WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.870 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.870 --> 00:00:01.560 align:middle line:90%
My goodness.

00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:06.750 align:middle line:84%
Thank you so much for those
really beautiful words, Dorian.

00:00:06.750 --> 00:00:12.090 align:middle line:84%
And those were very thoughtful,
difficult acts to follow.

00:00:12.090 --> 00:00:14.070 align:middle line:90%
Elena, Ander, Dorian.

00:00:14.070 --> 00:00:16.590 align:middle line:90%


00:00:16.590 --> 00:00:20.520 align:middle line:84%
Elena was my student at
Bread Loaf many years ago.

00:00:20.520 --> 00:00:24.060 align:middle line:84%
I'd like to go back and
take a course from her now.

00:00:24.060 --> 00:00:27.750 align:middle line:84%
She's an amazing
writer, amazing writer.

00:00:27.750 --> 00:00:36.660 align:middle line:84%
And I've had the difficult
fate in Tucson to follow people

00:00:36.660 --> 00:00:38.250 align:middle line:90%
with incredible voices.

00:00:38.250 --> 00:00:40.590 align:middle line:84%
I was at the Tucson
book festival.

00:00:40.590 --> 00:00:44.430 align:middle line:84%
And I was on a panel
with Benjamin Percy.

00:00:44.430 --> 00:00:48.450 align:middle line:84%
Do you know Benjamin with that
god-like stentorian voice.

00:00:48.450 --> 00:00:53.070 align:middle line:84%
And now I'm reading after Elena
who's some kind of mad mash

00:00:53.070 --> 00:00:56.370 align:middle line:84%
up of Meryl Streep and
Robin Williams, so--

00:00:56.370 --> 00:00:58.340 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:00:58.340 --> 00:01:03.080 align:middle line:84%
--where as my voice
is sort of closer

00:01:03.080 --> 00:01:05.209 align:middle line:90%
in register to Richard Simmons.

00:01:05.209 --> 00:01:12.930 align:middle line:84%
So I'll try and do my best
despite that disability.

00:01:12.930 --> 00:01:15.470 align:middle line:90%


00:01:15.470 --> 00:01:17.690 align:middle line:84%
But anyway, it's
great to be back here

00:01:17.690 --> 00:01:23.330 align:middle line:84%
thanks to Ander, the Arizona
Poetry Center, the U of A.

00:01:23.330 --> 00:01:26.990 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to read from this
new book, Other People: Takes

00:01:26.990 --> 00:01:28.010 align:middle line:90%
And Mistakes.

00:01:28.010 --> 00:01:29.220 align:middle line:90%
And--

00:01:29.220 --> 00:01:29.960 align:middle line:90%
[COUGHS]

00:01:29.960 --> 00:01:30.770 align:middle line:90%
Excuse me.

00:01:30.770 --> 00:01:32.900 align:middle line:84%
The best way of
describing the book

00:01:32.900 --> 00:01:39.740 align:middle line:84%
is to say that the book grew
out of a long passage of Philip

00:01:39.740 --> 00:01:40.293 align:middle line:90%
Roth.

00:01:40.293 --> 00:01:41.210 align:middle line:90%
This is from his book.

00:01:41.210 --> 00:01:43.400 align:middle line:84%
I think it's from
American Pastoral.

00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:46.890 align:middle line:84%
And it's the
epigraph of the book.

00:01:46.890 --> 00:01:51.650 align:middle line:84%
And the book is how
we all, as Dorian

00:01:51.650 --> 00:01:55.310 align:middle line:84%
said, that we all make
sure that we get ourselves

00:01:55.310 --> 00:01:56.780 align:middle line:90%
and everyone else wrong.

00:01:56.780 --> 00:01:59.090 align:middle line:90%
And I thought I would read--

00:01:59.090 --> 00:02:02.030 align:middle line:84%
it's rather a long--
it's like 250 words.

00:02:02.030 --> 00:02:06.230 align:middle line:84%
But I thought I'd read the
Roth passage to give you

00:02:06.230 --> 00:02:08.360 align:middle line:84%
a sense of what
the book's about.

00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:12.140 align:middle line:84%
And then I'll read
several short essays

00:02:12.140 --> 00:02:17.450 align:middle line:84%
that try to explore the
connotations of Roth's

00:02:17.450 --> 00:02:18.200 align:middle line:90%
statement.

00:02:18.200 --> 00:02:27.980 align:middle line:90%


00:02:27.980 --> 00:02:29.936 align:middle line:90%
[COUGHS]

00:02:29.936 --> 00:02:33.755 align:middle line:90%


00:02:33.755 --> 00:02:37.594 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to take off
this little cover.

00:02:37.594 --> 00:02:42.410 align:middle line:90%


00:02:42.410 --> 00:02:44.330 align:middle line:90%
You fight your super--

00:02:44.330 --> 00:02:50.010 align:middle line:84%
you fight your superficiality,
your shallowness,

00:02:50.010 --> 00:02:55.910 align:middle line:84%
so as to try to come at people
with unreal expectations

00:02:55.910 --> 00:03:01.160 align:middle line:84%
without an overload of
bias or hope or arrogance

00:03:01.160 --> 00:03:07.310 align:middle line:84%
as untank like as you can
be, sans, cannon, and machine

00:03:07.310 --> 00:03:11.750 align:middle line:84%
guns and steel plating
half a foot thick.

