WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.882 align:middle line:84% Tonight, though, I have three short pieces. 00:00:02.882 --> 00:00:05.340 align:middle line:84% Two of them are about seven minutes long, and one of them-- 00:00:05.340 --> 00:00:08.039 align:middle line:84% we'll see how we feel, it's a little raucous and weird, 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:10.590 align:middle line:84% I tried to get the temperature of the room from Caleb, 00:00:10.590 --> 00:00:13.290 align:middle line:84% we're not sure if it's going to work, but we'll see-- 00:00:13.290 --> 00:00:15.300 align:middle line:90% is about a 2 minute read. 00:00:15.300 --> 00:00:17.160 align:middle line:84% And Caleb's right, this new book of mine 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:20.010 align:middle line:84% is a bestiary of animal celebrity. 00:00:20.010 --> 00:00:24.930 align:middle line:84% So every animal in the book has been named, in some way, 00:00:24.930 --> 00:00:28.500 align:middle line:84% and recorded into some semblance of the historical record, 00:00:28.500 --> 00:00:32.325 align:middle line:84% starting with a mammoth that was on the walls of Chauvet Cave-- 00:00:32.325 --> 00:00:34.200 align:middle line:84% I don't know if the mammoth that I talk about 00:00:34.200 --> 00:00:37.080 align:middle line:84% is the exact mammoth but I fudged that a little bit-- 00:00:37.080 --> 00:00:40.560 align:middle line:84% and moving all the way to these animals that 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:43.920 align:middle line:84% are the last of their species, that we are naming, 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:46.917 align:middle line:84% and harvesting, and keeping in frozen labs, 00:00:46.917 --> 00:00:48.750 align:middle line:84% hoping-- frozen zoos, hoping that one day we 00:00:48.750 --> 00:00:50.670 align:middle line:90% can bring them back. 00:00:50.670 --> 00:00:53.252 align:middle line:84% And maybe in the Q and A I'll tell you about a couple 00:00:53.252 --> 00:00:54.960 align:middle line:84% of interesting changes that have happened 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:58.860 align:middle line:84% to some of the named animals in my book since publication. 00:00:58.860 --> 00:01:00.780 align:middle line:84% Some of them are pretty sad, but one of them 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:02.430 align:middle line:90% is kind of exciting. 00:01:02.430 --> 00:01:05.340 align:middle line:84% I'll start with the third essay-- or the fourth essay-- 00:01:05.340 --> 00:01:05.910 align:middle line:90% in the book. 00:01:05.910 --> 00:01:07.470 align:middle line:84% The book is chronologically arranged, 00:01:07.470 --> 00:01:10.620 align:middle line:84% and this one takes place in Elizabethan England. 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:12.108 align:middle line:84% It's the first essay that I wrote 00:01:12.108 --> 00:01:13.650 align:middle line:84% that made me think that maybe I could 00:01:13.650 --> 00:01:17.160 align:middle line:84% write a collection of essays on animal celebrity. 00:01:17.160 --> 00:01:20.100 align:middle line:84% I just was so obsessed with this fact 00:01:20.100 --> 00:01:22.200 align:middle line:84% that I stumbled upon, that Shakespeare 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:24.210 align:middle line:90% had a lot of rivals. 00:01:24.210 --> 00:01:26.760 align:middle line:84% He was fighting for-- he wasn't the only game in town, 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:30.840 align:middle line:84% back in the late 1500s, early 1600s. 