WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.090 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.090 --> 00:00:04.000 align:middle line:84% The next poem was written after reading a magazine 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:09.350 align:middle line:84% article on an airplane about a machine that you could buy. 00:00:09.350 --> 00:00:10.510 align:middle line:90% It's about $2400. 00:00:10.510 --> 00:00:14.910 align:middle line:84% I'm sure it's $1500 now and next year will be $750. 00:00:14.910 --> 00:00:16.470 align:middle line:90% Putting it all within range-- 00:00:16.470 --> 00:00:20.590 align:middle line:84% some of us in the room-- and then $75 for the rest of us. 00:00:20.590 --> 00:00:22.330 align:middle line:84% And the machine is a machine that 00:00:22.330 --> 00:00:28.180 align:middle line:84% has goggles and a headset and hand and arm attachment 00:00:28.180 --> 00:00:31.670 align:middle line:84% such that if you put all of this on, 00:00:31.670 --> 00:00:33.670 align:middle line:90% you are in a virtual reality. 00:00:33.670 --> 00:00:37.210 align:middle line:84% You can, for example, go on an African Safari 00:00:37.210 --> 00:00:41.500 align:middle line:84% by simply getting into the three dimensional world of these-- 00:00:41.500 --> 00:00:43.720 align:middle line:84% has anyone heard of these things? 00:00:43.720 --> 00:00:45.490 align:middle line:90% Oh, you have them even maybe. 00:00:45.490 --> 00:00:48.040 align:middle line:90% Anyway, hope not. 00:00:48.040 --> 00:00:48.880 align:middle line:90% Maybe it's fun. 00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:49.720 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:00:49.720 --> 00:00:50.620 align:middle line:90% It scared me. 00:00:50.620 --> 00:00:55.010 align:middle line:90% 00:00:55.010 --> 00:00:58.160 align:middle line:84% Anyway, this is about other worlds that are created, 00:00:58.160 --> 00:01:00.620 align:middle line:90% virtual worlds that are created. 00:01:00.620 --> 00:01:04.970 align:middle line:84% Unlike a movie set, you may not be able to get out of this one. 00:01:04.970 --> 00:01:07.315 align:middle line:90% You get so far in. 00:01:07.315 --> 00:01:08.690 align:middle line:84% This is a long piece but I'm only 00:01:08.690 --> 00:01:12.590 align:middle line:84% going to read small pieces from it called "God from a Machine." 00:01:12.590 --> 00:01:15.500 align:middle line:90% 00:01:15.500 --> 00:01:17.870 align:middle line:84% "You put your hands on her waist, 00:01:17.870 --> 00:01:20.660 align:middle line:90% but you are in another world. 00:01:20.660 --> 00:01:24.500 align:middle line:84% The world is small and you see it arranged in simple angles 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:30.320 align:middle line:84% and diagonals, in heights and lines, steeples and domes. 00:01:30.320 --> 00:01:33.980 align:middle line:84% Space isn't foreshortened or compromised in any way 00:01:33.980 --> 00:01:38.690 align:middle line:84% except the whole entirely reproduced with the knowledge 00:01:38.690 --> 00:01:41.750 align:middle line:90% that it is a suggestive world. 00:01:41.750 --> 00:01:44.270 align:middle line:84% Out on these newly cleansed avenues, 00:01:44.270 --> 00:01:49.160 align:middle line:84% glossy windows like magazine covers, gentle folk-- 00:01:49.160 --> 00:01:54.200 align:middle line:84% excuse me, gentle folk glide on course like soldiers. 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:57.800 align:middle line:84% And we enter with a view of these broad Hitlerian 00:01:57.800 --> 00:02:00.830 align:middle line:84% promenades and a great Hall of the Reich 00:02:00.830 --> 00:02:03.650 align:middle line:84% rising to a quarter of a kilometer. 00:02:03.650 --> 00:02:09.320 align:middle line:84% The dome itself could fit St. Peter's into it 16 times. 00:02:09.320 --> 00:02:15.350 align:middle line:84% On certain days its top is lost in low homogeneous clouds. 00:02:15.350 --> 00:02:19.310 align:middle line:84% This architecture is central to our conception of ourselves 00:02:19.310 --> 00:02:21.080 align:middle line:90% in simple geometries. 00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:24.800 align:middle line:84% Grossly amplified reduced to a view, 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:27.830 align:middle line:84% nothing could be more computable. 