WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.200 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.200 --> 00:00:04.420 align:middle line:84%
Here's Lorca, the
poet, with his brother

00:00:04.420 --> 00:00:08.100 align:middle line:84%
when they were both children
in Southern Spain being told

00:00:08.100 --> 00:00:11.230 align:middle line:84%
a story by their Moorish
housekeeper called,

00:00:11.230 --> 00:00:12.475 align:middle line:90%
"A Palace of Pearls."

00:00:12.475 --> 00:00:16.940 align:middle line:90%


00:00:16.940 --> 00:00:20.360 align:middle line:84%
Later in the poem,
he's all grown up.

00:00:20.360 --> 00:00:23.780 align:middle line:90%


00:00:23.780 --> 00:00:27.800 align:middle line:84%
"Dressed as a Moor in curtain
and towel and plastered in rice

00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:32.270 align:middle line:84%
powder, a servant gravely
recites a semi-invented tale,

00:00:32.270 --> 00:00:36.830 align:middle line:84%
'The Palace of Pearls,' of which
little is recorded but much

00:00:36.830 --> 00:00:40.730 align:middle line:84%
might be imagined for the
delectation of two enthralled

00:00:40.730 --> 00:00:44.210 align:middle line:84%
brothers with black shiny hair
and white starched blouses

00:00:44.210 --> 00:00:48.410 align:middle line:84%
as white as funereal roses
and black eyes as black

00:00:48.410 --> 00:00:51.620 align:middle line:84%
as a sleeveless summer
dress of mourning,

00:00:51.620 --> 00:00:55.940 align:middle line:84%
for an endless hour in an
Andalusian garden before these

00:00:55.940 --> 00:01:00.830 align:middle line:84%
well-off kids are called to eat
lemony squid and forced to nap

00:01:00.830 --> 00:01:06.530 align:middle line:84%
from the heat such that years
shall pass thus before they

00:01:06.530 --> 00:01:11.030 align:middle line:84%
awaken to a day their Granada
is surrounded by nationalist

00:01:11.030 --> 00:01:14.060 align:middle line:84%
soldiers who are
sneering at them,

00:01:14.060 --> 00:01:19.790 align:middle line:84%
saying that those who don't wear
uniforms should wear skirts.

00:01:19.790 --> 00:01:23.750 align:middle line:84%
I imagine at night more bullshit
with their short cigars while

00:01:23.750 --> 00:01:27.800 align:middle line:84%
they search house to house,
accusing our one slight man

00:01:27.800 --> 00:01:32.270 align:middle line:84%
of contacting Russia and
hiding the radio in his piano,

00:01:32.270 --> 00:01:37.130 align:middle line:84%
a vile invention of armed civil
authority who murder Federico

00:01:37.130 --> 00:01:39.920 align:middle line:90%
García Lorca on native soil.

00:01:39.920 --> 00:01:45.020 align:middle line:84%
To this day, no one is saying
exactly where, exactly by which

00:01:45.020 --> 00:01:46.550 align:middle line:90%
olive trees.

00:01:46.550 --> 00:01:48.530 align:middle line:90%
Does he fall like a puppet?

00:01:48.530 --> 00:01:53.730 align:middle line:84%
Do the Guard piss afterward
on the shallow grave?

00:01:53.730 --> 00:01:58.050 align:middle line:84%
There comes a reckoning that it
might be a failure to theorize.

00:01:58.050 --> 00:02:01.890 align:middle line:84%
And anyway, what's art
all about if it merely

00:02:01.890 --> 00:02:06.180 align:middle line:84%
lengthens the shadows that makes
the cowards evil and the poet

00:02:06.180 --> 00:02:07.650 align:middle line:90%
immortal?

00:02:07.650 --> 00:02:11.400 align:middle line:84%
Nevertheless, even
the lowliest poet

00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:15.540 align:middle line:84%
would rather go home to a
meal of fireplace embers

00:02:15.540 --> 00:02:19.110 align:middle line:84%
than not go down that
deserted road of red Earth

00:02:19.110 --> 00:02:22.980 align:middle line:84%
and imagine the bloody
worst because necessity

00:02:22.980 --> 00:02:26.940 align:middle line:84%
dictates one must be
careful of murderers

00:02:26.940 --> 00:02:29.390 align:middle line:90%
in a palace of pearls."

00:02:29.390 --> 00:02:30.000 align:middle line:90%