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:33.660 align:middle line:84% And there was the Globe Theater on the Thames-- 00:01:33.660 --> 00:01:35.010 align:middle line:90% the South bank of the Thames-- 00:01:35.010 --> 00:01:37.080 align:middle line:84% and then there was another octagonal structure, 00:01:37.080 --> 00:01:38.730 align:middle line:84% almost identical from the outside, that 00:01:38.730 --> 00:01:42.420 align:middle line:84% was a bear garden, where various animals would sort of fight 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:44.603 align:middle line:90% each other, often to the death. 00:01:44.603 --> 00:01:46.770 align:middle line:84% And that was one of the many things that were taking 00:01:46.770 --> 00:01:49.440 align:middle line:90% ticket sales away from Hamlet. 00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:53.100 align:middle line:84% And he was a competitive guy, and so he 00:01:53.100 --> 00:01:55.710 align:middle line:84% has these bitchy references to all these competitors 00:01:55.710 --> 00:01:57.150 align:middle line:90% in his place. 00:01:57.150 --> 00:01:59.245 align:middle line:84% Like the children's company, people really loved-- 00:01:59.245 --> 00:02:01.620 align:middle line:84% it was like that movie with Scott Baio, and Jodie Foster, 00:02:01.620 --> 00:02:04.920 align:middle line:84% Bugsy Malone-- people loved watching kids do shows. 00:02:04.920 --> 00:02:07.660 align:middle line:84% And they were sort of robbing him from butts in seats. 00:02:07.660 --> 00:02:09.660 align:middle line:84% He has a little reference to Christopher Marlowe 00:02:09.660 --> 00:02:12.040 align:middle line:84% in As You Like It, but he never says their names. 00:02:12.040 --> 00:02:18.480 align:middle line:84% They're just these sort of veiled, quiet jabs. 00:02:18.480 --> 00:02:21.420 align:middle line:84% But there is one rival that he name checks, 00:02:21.420 --> 00:02:22.920 align:middle line:90% and it's this bear. 00:02:22.920 --> 00:02:26.910 align:middle line:84% It's this super-famous, killer bear named Sackerson, 00:02:26.910 --> 00:02:29.258 align:middle line:84% and he references him in the Merry Wives of Windsor. 00:02:29.258 --> 00:02:31.050 align:middle line:84% And there was just something about the fact 00:02:31.050 --> 00:02:34.020 align:middle line:84% that Shakespeare picked up his quill 00:02:34.020 --> 00:02:35.970 align:middle line:84% and just wrote down the name of this bear, 00:02:35.970 --> 00:02:38.220 align:middle line:84% as this kind of cultural reference in this play that's 00:02:38.220 --> 00:02:40.890 align:middle line:84% probably being done in your theater right now, right? 00:02:40.890 --> 00:02:42.640 align:middle line:90% That just really got me. 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:48.350 align:middle line:84% So here is the essay on this famous bear, Sackerson. 00:02:48.350 --> 00:02:51.290 align:middle line:84% "The London garden, brackish and packed-in, 00:02:51.290 --> 00:02:54.230 align:middle line:84% was hazy with a dozen kinds of flesh. 00:02:54.230 --> 00:02:58.370 align:middle line:84% The bulls, cocks, mastiffs, men, and chimpanzees in air 00:02:58.370 --> 00:03:00.770 align:middle line:90% so rickety it lowered the roof. 00:03:00.770 --> 00:03:04.940 align:middle line:84% So dark, the line 'tween crowd and beasts was marred. 00:03:04.940 --> 00:03:07.160 align:middle line:84% And there, in that black, Sir Raleigh 00:03:07.160 --> 00:03:10.490 align:middle line:84% took his Frenchmen and other men of duty met their spies. 00:03:10.490 --> 00:03:12.530 align:middle line:84% The reason for the famous fireworks? 00:03:12.530 --> 00:03:15.680 align:middle line:84% Just so the folks who'd wagered bets could see. 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:19.250 align:middle line:84% A rose of flames pitched high above the crowd, fired smoke 00:03:19.250 --> 00:03:20.630 align:middle line:90% into the muck that hung about. 