WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.140 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.140 --> 00:00:06.780 align:middle line:84% I'm going now, to another part of the world. 00:00:06.780 --> 00:00:11.370 align:middle line:84% Some people accuse me of having political balance when I read 00:00:11.370 --> 00:00:15.000 align:middle line:90% this, but no balance intended. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:15.990 align:middle line:90% It's simply that. 00:00:15.990 --> 00:00:18.510 align:middle line:90% 00:00:18.510 --> 00:00:22.020 align:middle line:84% My father's family is from Czechoslovakia. 00:00:22.020 --> 00:00:24.840 align:middle line:84% And so the 1968 invasion of Prague 00:00:24.840 --> 00:00:28.980 align:middle line:90% was a subject of concern. 00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:33.930 align:middle line:84% And a lot of my relatives still live in Tarna, Czechoslovakia. 00:00:33.930 --> 00:00:39.960 align:middle line:84% And this is a poem about, you remember in 1968 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:42.000 align:middle line:84% the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:44.820 align:middle line:84% And the students got out on the street 00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:48.480 align:middle line:84% throwing bricks and rocks, and Molotovs and all 00:00:48.480 --> 00:00:50.550 align:middle line:90% of that at the tanks. 00:00:50.550 --> 00:00:53.820 align:middle line:84% Sort of like other situation here in that year, 00:00:53.820 --> 00:00:58.830 align:middle line:84% but it was a little bit more serious for them at the time, 00:00:58.830 --> 00:01:02.520 align:middle line:84% because the Soviets occupied their city. 00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:07.110 align:middle line:84% And the Soviet soldiers found themselves 00:01:07.110 --> 00:01:09.960 align:middle line:84% in a position of having to be an occupation force, when 00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:13.780 align:middle line:90% they were 18, 19, 20 years old. 00:01:13.780 --> 00:01:16.140 align:middle line:84% And so they were very far from home. 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:19.590 align:middle line:84% So like all occupation armies, what they wanted to do 00:01:19.590 --> 00:01:24.870 align:middle line:84% was to drink in Prague bars and date Czech girls. 00:01:24.870 --> 00:01:28.140 align:middle line:84% You can imagine how this went over with Czech boys 00:01:28.140 --> 00:01:31.530 align:middle line:84% in particular, but nobody really liked them. 00:01:31.530 --> 00:01:36.810 align:middle line:84% And however, there is a drink in Eastern Europe called Slovicka. 00:01:36.810 --> 00:01:41.100 align:middle line:84% Slovicka is 190-proof alcohol, and it has been 00:01:41.100 --> 00:01:44.310 align:middle line:90% breathed upon by dead plums. 00:01:44.310 --> 00:01:46.650 align:middle line:84% So it can be called plum Brandy, but it 00:01:46.650 --> 00:01:48.780 align:middle line:90% has nothing to do with Brandy. 00:01:48.780 --> 00:01:52.440 align:middle line:84% You can't even smell it without staggering out of the room. 00:01:52.440 --> 00:01:56.550 align:middle line:84% But like pour one jigger of this stuff, 00:01:56.550 --> 00:01:58.680 align:middle line:84% and the tradition is you're sitting in a circle. 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:00.030 align:middle line:90% You pour one big jigger. 00:02:00.030 --> 00:02:03.468 align:middle line:84% A Czech jigger is bigger than ours, and you bottoms up this-- 00:02:03.468 --> 00:02:05.010 align:middle line:84% somebody makes a toast, and everybody 00:02:05.010 --> 00:02:06.570 align:middle line:90% has to all the way down. 00:02:06.570 --> 00:02:08.639 align:middle line:84% And the next person gets to make their toast, 00:02:08.639 --> 00:02:10.777 align:middle line:84% and then another person has to make their toast 00:02:10.777 --> 00:02:11.610 align:middle line:90% and so on and so on. 00:02:11.610 --> 00:02:13.693 align:middle line:84% And you have to do one of these for each of these, 00:02:13.693 --> 00:02:17.250 align:middle line:84% so pretty soon everybody's under the table after the toasts. 00:02:17.250 --> 00:02:20.580 align:middle line:84% Well, that's how the Soviet soldiers wound up 00:02:20.580 --> 00:02:22.980 align:middle line:84% being able to go in the Czech bars. 00:02:22.980 --> 00:02:27.480 align:middle line:84% Nobody could even see a uniform after an hour of this, 00:02:27.480 --> 00:02:29.700 align:middle line:84% and so everybody's slapping themselves on the back 00:02:29.700 --> 00:02:30.570 align:middle line:90% and making toasts. 00:02:30.570 --> 00:02:34.920 align:middle line:84% And this is a story of a young man who made the wrong toast. 00:02:34.920 --> 00:02:37.440 align:middle line:90% You remember Dubcek, right? 00:02:37.440 --> 00:02:41.100 align:middle line:84% OK, the man was taken from power by the Soviets. 00:02:41.100 --> 00:02:43.350 align:middle line:84% Svoboda is a word meaning liberty. 00:02:43.350 --> 00:02:47.520 align:middle line:84% It is also the name of another official taken from power. 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:48.510 align:middle line:90% Anyway, this is it. 00:02:48.510 --> 00:02:53.700 align:middle line:84% It's called Letter from Prague, 1968 to 1978. 00:02:53.700 --> 00:02:56.160 align:middle line:90% It is winter again. 00:02:56.160 --> 00:03:01.260 align:middle line:84% Those cold globes of breath that shape themselves into bodies. 00:03:01.260 --> 00:03:05.250 align:middle line:84% I am still in prison having bowls of paste for breakfast. 00:03:05.250 --> 00:03:08.880 align:middle line:84% I wake to the bath of lights in the yard, the violent shadow 00:03:08.880 --> 00:03:11.400 align:middle line:84% of a man running as I should have run. 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:14.460 align:middle line:84% As I should have climbed, leaving the moons of my fingers 00:03:14.460 --> 00:03:17.730 align:middle line:90% where no one would find them. 00:03:17.730 --> 00:03:24.120 align:middle line:84% It is 10 years, and hard to believe even now that in 1968, 00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:27.210 align:middle line:90% I should have been so stupid. 00:03:27.210 --> 00:03:31.230 align:middle line:84% Touching my glass to a soldier saying, viva Dubcek. 00:03:31.230 --> 00:03:35.670 align:middle line:90% viva Svoboda, viva socializme. 00:03:35.670 --> 00:03:38.460 align:middle line:90% At 28, I am old. 00:03:38.460 --> 00:03:41.370 align:middle line:84% Recalling bottles we filled with gasoline, 00:03:41.370 --> 00:03:44.130 align:middle line:84% corked with rags from our mothers dresses. 00:03:44.130 --> 00:03:50.040 align:middle line:84% And that slow word, Soviets spoken on a stream of spit I 00:03:50.040 --> 00:03:52.620 align:middle line:90% could have fallen in love. 00:03:52.620 --> 00:03:55.980 align:middle line:84% There were plenty of women in the streets calling 00:03:55.980 --> 00:03:58.200 align:middle line:90% roses, roses. 00:03:58.200 --> 00:04:00.210 align:middle line:90% I should have given the money. 00:04:00.210 --> 00:04:02.100 align:middle line:84% Taken their petals to a room where 00:04:02.100 --> 00:04:03.900 align:middle line:90% I might have dropped to a bed. 00:04:03.900 --> 00:04:07.770 align:middle line:84% My eyes turned open at morning to touch myself, 00:04:07.770 --> 00:04:10.580 align:middle line:90% now there is nothing. 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:15.478 align:middle line:90%