00:03:11.750 --> 00:03:17.360 align:middle line:84%
You come at them on menacingly
on your own 10 toes and stare

00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:23.420 align:middle line:84%
instead of tearing up the turf
with your caterpillar treads.

00:03:23.420 --> 00:03:28.760 align:middle line:84%
Take them on with an open
mind as equals, man to man,

00:03:28.760 --> 00:03:30.770 align:middle line:90%
as we used to say.

00:03:30.770 --> 00:03:37.280 align:middle line:84%
And yet, you never
fail to get them wrong.

00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:40.790 align:middle line:84%
You might as well have
the brain of a tank.

00:03:40.790 --> 00:03:44.690 align:middle line:84%
You get them wrong before
you meet them while you're

00:03:44.690 --> 00:03:46.640 align:middle line:90%
anticipating meeting them.

00:03:46.640 --> 00:03:50.240 align:middle line:84%
You get them wrong
while you're with them.

00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:56.030 align:middle line:84%
And then you go home to tell
somebody else about the meeting

00:03:56.030 --> 00:03:59.810 align:middle line:84%
and you get them
all wrong again.

00:03:59.810 --> 00:04:05.090 align:middle line:84%
Since the same generally
goes for them with you,

00:04:05.090 --> 00:04:08.270 align:middle line:84%
the whole thing is really
a dazzling illusion,

00:04:08.270 --> 00:04:12.650 align:middle line:84%
empty of all perception,
an astonishing farce

00:04:12.650 --> 00:04:14.630 align:middle line:90%
of misperception.

00:04:14.630 --> 00:04:20.149 align:middle line:84%
And yet, what are we to do
about this terribly significant

00:04:20.149 --> 00:04:26.390 align:middle line:84%
business of other people, which
gets bled of the significance

00:04:26.390 --> 00:04:31.550 align:middle line:84%
we think it has and takes on
instead a significance that

00:04:31.550 --> 00:04:33.320 align:middle line:90%
is ludicrous?

00:04:33.320 --> 00:04:37.520 align:middle line:84%
So ill equipped are
we all to envision

00:04:37.520 --> 00:04:42.350 align:middle line:84%
one another's interior
workings and invisible aims.

00:04:42.350 --> 00:04:47.540 align:middle line:84%
Is everyone to go
off and lock the door

00:04:47.540 --> 00:04:54.680 align:middle line:84%
and sit secluded like the lonely
riders do in a soundproof cell

00:04:54.680 --> 00:04:58.580 align:middle line:84%
summoning people out
of words and then

00:04:58.580 --> 00:05:01.010 align:middle line:84%
proposing that these
word people are

00:05:01.010 --> 00:05:04.790 align:middle line:84%
closer to the real thing
than the real people

00:05:04.790 --> 00:05:08.480 align:middle line:84%
that we mangle with our
ignorance every day.

00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:11.420 align:middle line:84%
The fact remains
that getting people

00:05:11.420 --> 00:05:15.650 align:middle line:84%
right is not what living
is all about anyway.

00:05:15.650 --> 00:05:19.460 align:middle line:84%
It's getting them
wrong that is living.

00:05:19.460 --> 00:05:23.270 align:middle line:84%
Getting them wrong and
wrong and wrong and wrong

00:05:23.270 --> 00:05:27.440 align:middle line:84%
and then on careful
reconsideration

00:05:27.440 --> 00:05:28.865 align:middle line:90%
getting them wrong again.

00:05:28.865 --> 00:05:31.580 align:middle line:90%


00:05:31.580 --> 00:05:34.430 align:middle line:90%
That's how we know we're alive.

00:05:34.430 --> 00:05:36.590 align:middle line:90%
We're wrong.

00:05:36.590 --> 00:05:38.960 align:middle line:84%
Maybe the best thing
would be to forget

00:05:38.960 --> 00:05:41.630 align:middle line:84%
being right or
wrong about people

00:05:41.630 --> 00:05:45.300 align:middle line:90%
and just go along for the ride.

00:05:45.300 --> 00:05:51.560 align:middle line:84%
But if you can do
that well, lucky you.

00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:53.480 align:middle line:84%
That's awfully beautiful
passage of Philip.

00:05:53.480 --> 00:05:56.060 align:middle line:84%
I'm not a very big
Philip Roth fan at all,

00:05:56.060 --> 00:05:59.390 align:middle line:84%
but that's an awfully
good piece of writing.

00:05:59.390 --> 00:06:01.700 align:middle line:84%
And in a way I can
just sit down now.

00:06:01.700 --> 00:06:04.500 align:middle line:90%
That's pretty much the book.

00:06:04.500 --> 00:06:05.000 align:middle line:90%