00:03:20.630 --> 00:03:23.870 align:middle line:84% It spun, it spat red bits around the seats. 00:03:23.870 --> 00:03:26.517 align:middle line:84% They'd rigged it to toss pears as it rotated. 00:03:26.517 --> 00:03:28.100 align:middle line:84% The fruit-mad crowd would then jump up 00:03:28.100 --> 00:03:31.070 align:middle line:84% and chase the rolling pears out to the Bankside streets. 00:03:31.070 --> 00:03:34.400 align:middle line:84% Or yardboys, eager in their dirty gloves, 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:37.640 align:middle line:84% would toss hot bread upon the patrons' laps, which 00:03:37.640 --> 00:03:40.250 align:middle line:84% made them clutch and scurry toward the exit. 00:03:40.250 --> 00:03:42.680 align:middle line:84% Outside, they'd find some other Sunday sport-- 00:03:42.680 --> 00:03:46.220 align:middle line:84% a archery butt, a woman, or a play. 00:03:46.220 --> 00:03:48.770 align:middle line:84% The stews downriver had less fucking in them. 00:03:48.770 --> 00:03:51.500 align:middle line:84% And St Bartholomew's floors less wet with blood. 00:03:51.500 --> 00:03:54.120 align:middle line:84% The bloody muzzle or the mastiff's blood. 00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:56.570 align:middle line:84% The blood of fisticuffs up in the stands. 00:03:56.570 --> 00:03:59.270 align:middle line:84% The blood of offal, floated down the Thames to Bankside 00:03:59.270 --> 00:04:01.130 align:middle line:90% from the abattoirs of town. 00:04:01.130 --> 00:04:02.900 align:middle line:84% And by the time the century turned around, 00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:06.110 align:middle line:84% it seemed the blood most often spilled was his. 00:04:06.110 --> 00:04:08.540 align:middle line:84% But do not think that London's garden crowd imagined him 00:04:08.540 --> 00:04:10.730 align:middle line:90% some broken, bashed-in thing. 00:04:10.730 --> 00:04:12.278 align:middle line:90% Believe me, this is tricky. 00:04:12.278 --> 00:04:13.820 align:middle line:84% I might see the lives of baited bears 00:04:13.820 --> 00:04:16.550 align:middle line:84% as nothing but a broken chord of muzzle, chain, and stake. 00:04:16.550 --> 00:04:20.810 align:middle line:84% Of blunted teeth, barrages of dog jaws, 00:04:20.810 --> 00:04:23.030 align:middle line:84% of living-out a mongrel just to have another thrown 00:04:23.030 --> 00:04:24.830 align:middle line:90% upon the slathered flesh. 00:04:24.830 --> 00:04:27.950 align:middle line:84% For that rink's the only place that he could run, 00:04:27.950 --> 00:04:30.320 align:middle line:84% a hard-won constitutional-- running 00:04:30.320 --> 00:04:33.890 align:middle line:84% laps and dodging bulls in that dank polygon. 00:04:33.890 --> 00:04:37.370 align:middle line:84% That garden, broken even in its flowers-- 00:04:37.370 --> 00:04:39.110 align:middle line:84% the rosettes they affixed to his brow 00:04:39.110 --> 00:04:41.540 align:middle line:84% were bullseyes for the mastiffs when they jumped. 00:04:41.540 --> 00:04:43.618 align:middle line:84% And jumped they did, mouths tearing 00:04:43.618 --> 00:04:46.160 align:middle line:84% at the flesh that leered at them from each side of the bloom. 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:49.160 align:middle line:84% They bit so hard that London citizens grew up 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:52.070 align:middle line:84% thinking a bear's eyes to be pink. 00:04:52.070 --> 00:04:54.890 align:middle line:84% Few years of that, he was too blind to fight. 00:04:54.890 --> 00:04:57.170 align:middle line:84% The bearward had to get creative then. 00:04:57.170 --> 00:05:00.200 align:middle line:84% Chained center, hunkered, lashed by volunteers 00:05:00.200 --> 00:05:02.960 align:middle line:84% until the blood ran rivers down his spine. 