WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.850 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.850 --> 00:00:04.350 align:middle line:90% Enrico Caruso. 00:00:04.350 --> 00:00:08.310 align:middle line:84% Does that ring any bells with those of you over 30? 00:00:08.310 --> 00:00:10.170 align:middle line:90% He was before my day, certainly. 00:00:10.170 --> 00:00:12.780 align:middle line:90% But I think my-- 00:00:12.780 --> 00:00:15.540 align:middle line:84% I heard about him from relatives. 00:00:15.540 --> 00:00:16.800 align:middle line:90% Italian opera singer. 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:19.910 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.910 --> 00:00:22.340 align:middle line:84% Well, he was American, I guess, or he came to America 00:00:22.340 --> 00:00:24.020 align:middle line:90% and sang in operas. 00:00:24.020 --> 00:00:29.450 align:middle line:84% And, apparently, he was the idol of young ladies of the day back 00:00:29.450 --> 00:00:33.320 align:middle line:90% in the '20s and '30s, I suppose. 00:00:33.320 --> 00:00:37.490 align:middle line:84% And this poem, though, called Perfect Romances, 00:00:37.490 --> 00:00:41.240 align:middle line:84% has mostly to do with the settling of the West. 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:44.570 align:middle line:84% And, of course, here, we have so little water 00:00:44.570 --> 00:00:47.000 align:middle line:84% that, when you see water, you really appreciate it. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:48.980 align:middle line:84% And I remember several years ago, 00:00:48.980 --> 00:00:50.540 align:middle line:84% I went backpacking in the Sierras. 00:00:50.540 --> 00:00:52.700 align:middle line:84% And we jumped off from Bishop, California. 00:00:52.700 --> 00:00:55.700 align:middle line:84% And I remember, in the outlying districts, 00:00:55.700 --> 00:00:59.000 align:middle line:84% the irrigation water running down the ditches and what 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.380 align:middle line:84% a favorable impression that made. 00:01:01.380 --> 00:01:05.180 align:middle line:84% So this is an imaginary tale about the settling, I suppose, 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:09.110 align:middle line:84% of Bishop, California, or other towns like it. 00:01:09.110 --> 00:01:12.560 align:middle line:90% 00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:18.170 align:middle line:84% And it ends, believe it or not, with Enrico Caruso. 00:01:18.170 --> 00:01:20.140 align:middle line:90% Perfect Romances. 00:01:20.140 --> 00:01:23.930 align:middle line:84% Now that they've reached success, now 00:01:23.930 --> 00:01:27.980 align:middle line:84% that they've left behind the plague of steatorrhea, evenings 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:30.530 align:middle line:84% in the valley, in each house, they 00:01:30.530 --> 00:01:32.330 align:middle line:84% open the storybook of their lives 00:01:32.330 --> 00:01:36.080 align:middle line:84% and feel the great sadness of how they got there. 00:01:36.080 --> 00:01:39.050 align:middle line:84% The buttes always ahead, fleshed, 00:01:39.050 --> 00:01:40.460 align:middle line:90% carved out with an axe. 00:01:40.460 --> 00:01:43.400 align:middle line:84% The wagons pulled by the hefty demons of oxen 00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:46.010 align:middle line:84% breaking down, dragging behind them. 00:01:46.010 --> 00:01:48.770 align:middle line:84% And at night, their wives refusing to cook, 00:01:48.770 --> 00:01:51.470 align:middle line:84% withdrawing to talk about the perfect romances 00:01:51.470 --> 00:01:54.290 align:middle line:90% of their childhoods. 00:01:54.290 --> 00:01:56.900 align:middle line:84% And when they arrived, guns out ready 00:01:56.900 --> 00:01:59.180 align:middle line:84% to defend what wasn't yet theirs. 00:01:59.180 --> 00:02:02.690 align:middle line:84% How the animals led up the hillsides, elk and rabbits, 00:02:02.690 --> 00:02:05.900 align:middle line:84% instantly turned into chimaeras and wyverns, 00:02:05.900 --> 00:02:07.460 align:middle line:84% looking back over their shoulders 00:02:07.460 --> 00:02:09.440 align:middle line:90% through their smoky beards. 00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:14.890 align:middle line:84% Wild-eyed for a last glimpse of paradise, theirs. 00:02:14.890 --> 00:02:16.760 align:middle line:84% For as the carpenter sang, the houses 00:02:16.760 --> 00:02:18.980 align:middle line:90% went up almost without trying. 00:02:18.980 --> 00:02:22.550 align:middle line:84% The furniture they built tumbled from their own fumbling hands 00:02:22.550 --> 00:02:24.740 align:middle line:90% to stand like foreign guests. 00:02:24.740 --> 00:02:27.950 align:middle line:84% Cantadores glowing in their rooms to be admired 00:02:27.950 --> 00:02:31.310 align:middle line:90% passed on to future generations. 00:02:31.310 --> 00:02:34.430 align:middle line:84% Even the plowmen, the most docile of idiots 00:02:34.430 --> 00:02:36.230 align:middle line:84% came drooling back in their rubber boots 00:02:36.230 --> 00:02:40.280 align:middle line:84% at noon to report birds hovering over the distant marshes 00:02:40.280 --> 00:02:44.960 align:middle line:84% where their treasure is, and married early. 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:47.450 align:middle line:84% So now they have their orange groves, 00:02:47.450 --> 00:02:49.970 align:middle line:84% a bit of the Mediterranean, thick and rich 00:02:49.970 --> 00:02:53.930 align:middle line:84% as legends with mirrors stuck in them, where evenings the lovers 00:02:53.930 --> 00:02:56.270 align:middle line:90% whisper. 00:02:56.270 --> 00:02:59.900 align:middle line:84% Now outside the placid houses run the braided irrigation 00:02:59.900 --> 00:03:06.260 align:middle line:84% ditches, where weary men stoop, drink, go home young again. 00:03:06.260 --> 00:03:08.180 align:middle line:84% Now behind each village farmstead 00:03:08.180 --> 00:03:11.960 align:middle line:84% is a barn hewn from oak and timbers, clean and cavernous 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:14.910 align:middle line:84% as a theater, where, an hour after sunset, 00:03:14.910 --> 00:03:17.720 align:middle line:84% the bull, his skin still touched with it, 00:03:17.720 --> 00:03:20.540 align:middle line:84% pokes his head out a window, stretches, 00:03:20.540 --> 00:03:24.290 align:middle line:84% tests his golden throat like Enrico Caruso getting 00:03:24.290 --> 00:03:26.410 align:middle line:90% ready for a date.