00:02:27.830 --> 00:02:30.890 align:middle line:84% Take the scene where you move up the avenue of victory 00:02:30.890 --> 00:02:34.190 align:middle line:84% and go into your hotel to make love. 00:02:34.190 --> 00:02:37.400 align:middle line:84% Our computer with a simple algorithm 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:41.210 align:middle line:84% will hold a mathematical model of the vast thoroughfares 00:02:41.210 --> 00:02:43.310 align:middle line:84% while you figure out how much we see 00:02:43.310 --> 00:02:47.000 align:middle line:84% of the splendid granites and the leafless chestnut trees 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:51.470 align:middle line:84% through your eyes, the windows of our tour bus. 00:02:51.470 --> 00:02:55.280 align:middle line:84% Once through the symmetrical lobby and into the hotel, 00:02:55.280 --> 00:02:57.710 align:middle line:84% the rendering becomes more difficult. 00:02:57.710 --> 00:03:00.350 align:middle line:84% The more decorative the balustrades and velvet 00:03:00.350 --> 00:03:04.400 align:middle line:84% folds of light resistant curtains become, 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:07.610 align:middle line:84% the more raised the ticklish pattern on the bedspread. 00:03:07.610 --> 00:03:10.280 align:middle line:84% The more billowy a shower curtain, the more 00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:13.010 align:middle line:90% tiered the tinkling lighting. 00:03:13.010 --> 00:03:15.620 align:middle line:84% Most difficult of all to conceive, 00:03:15.620 --> 00:03:19.850 align:middle line:84% to engineer, the miniature man and woman carved 00:03:19.850 --> 00:03:25.590 align:middle line:84% of chocolate who sleep on a silver tray beside your bed. 00:03:25.590 --> 00:03:28.920 align:middle line:84% All accoutrements personal and institutional 00:03:28.920 --> 00:03:33.270 align:middle line:84% profoundly affects seduction as you well know. 00:03:33.270 --> 00:03:36.270 align:middle line:84% Hearing her, you contrive a darkness 00:03:36.270 --> 00:03:40.230 align:middle line:84% with a mere touch of the switch, erasing any further doubt 00:03:40.230 --> 00:03:44.250 align:middle line:84% about appearances, erasing all visual distinction 00:03:44.250 --> 00:03:46.500 align:middle line:90% between virtual and real. 00:03:46.500 --> 00:03:50.700 align:middle line:84% And it happens; that is, you sense she's near. 00:03:50.700 --> 00:03:53.460 align:middle line:84% She joins you from her orderly world 00:03:53.460 --> 00:03:56.410 align:middle line:84% into your hybrid adopted culture. 00:03:56.410 --> 00:03:59.470 align:middle line:84% But as soon as you embrace her waist, 00:03:59.470 --> 00:04:04.650 align:middle line:84% this scenic rendezvous resumes on her terms, her spongy flesh, 00:04:04.650 --> 00:04:11.010 align:middle line:84% her doughy lumpy plush mossy rural scene, hairy, spiny, 00:04:11.010 --> 00:04:13.770 align:middle line:90% carsick, enameled and pitted. 00:04:13.770 --> 00:04:15.780 align:middle line:90% Now you feel your way. 00:04:15.780 --> 00:04:18.750 align:middle line:84% Unsure in the messy darkness you trip over, 00:04:18.750 --> 00:04:21.089 align:middle line:84% breaking a glass nearly certain she's 00:04:21.089 --> 00:04:23.430 align:middle line:84% left the last of her lipstick on you. 00:04:23.430 --> 00:04:26.610 align:middle line:84% You swipe your face with the back of your hand. 00:04:26.610 --> 00:04:29.310 align:middle line:84% Maybe it's better to see for yourself 00:04:29.310 --> 00:04:31.470 align:middle line:90% in the world you've created. 00:04:31.470 --> 00:04:34.690 align:middle line:84% Better in the virtual light of your invention. 00:04:34.690 --> 00:04:39.540 align:middle line:84% So like a God from a machine, you wrestle to that light. 00:04:39.540 --> 00:04:42.060 align:middle line:90% Probably she doesn't love you. 00:04:42.060 --> 00:04:44.670 align:middle line:84% And she certainly doesn't stop there 00:04:44.670 --> 00:04:47.970 align:middle line:84% at the borders of what you conceive as the affair. 00:04:47.970 --> 00:04:51.240 align:middle line:84% She raises the curtains on the vistas below 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:54.780 align:middle line:84% and you have to watch yourself on any island she cares 00:04:54.780 --> 00:04:58.110 align:middle line:84% to point out, passing a spark of divinity 00:04:58.110 --> 00:04:59.940 align:middle line:90% with her ordinary finger. 00:04:59.940 --> 00:05:03.520 align:middle line:84% Able it seems to move through glass, through the grid 00:05:03.520 --> 00:05:05.790 align:middle line:90% so carefully designed by you. 00:05:05.790 --> 00:05:08.400 align:middle line:84% Every flicker reflecting appropriately 00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:11.130 align:middle line:84% in the eyes of your beloved, in mirrors 00:05:11.130 --> 00:05:14.330 align:middle line:84% and off the marble pillars of your perspective. 00:05:14.330 --> 00:05:16.890 align:middle line:90% 00:05:16.890 --> 00:05:21.050 align:middle line:90% All of this sounds familiar. 