00:05:02.960 --> 00:05:05.810 align:middle line:84% Sometimes he'd raise his matted arms and gnash about the lash 00:05:05.810 --> 00:05:07.160 align:middle line:90% until it broke in half. 00:05:07.160 --> 00:05:11.330 align:middle line:84% And once, he stooped low to the lazy knot, untied himself 00:05:11.330 --> 00:05:13.430 align:middle line:84% with effort from the stake, then nosed 00:05:13.430 --> 00:05:16.820 align:middle line:84% about the rink in backward loops to hear the ladies scream, 00:05:16.820 --> 00:05:18.320 align:middle line:90% the bearwards scramble. 00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:22.100 align:middle line:84% They dragged him offstage to his pit in cheers. 00:05:22.100 --> 00:05:24.440 align:middle line:84% For even then, near-lame and sightless, 00:05:24.440 --> 00:05:27.560 align:middle line:84% he could still throw nine-stone mastiffs to the crowds. 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:31.460 align:middle line:84% Up to the boxes, to the ladies' laps, bypassing pumpkin hose, 00:05:31.460 --> 00:05:32.840 align:middle line:90% straight to the skirts. 00:05:32.840 --> 00:05:36.260 align:middle line:84% Like he could sniff a woman's quivering thigh 00:05:36.260 --> 00:05:39.860 align:middle line:84% and hurl the big dog, head o'er tail, right to her. 00:05:39.860 --> 00:05:44.570 align:middle line:84% A twitch, a snort to shudder the dog spit, a fling, a lady's lap 00:05:44.570 --> 00:05:45.350 align:middle line:90% a-going oof! 00:05:45.350 --> 00:05:47.660 align:middle line:84% And then they'd add another dog, then two-- 00:05:47.660 --> 00:05:49.880 align:middle line:84% till six or seven mastiffs lined the rink, 00:05:49.880 --> 00:05:52.370 align:middle line:84% the sound more deafening since his sight was gone. 00:05:52.370 --> 00:05:54.650 align:middle line:84% Goddamnit if he wasn't still around. 00:05:54.650 --> 00:05:57.350 align:middle line:84% They could have put his picture on the money. 00:05:57.350 --> 00:05:59.690 align:middle line:84% Elizabeth, who never said hullo, loved 00:05:59.690 --> 00:06:03.110 align:middle line:84% him enough to ban all Thursday sport. 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:05.000 align:middle line:84% Upon the mildest Thursdays, he'd parade out 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:07.460 align:middle line:84% past the playhouse, down to London Bridge. 00:06:07.460 --> 00:06:10.250 align:middle line:84% He'd smell the rag men, actors, punks 00:06:10.250 --> 00:06:12.950 align:middle line:84% in stews who yelled for him in ripe cacophony. 00:06:12.950 --> 00:06:15.860 align:middle line:84% The Bulls, in ribboned horns, all marched behind. 00:06:15.860 --> 00:06:18.530 align:middle line:84% The cocks-in-boxes and the dogs behind. 00:06:18.530 --> 00:06:21.680 align:middle line:84% The Only Bear That Ever Led the Dogs. 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:24.770 align:middle line:84% And even on his nights off, he appeared-- in name-checks 00:06:24.770 --> 00:06:27.080 align:middle line:84% at the Hope, the Rose, the Globe. 00:06:27.080 --> 00:06:29.540 align:middle line:84% A dactyl in the mouths of water poets. 00:06:29.540 --> 00:06:32.120 align:middle line:84% The only rival Shakespeare called by name. 00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:33.380 align:middle line:90% In Jonson. 00:06:33.380 --> 00:06:35.570 align:middle line:90% In Act five at Dunsinane. 00:06:35.570 --> 00:06:37.550 align:middle line:84% At Middle Temple Hall on Candlemas, 00:06:37.550 --> 00:06:40.550 align:middle line:84% when Chamber's fairest boy-in-fake-dugs crooned-- 00:06:40.550 --> 00:06:42.530 align:middle line:84% have you not set my honor at the stake 00:06:42.530 --> 00:06:44.720 align:middle line:84% and baited it with all the unmuzzled thoughts 00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:47.330 align:middle line:90% that tyrannous heart can think? 