came together to live in poverty and raise their own family, 00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:09.100 align:middle line:90% the results were not pretty. 00:25:09.100 --> 00:25:11.890 align:middle line:84% My parents had a bookcase which held a few hardcovers 00:25:11.890 --> 00:25:15.250 align:middle line:84% and a library of pocketbooks, whose flimsy, browning 00:25:15.250 --> 00:25:18.400 align:middle line:84% pages would crack if you bent down the corners. 00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:20.950 align:middle line:84% I can still picture those cellophane peeling covers 00:25:20.950 --> 00:25:24.400 align:middle line:84% with their kangaroo logo, the illustrations of busty 00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:26.890 align:middle line:84% available looking women or hard bodied men, 00:25:26.890 --> 00:25:30.340 align:middle line:84% or solemn sensitive looking Negroes with titles like, 00:25:30.340 --> 00:25:32.620 align:middle line:84% Intruder in the Dust, Appointment 00:25:32.620 --> 00:25:37.120 align:middle line:84% in Samarra, Tobacco Road, Studs Lonigan, Strange Fruit, Good 00:25:37.120 --> 00:25:41.410 align:middle line:84% Night Sweet Prince, The Great Gatsby, The Sound and the Fury. 00:25:41.410 --> 00:25:43.300 align:middle line:84% Father brought home all the books. 00:25:43.300 --> 00:25:44.980 align:middle line:90% It was his responsibility. 00:25:44.980 --> 00:25:46.660 align:middle line:84% Though mother chafed at everything else 00:25:46.660 --> 00:25:49.030 align:middle line:84% in the marriage, she still permitted him at the time 00:25:49.030 --> 00:25:51.490 align:middle line:90% to be her intellectual mentor. 00:25:51.490 --> 00:25:54.490 align:middle line:84% I have often wondered on what basis he made his selections. 00:25:54.490 --> 00:25:56.620 align:middle line:84% He'd only had one term of night college, 00:25:56.620 --> 00:25:58.870 align:middle line:84% dropping out because he fell asleep in class 00:25:58.870 --> 00:26:00.890 align:middle line:90% after a full day in the factory. 00:26:00.890 --> 00:26:02.950 align:middle line:84% And I never saw him read book reviews. 00:26:02.950 --> 00:26:06.070 align:middle line:84% He seemed all the same to have a nose for decent literature. 00:26:06.070 --> 00:26:09.490 align:middle line:84% He was one of those autodidacts in the depression generation 00:26:09.490 --> 00:26:12.490 align:middle line:84% for whose guidance the inexpensive editions 00:26:12.490 --> 00:26:15.370 align:middle line:84% of Everyman, Modern Library, and Pocketbooks, 00:26:15.370 --> 00:26:19.000 align:middle line:84% seemed intentionally designed out of some bygone assumption 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:22.150 align:middle line:84% that the working man should or must be educated 00:26:22.150 --> 00:26:25.000 align:middle line:90% to the best in human thought. 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:28.720 align:middle line:84% My father had an odd respect for the power of good fiction, 00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:32.140 align:middle line:84% especially when it was able to mirror uncannily the conflicts 00:26:32.140 --> 00:26:33.530 align:middle line:90% in his own life. 00:26:33.530 --> 00:26:35.740 align:middle line:84% He would often Marvel at Kafka's story 00:26:35.740 --> 00:26:38.560 align:middle line:84% The Judgment, in which the patriarch tells his son 00:26:38.560 --> 00:26:42.040 align:middle line:84% to jump off a bridge, obviously, because his father, 00:26:42.040 --> 00:26:45.100 align:middle line:84% my grandfather had treated him like dirt. 00:26:45.100 --> 00:26:47.860 align:middle line:84% He never stopped praising The Brothers Karamazov, 00:26:47.860 --> 00:26:51.640 align:middle line:84% which had the status of the Bible in Brooklyn at the time. 00:26:51.640 --> 00:26:54.880 align:middle line:84% Again, I suspect its patricidal theme excited him more 00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:57.280 align:middle line:90% than Dostoevsky's philosophy. 00:26:57.280 --> 00:27:00.460 align:middle line:84% He did dip into one philosopher, Schopenhauer, 00:27:00.460 --> 00:27:02.110 align:middle line:84% and would occasionally read aloud 00:27:02.110 --> 00:27:06.010 align:middle line:84% one of the gloomy German's misogynistic aphorisms. 00:27:06.010 --> 00:27:07.930 align:middle line:84% These were usually to the effect that women 00:27:07.930 --> 00:27:11.320 align:middle line:84% had no capacity for ideas that their only cleverness was 00:27:11.320 --> 00:27:13.750 align:middle line:84% in tricking men to perpetuate the species. 00:27:13.750 --> 00:27:16.330 align:middle line:90% 00:27:16.330 --> 00:27:18.790 align:middle line:84% My mother gave an odd credence to this theory 00:27:18.790 --> 00:27:22.420 align:middle line:84% by boasting that she had seduced my father into siring us, 00:27:22.420 --> 00:27:24.910 align:middle line:84% finagling away the contraception I suppose, 00:27:24.910 --> 00:27:27.460 align:middle line:84% since he hadn't really wanted children. 00:27:27.460 --> 00:27:29.560 align:middle line:90% Four time she tricked him? 00:27:29.560 --> 00:27:31.810 align:middle line:84% Whether true or not it was her way of making us 00:27:31.810 --> 00:27:35.260 align:middle line:84% feel indebted to her and opposed to him. 00:27:35.260 --> 00:27:37.960 align:middle line:84% In any event, Schopenhauer's bon mots 00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:41.440 align:middle line:84% were his single means of answering Mother's nagging. 00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:44.050 align:middle line:84% My father was one of those dependable Jewish working 00:27:44.050 --> 00:27:45.790 align:middle line:84% men of his generation, who reguarded 00:27:45.790 --> 00:27:50.260 align:middle line:84% housework or any physical task around the house as anathema. 00:27:50.260 --> 00:27:52.720 align:middle line:84% In his case the phobia may have been increased because 00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:55.150 align:middle line:90% of his chore-filled childhood. 00:27:55.150 --> 00:27:57.370 align:middle line:84% He would not lift a finger around the house 00:27:57.370 --> 00:27:59.470 align:middle line:84% if it killed him, my mother would say. 00:27:59.470 --> 00:28:03.040 align:middle line:84% It was she who had to bang the nails, unstick the windows, 00:28:03.040 --> 00:28:07.150 align:middle line:84% lay the linoleum, complaining while my father sat, 00:28:07.150 --> 00:28:11.560 align:middle line:84% the soul of passivity, reading a book on napping. 00:28:11.560 --> 00:28:13.480 align:middle line:84% It enraged her partly because she 00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:16.240 align:middle line:84% had to go to work too and partly because my father was 00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:17.560 align:middle line:90% so able-bodied. 00:28:17.560 --> 00:28:20.950 align:middle line:84% As a young man he was tall, wiry, and very strong 00:28:20.950 --> 00:28:22.330 align:middle line:90% like Samson. 00:28:22.330 --> 00:28:25.090 align:middle line:84% In this factory he could lift huge bales, 00:28:25.090 --> 00:28:27.220 align:middle line:84% at carnivals he would ring the bell, 00:28:27.220 --> 00:28:30.220 align:middle line:84% he triumphed at arm wrestling, yet 00:28:30.220 --> 00:28:33.520 align:middle line:84% he became a weakling as soon as he arrived home. 00:28:33.520 --> 00:28:35.470 align:middle line:90% His kryptonite was family life. 00:28:35.470 --> 00:28:38.500 align:middle line:90% 00:28:38.500 --> 00:28:41.470 align:middle line:84% If my mother said something sarcastic to him like, 00:28:41.470 --> 00:28:43.750 align:middle line:84% why don't you get off your bony ass and do something? 00:28:43.750 --> 00:28:45.283 align:middle line:90% Or what do I need you for? 00:28:45.283 --> 00:28:46.950 align:middle line:84% You're not married to me, you're married 00:28:46.950 --> 00:28:49.680 align:middle line:84% to your easy chair and the goddamn ball game, 00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:52.890 align:middle line:84% he would merely sink deeper into a defeated shrug, 00:28:52.890 --> 00:28:56.490 align:middle line:84% but I believe that behind his stoical resigned mask 00:28:56.490 --> 00:28:59.640 align:middle line:90% there raced a fierce misogyny. 00:28:59.640 --> 00:29:02.700 align:middle line:84% What I would call the Blue Angel, Of Human Bondage 00:29:02.700 --> 00:29:05.430 align:middle line:84% plot, the educated or sensitive man 00:29:05.430 --> 00:29:08.910 align:middle line:84% who is dragged down by a coarse sluggish vixen, 00:29:08.910 --> 00:29:12.360 align:middle line:84% had a peculiar vogue with my father's generation. 00:29:12.360 --> 00:29:14.460 align:middle line:84% One of the books he often tell it to us 00:29:14.460 --> 00:29:18.330 align:middle line:84% was Ludwig Lewisohn's novel The Tyranny of Sex. 00:29:18.330 --> 00:29:20.350 align:middle line:84% When I was 16 and still a virgin, 00:29:20.350 --> 00:29:24.060 align:middle line:84% I read it naturally to find out what was in store. 00:29:24.060 --> 00:29:27.540 align:middle line:84% It's lumpy post-recession naturalist style disappointed 00:29:27.540 --> 00:29:29.550 align:middle line:84% me, and I remember feeling the author was 00:29:29.550 --> 00:29:33.090 align:middle line:84% weighing the scales a bit too unfairly against the wife. 00:29:33.090 --> 00:29:35.430 align:middle line:84% Nevertheless, the luridly compelling story 00:29:35.430 --> 00:29:36.900 align:middle line:90% remained with me. 00:29:36.900 --> 00:29:40.380 align:middle line:84% A man becomes attracted to a woman, wants to sleep with her, 00:29:40.380 --> 00:29:43.950 align:middle line:84% and the next thing he knows, he is married, cuckolded, in debt, 00:29:43.950 --> 00:29:46.770 align:middle line:84% his dreams for himself have flown out the window, 00:29:46.770 --> 00:29:50.610 align:middle line:84% his wife has become a slattern, no longer even attractive, 00:29:50.610 --> 00:29:52.290 align:middle line:90% a nagging shrew. 00:29:52.290 --> 00:29:57.960 align:middle line:84% In short, women as swamp, quicksand. 00:29:57.960 --> 00:29:59.580 align:middle line:84% Given the atmosphere in my home, I 00:29:59.580 --> 00:30:01.110 align:middle line:84% found the Sampson and Delilah story 00:30:01.110 --> 00:30:03.150 align:middle line:90% the most natural in the world. 00:30:03.150 --> 00:30:05.340 align:middle line:84% Already I had imbibed from my father 00:30:05.340 --> 00:30:08.850 align:middle line:84% his sense of sexuality as a nightmarish tyranny 00:30:08.850 --> 00:30:11.070 align:middle line:90% robbing a man of his strength. 00:30:11.070 --> 00:30:13.200 align:middle line:84% Just as I had absorbed from my mother 00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:15.870 align:middle line:84% a rebellious, defiantly flirtatious, 00:30:15.870 --> 00:30:19.500 align:middle line:90% erotic appetite for life. 00:30:19.500 --> 00:30:22.920 align:middle line:84% My mother had bought a piano and she practiced her songs on it, 00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:25.350 align:middle line:84% preparing for the far off day when she would become 00:30:25.350 --> 00:30:27.450 align:middle line:90% a professional entertainer. 00:30:27.450 --> 00:30:32.010 align:middle line:84% She sang mostly torch songs, the kind Helen Morgan made famous. 00:30:32.010 --> 00:30:35.460 align:middle line:84% The Man I Love, Just My Bill, I Must 00:30:35.460 --> 00:30:38.010 align:middle line:84% Try to Make the Man Love Me, Bewitched Bothered 00:30:38.010 --> 00:30:41.460 align:middle line:84% and Bewildered, I Want a Sunday Kind of Love. 00:30:41.460 --> 00:30:43.770 align:middle line:84% With her pretty, tremulous voice she 00:30:43.770 --> 00:30:46.350 align:middle line:84% would pour all her yearning and disappointment 00:30:46.350 --> 00:30:48.840 align:middle line:90% into these bittersweet verses. 00:30:48.840 --> 00:30:51.900 align:middle line:84% The message was unmistakable even to a little kid. 00:30:51.900 --> 00:30:54.120 align:middle line:84% She was not happy with my father. 00:30:54.120 --> 00:30:58.230 align:middle line:84% She was still looking for something better for romance. 00:30:58.230 --> 00:31:00.360 align:middle line:84% I love to listen to her practice, 00:31:00.360 --> 00:31:03.240 align:middle line:84% glancing over her shoulder at the rising and falling 00:31:03.240 --> 00:31:05.550 align:middle line:90% syllables of the sheet music. 00:31:05.550 --> 00:31:07.860 align:middle line:84% All day in elementary school her songs 00:31:07.860 --> 00:31:09.690 align:middle line:90% would go around in my head. 00:31:09.690 --> 00:31:12.510 align:middle line:84% At recess I would play tag or punchball 00:31:12.510 --> 00:31:15.660 align:middle line:90% to the rhythms of her longing. 00:31:15.660 --> 00:31:18.240 align:middle line:84% One day when it was too rainy to go outside, 00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:20.280 align:middle line:84% the teacher herded us into the auditorium 00:31:20.280 --> 00:31:23.190 align:middle line:84% and staged an impromptu talent show. 00:31:23.190 --> 00:31:25.470 align:middle line:84% Each child was urged to perform in front 00:31:25.470 --> 00:31:28.410 align:middle line:84% of the combined second and third grades. 00:31:28.410 --> 00:31:30.840 align:middle line:84% There were rampant cases of stage fright, 00:31:30.840 --> 00:31:33.240 align:middle line:84% some kids thought to entertain then giggled 00:31:33.240 --> 00:31:35.370 align:middle line:84% and hid their faces, others came on 00:31:35.370 --> 00:31:38.280 align:middle line:84% and rattled through a comic ditty or a radio jingle so fast 00:31:38.280 --> 00:31:40.500 align:middle line:90% you couldn't make out the words. 00:31:40.500 --> 00:31:42.310 align:middle line:90% I wanted to sing. 00:31:42.310 --> 00:31:45.930 align:middle line:84% I faced a group, and hearing my mother's semi trained voice 00:31:45.930 --> 00:31:50.820 align:middle line:84% in my ears, I let her guide me through the melody. 00:31:50.820 --> 00:31:54.450 align:middle line:84% Someday he'll come along, the man 00:31:54.450 --> 00:32:02.820 align:middle line:84% I love, and he'll be big and strong, the man I love. 00:32:02.820 --> 00:32:04.800 align:middle line:84% I could sense the teachers snickering, 00:32:04.800 --> 00:32:07.320 align:middle line:84% trading looks that said, we know how 00:32:07.320 --> 00:32:08.700 align:middle line:90% this one's going to turn out. 00:32:08.700 --> 00:32:11.590 align:middle line:90% 00:32:11.590 --> 00:32:14.470 align:middle line:90% My classmates started laughing. 00:32:14.470 --> 00:32:17.320 align:middle line:84% I realized too late that the song was for a girl, 00:32:17.320 --> 00:32:19.030 align:middle line:90% they would think me a sissy. 00:32:19.030 --> 00:32:21.550 align:middle line:90% I had no choice but to finish. 00:32:21.550 --> 00:32:24.250 align:middle line:84% At least I could try to sing on key and with feeling 00:32:24.250 --> 00:32:27.580 align:middle line:84% as my mother did, maybe if I did I would seduce them 00:32:27.580 --> 00:32:29.530 align:middle line:90% into liking it. 00:32:29.530 --> 00:32:31.300 align:middle line:84% When the last contestant was finished 00:32:31.300 --> 00:32:35.170 align:middle line:84% the teachers awarded me first prize, a comic book. 00:32:35.170 --> 00:32:39.460 align:middle line:84% I, part Delilah, wondered if I would ever become a real man." 00:32:39.460 --> 00:32:40.460 align:middle line:90% And I'll stop here. 00:32:40.460 --> 00:32:41.590 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:32:41.590 --> 00:32:43.440 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:32:43.440 --> 00:33:03.086 align:middle line:90%