00:05:21.050 --> 00:05:24.410 align:middle line:84% You remember promising to advance, to love better, 00:05:24.410 --> 00:05:26.570 align:middle line:90% to attend to matters. 00:05:26.570 --> 00:05:30.410 align:middle line:84% You always had to be reminded, but then failed. 00:05:30.410 --> 00:05:33.260 align:middle line:84% There it is an emotional, physical thing 00:05:33.260 --> 00:05:35.450 align:middle line:84% like being spooked in some amusement park 00:05:35.450 --> 00:05:38.780 align:middle line:84% on a sticky summer afternoon with a few strangers 00:05:38.780 --> 00:05:42.440 align:middle line:84% or jammed into some inner night without end, lights and smoke 00:05:42.440 --> 00:05:46.070 align:middle line:84% and fires, a subway car of sweating bodies. 00:05:46.070 --> 00:05:49.160 align:middle line:84% Now you gaze upon the threshold of the past 00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:51.800 align:middle line:84% and that other infinitely reassuring world 00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:56.600 align:middle line:84% of total recall and correction, memory and desire on the one 00:05:56.600 --> 00:06:01.970 align:middle line:84% hand and electronic retrieval and fulfillment on the other. 00:06:01.970 --> 00:06:06.620 align:middle line:84% Life or an afterlife of functions and rewards; 00:06:06.620 --> 00:06:11.840 align:middle line:84% many painful versions or one enhanced permanent vision; 00:06:11.840 --> 00:06:15.590 align:middle line:84% a past you're responsible for no matter how you figure it 00:06:15.590 --> 00:06:20.190 align:middle line:84% or a present you can trust; there's hardly a choice. 00:06:20.190 --> 00:06:22.330 align:middle line:90% In fact, it's made for you. 00:06:22.330 --> 00:06:25.430 align:middle line:84% You Watch it like television or a movie. 00:06:25.430 --> 00:06:28.210 align:middle line:90% You have become comfortable. 00:06:28.210 --> 00:06:30.160 align:middle line:90% The world is beautiful. 00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:32.170 align:middle line:90% You're virtually alone. 00:06:32.170 --> 00:06:34.720 align:middle line:84% You turn your back on the beatings and the jungle. 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:38.830 align:middle line:84% The walled cities and the dreary seas, how serene. 00:06:38.830 --> 00:06:41.290 align:middle line:84% The curve of the Earth is palpable. 00:06:41.290 --> 00:06:42.550 align:middle line:90% You lie flat. 00:06:42.550 --> 00:06:44.260 align:middle line:90% You stand tall. 00:06:44.260 --> 00:06:47.560 align:middle line:84% You know yourself and your place in the universe. 00:06:47.560 --> 00:06:50.530 align:middle line:84% Lost days seem to you now retrieved. 00:06:50.530 --> 00:06:53.140 align:middle line:84% The broad brimmed hat of your youth 00:06:53.140 --> 00:06:55.540 align:middle line:84% and those loud songs and those apartments 00:06:55.540 --> 00:06:59.770 align:middle line:84% at the end of the century, white couches, patterned rugs, 00:06:59.770 --> 00:07:02.800 align:middle line:84% visible to the vast greens of yesterday 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:06.040 align:middle line:84% as they swelled into the wall to wall future. 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:08.260 align:middle line:90% These dreams return fully. 00:07:08.260 --> 00:07:10.960 align:middle line:84% You regard them now with a greater eye. 00:07:10.960 --> 00:07:12.910 align:middle line:84% Walks through the park under the heavy 00:07:12.910 --> 00:07:15.310 align:middle line:84% boughs into the tiny restaurant where 00:07:15.310 --> 00:07:18.940 align:middle line:84% you could see the stuffed fish and ribbons of food prepared. 00:07:18.940 --> 00:07:22.360 align:middle line:84% And you're not dead, not dying, you're 00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:26.630 align:middle line:84% in a false and steady state unafraid. 00:07:26.630 --> 00:07:30.200 align:middle line:84% Now you can really laugh at the day you interviewed poorly 00:07:30.200 --> 00:07:33.470 align:middle line:84% and cry over the grave of a friend. 00:07:33.470 --> 00:07:37.190 align:middle line:84% Now you can feel the rain raining everywhere 00:07:37.190 --> 00:07:40.940 align:middle line:84% wherever it seems right and take the heat 00:07:40.940 --> 00:07:43.790 align:middle line:90% and swim to shore powerfully. 00:07:43.790 --> 00:07:48.200 align:middle line:84% Now you can eat ravenously, sleep like a baby, 00:07:48.200 --> 00:07:52.010 align:middle line:84% and make love with your whole body." 00:07:52.010 --> 00:07:53.560 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:07:53.560 --> 00:08:02.247 align:middle line:90%