00:06:47.330 --> 00:06:48.260 align:middle line:90% So. 00:06:48.260 --> 00:06:51.620 align:middle line:84% It'd be wrong to match that bear with breaking-- 00:06:51.620 --> 00:06:52.760 align:middle line:90% they built him up. 00:06:52.760 --> 00:06:54.650 align:middle line:84% They called him out by name because they 00:06:54.650 --> 00:06:59.510 align:middle line:84% saw in him a secret code both terrifying and recognizable. 00:06:59.510 --> 00:07:02.480 align:middle line:84% They saw it in his low-slung hips and gut. 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:04.460 align:middle line:84% The way his pupils, round and beady, 00:07:04.460 --> 00:07:06.770 align:middle line:84% lived inside a circle of expressive white. 00:07:06.770 --> 00:07:08.270 align:middle line:90% They saw it in his stance-- 00:07:08.270 --> 00:07:11.810 align:middle line:84% up on two legs, the forepaws spread, the 10 claws digital. 00:07:11.810 --> 00:07:13.550 align:middle line:84% And milliseconds prior to the bite, 00:07:13.550 --> 00:07:16.970 align:middle line:84% they saw it-- as he bowed his head and sighed. 00:07:16.970 --> 00:07:18.620 align:middle line:90% What did they see? 00:07:18.620 --> 00:07:21.320 align:middle line:90% They saw themselves, of course. 00:07:21.320 --> 00:07:24.407 align:middle line:84% A taller man, more leaden and hirsute, with thick skin 00:07:24.407 --> 00:07:26.240 align:middle line:84% better suited for a beating, but still their 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:29.540 align:middle line:84% bear-- this massive chestnut frame, dwarfed tiny 00:07:29.540 --> 00:07:31.640 align:middle line:90% by a darkened ring of foes. 00:07:31.640 --> 00:07:33.560 align:middle line:84% A smaller ratio of the rink itself, 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:36.470 align:middle line:84% dwarfed by the river flowing to its north-- that lurid, 00:07:36.470 --> 00:07:38.600 align:middle line:90% pestilent Thames. 00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:43.340 align:middle line:84% Six city plagues-- the pox, the new ague, the curious sweats-- 00:07:43.340 --> 00:07:45.920 align:middle line:84% all floated past the beargarden in leagues. 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:48.350 align:middle line:90% A river of unprecedented sick. 00:07:48.350 --> 00:07:50.990 align:middle line:84% In '92 things got so royally poxed, 00:07:50.990 --> 00:07:53.300 align:middle line:84% the playhouses were forced to shutter up. 00:07:53.300 --> 00:07:56.030 align:middle line:84% A quarter of their population down each decade, 00:07:56.030 --> 00:07:58.400 align:middle line:90% give or take a hundred score. 00:07:58.400 --> 00:08:01.850 align:middle line:84% And a blighted age can make a garden blind. 00:08:01.850 --> 00:08:04.400 align:middle line:84% Each ticket holder turns left, right, behind, 00:08:04.400 --> 00:08:06.500 align:middle line:84% and wonders which part of their dark quartet 00:08:06.500 --> 00:08:09.260 align:middle line:84% will suffer an unnatural upset next. 00:08:09.260 --> 00:08:12.350 align:middle line:84% For when our clans explode up into towns, 00:08:12.350 --> 00:08:15.900 align:middle line:84% the back-bite comes from nature, and it smarts. 00:08:15.900 --> 00:08:18.110 align:middle line:84% The devil holds back nature by its ears, 00:08:18.110 --> 00:08:21.020 align:middle line:84% takes aim, makes wager, then releases it. 00:08:21.020 --> 00:08:23.210 align:middle line:84% We toss it off and it regenerates-- 00:08:23.210 --> 00:08:26.720 align:middle line:84% six natural mouths leap forth before we're primed. 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:29.390 align:middle line:84% And parades of sickness cannot be explained by any learnéd 00:08:29.390 --> 00:08:32.299 align:middle line:90% clansmen-- physics, priests. 00:08:32.299 --> 00:08:35.450 align:middle line:84% The inexplicable can send us toward an unclanned occupation 00:08:35.450 --> 00:08:36.919 align:middle line:90% with the self. 00:08:36.919 --> 00:08:41.360 align:middle line:84% And selves, like famous bears, are singular. 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:44.600 align:middle line:84% "We are" soon switches places with "I am." 00:08:44.600 --> 00:08:47.750 align:middle line:84% And then clans bewitched by "I ams" become 00:08:47.750 --> 00:08:51.170 align:middle line:84% crowds, which are an altogether different thing. 00:08:51.170 --> 00:08:54.200 align:middle line:84% He heard those "I ams" in the gardens roar. 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:57.620 align:middle line:84% I am this bear stuck in this blighted rink, beset 00:08:57.620 --> 00:08:59.600 align:middle line:90% upon by nature's ticking clock. 00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:02.060 align:middle line:84% I am not hunkered down in numbered packs, 00:09:02.060 --> 00:09:04.760 align:middle line:84% instead I am awaiting death alone. 00:09:04.760 --> 00:09:06.680 align:middle line:84% I am afraid of time's encroaching 00:09:06.680 --> 00:09:10.070 align:middle line:84% power, for each new year, I am more bluntly struck. 00:09:10.070 --> 00:09:12.710 align:middle line:84% I feel pain, feel it doubling, than I am it. 00:09:12.710 --> 00:09:15.710 align:middle line:84% I am always in wait of time's new teeth. 00:09:15.710 --> 00:09:17.750 align:middle line:84% And though befuddled, drunk on sick, 00:09:17.750 --> 00:09:21.560 align:middle line:84% I am unfit to tear my eyes away from him. 00:09:21.560 --> 00:09:24.800 align:middle line:84% The growl of him, his mighty swipe, his blood, 00:09:24.800 --> 00:09:27.560 align:middle line:84% the way he foams both in and out of hours. 00:09:27.560 --> 00:09:30.080 align:middle line:84% My chain of foes would weigh less, I am sure, 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:32.960 align:middle line:84% if I could toss off minutes, break pain's spine, 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:36.230 align:middle line:84% or send plague squealing to a bitch's lap. 00:09:36.230 --> 00:09:39.410 align:middle line:84% For even if I knew more time, more sick, was at the go, 00:09:39.410 --> 00:09:41.420 align:middle line:84% it'd be a righteous salve to fight 00:09:41.420 --> 00:09:43.280 align:middle line:90% whatever hour's on me now. 00:09:43.280 --> 00:09:46.340 align:middle line:84% To discard the sick dog of what is now. 00:09:46.340 --> 00:09:49.310 align:middle line:84% To throw it-- a contaminated rag stained 00:09:49.310 --> 00:09:52.220 align:middle line:90% with the gusto of my intellect. 00:09:52.220 --> 00:09:53.150 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:09:53.150 --> 00:09:56.390 align:middle line:84% I am jealous of his natural acts. 00:09:56.390 --> 00:10:00.390 align:middle line:84% And so I'll hit his nature with a stick." 00:10:00.390 --> 00:10:02.204 align:middle line:90% And that's Sackerson. 00:10:02.204 --> 00:10:02.940 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:10:02.940 --> 00:10:03.440 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:06.870 align:middle line:90% 00:10:06.870 --> 00:10:09.210 align:middle line:84% It's cheerful a little story about bear torture, 00:10:09.210 --> 00:10:10.240 align:middle line:90% for your Thursday night. 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:10.740 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:10:10.740 --> 00:10:11.990 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS]