WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.540 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.540 --> 00:00:04.510 align:middle line:84% I'm very honored, actually, to introduce Claudia. 00:00:04.510 --> 00:00:06.910 align:middle line:84% She's a wonderful poet and wonderful person. 00:00:06.910 --> 00:00:09.430 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.430 --> 00:00:14.170 align:middle line:84% Claudia Rankine is the author of four collections of poetry, 00:00:14.170 --> 00:00:18.550 align:middle line:84% Don't Let Me Be Lonely, Plot, The End of the Alphabet, 00:00:18.550 --> 00:00:21.490 align:middle line:84% and Nothing in Nature is Private. 00:00:21.490 --> 00:00:25.120 align:middle line:84% She is also co-editor, with Juliana Spahr, who 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:27.820 align:middle line:84% we're going to try and get very soon, 00:00:27.820 --> 00:00:31.000 align:middle line:84% of American Women Poets in the 21st Century: 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:33.490 align:middle line:90% Where Lyric Meets Language. 00:00:33.490 --> 00:00:37.000 align:middle line:84% Recently, she was awarded the prestigious Academy Fellowship, 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:41.620 align:middle line:84% and Don't Let Me Be Lonely was a finalist for the 2005 Lenore 00:00:41.620 --> 00:00:43.810 align:middle line:90% Marshall Poetry Prize. 00:00:43.810 --> 00:00:47.080 align:middle line:84% On top of all of this, she teaches in the writing program 00:00:47.080 --> 00:00:48.550 align:middle line:90% at the University of Houston. 00:00:48.550 --> 00:00:51.100 align:middle line:90% 00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:56.530 align:middle line:84% Rankine's books have used personal lyric, form, image, 00:00:56.530 --> 00:01:01.180 align:middle line:84% and objective lyric to examine the self and society. 00:01:01.180 --> 00:01:05.140 align:middle line:84% Her latest book, Don't Let Me Be Lonely-- in her latest book, 00:01:05.140 --> 00:01:09.550 align:middle line:84% Rankine uses a magnifying, mirrored television. 00:01:09.550 --> 00:01:11.560 align:middle line:84% At the same time this glass reflects 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:15.820 align:middle line:84% our own narcissistic gaze, we are apart from 00:01:15.820 --> 00:01:18.580 align:middle line:84% and a part of the speaker who says, 00:01:18.580 --> 00:01:23.290 align:middle line:84% there was a time I could say no one I knew well had died. 00:01:23.290 --> 00:01:27.040 align:middle line:84% Timothy McVeigh never asked to be forgiven, 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:32.750 align:middle line:84% and overnight, Osama bin Laden became a household name. 00:01:32.750 --> 00:01:35.260 align:middle line:84% We are given the choice to stare indefinitely 00:01:35.260 --> 00:01:37.810 align:middle line:90% or to turn the thing off. 00:01:37.810 --> 00:01:42.190 align:middle line:84% This Mobius continuum seems to state, or has us state, 00:01:42.190 --> 00:01:45.020 align:middle line:90% don't let me be lonely. 00:01:45.020 --> 00:01:46.660 align:middle line:90% This is a declarative. 00:01:46.660 --> 00:01:48.190 align:middle line:90% Or is it? 00:01:48.190 --> 00:01:51.040 align:middle line:84% It seems more an interrogative asking, 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:52.870 align:middle line:90% why lonely in the first place? 00:01:52.870 --> 00:01:55.630 align:middle line:90% Or, where to go from here? 00:01:55.630 --> 00:01:59.470 align:middle line:84% Difficult questions and a difficult declarative. 00:01:59.470 --> 00:02:03.860 align:middle line:84% We listen, and in the end we utter the same thing. 00:02:03.860 --> 00:02:06.400 align:middle line:90% Don't let me be lonely. 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:10.150 align:middle line:84% And by becoming active participants, 00:02:10.150 --> 00:02:12.940 align:middle line:90% we do become less lonely. 00:02:12.940 --> 00:02:16.030 align:middle line:90% Please welcome Claudia Rankine. 00:02:16.030 --> 00:02:17.060 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:02:17.060 --> 00:02:20.660 align:middle line:84% I want to thank Michael for that introduction. 00:02:20.660 --> 00:02:22.210 align:middle line:90% That could be part of the book. 00:02:22.210 --> 00:02:27.010 align:middle line:84% I could have used some help from you. 00:02:27.010 --> 00:02:30.170 align:middle line:84% And I'd like to thank Al and Austin, wherever you are back 00:02:30.170 --> 00:02:30.670 align:middle line:90% there. 00:02:30.670 --> 00:02:44.060 align:middle line:90% 00:02:44.060 --> 00:02:46.700 align:middle line:84% I want to start the reading with a quote 00:02:46.700 --> 00:02:50.630 align:middle line:84% by the critic Homi Bhabha from his book, 00:02:50.630 --> 00:02:53.090 align:middle line:90% The Location of Culture. 00:02:53.090 --> 00:02:59.480 align:middle line:84% He says, "remembering is never a quiet act of introspection 00:02:59.480 --> 00:03:01.850 align:middle line:90% or retrospection. 00:03:01.850 --> 00:03:06.110 align:middle line:84% It is a painful remembering, a putting together 00:03:06.110 --> 00:03:10.430 align:middle line:84% of the dismembered past to make sense 00:03:10.430 --> 00:03:13.610 align:middle line:90% of the trauma of the present." 00:03:13.610 --> 00:03:17.360 align:middle line:84% For me, Don't Let Me Be Lonely attempts 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:25.910 align:middle line:84% to chronicle the time and times that we're in presently, 00:03:25.910 --> 00:03:29.810 align:middle line:84% in an attempt to make sense of those times. 00:03:29.810 --> 00:03:33.360 align:middle line:90% 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:37.530 align:middle line:84% Cornel West makes the point that hope 00:03:37.530 --> 00:03:42.150 align:middle line:84% is different from American optimism. 00:03:42.150 --> 00:03:46.300 align:middle line:84% After the initial presidential election results come in, 00:03:46.300 --> 00:03:49.620 align:middle line:90% I stop watching the news. 00:03:49.620 --> 00:03:53.340 align:middle line:84% I want to continue watching, charting, 00:03:53.340 --> 00:03:59.540 align:middle line:84% and discussing the counts, the recounts, the hand counts, 00:03:59.540 --> 00:04:01.790 align:middle line:90% but I cannot. 00:04:01.790 --> 00:04:04.160 align:middle line:90% I lose hope. 00:04:04.160 --> 00:04:07.520 align:middle line:84% However Bush came to have won, he would still 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:10.940 align:middle line:84% be winning 10 days later, and we would still 00:04:10.940 --> 00:04:16.310 align:middle line:84% be in the throes of our American optimism. 00:04:16.310 --> 00:04:22.100 align:middle line:84% All the non-reporting is a distraction from Bush himself-- 00:04:22.100 --> 00:04:26.420 align:middle line:84% the same Bush who can't remember if two or three people 00:04:26.420 --> 00:04:30.800 align:middle line:84% were convicted for dragging a Black man to his death 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:35.060 align:middle line:90% in his home state of Texas. 00:04:35.060 --> 00:04:39.470 align:middle line:84% You don't remember because you don't care. 00:04:39.470 --> 00:04:45.920 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, my mother's voice swells and fills my forehead. 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:49.040 align:middle line:90% Mostly, I resist the flooding. 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:52.130 align:middle line:84% But in Bush's case, I find myself talking 00:04:52.130 --> 00:04:54.800 align:middle line:90% to the television screen. 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:59.940 align:middle line:84% You don't know because you don't care. 00:04:59.940 --> 00:05:03.110 align:middle line:84% Then, like all things impassioned, 00:05:03.110 --> 00:05:07.940 align:middle line:84% this voice takes on a life of its own. 00:05:07.940 --> 00:05:15.290 align:middle line:84% You don't know because you don't bloody care, do you? 00:05:15.290 --> 00:05:18.450 align:middle line:90% I forget things, too. 00:05:18.450 --> 00:05:24.620 align:middle line:84% It makes me sad, or it makes me the saddest. 00:05:24.620 --> 00:05:28.370 align:middle line:84% The sadness is not really about George W 00:05:28.370 --> 00:05:31.550 align:middle line:90% or our American optimism. 00:05:31.550 --> 00:05:36.290 align:middle line:84% The sadness lives in the recognition that a life cannot 00:05:36.290 --> 00:05:38.060 align:middle line:90% matter. 00:05:38.060 --> 00:05:41.420 align:middle line:84% Or, as there are billions of lives, 00:05:41.420 --> 00:05:45.920 align:middle line:84% my sadness is alive alongside the recognition 00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:50.880 align:middle line:84% that billions of lives never mattered. 00:05:50.880 --> 00:05:55.320 align:middle line:84% I write this without breaking my heart, 00:05:55.320 --> 00:05:59.450 align:middle line:90% without bursting into anything. 00:05:59.450 --> 00:06:04.560 align:middle line:84% Perhaps this is the real source of my sadness, 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:09.480 align:middle line:84% or perhaps Emily Dickinson, my love, 00:06:09.480 --> 00:06:14.390 align:middle line:84% hope was never a thing with feathers. 00:06:14.390 --> 00:06:16.310 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:06:16.310 --> 00:06:21.590 align:middle line:84% I just find when the news comes on, I switch the channel. 00:06:21.590 --> 00:06:25.700 align:middle line:84% This new tendency might be indicative of a deepening 00:06:25.700 --> 00:06:28.580 align:middle line:90% personality flaw. 00:06:28.580 --> 00:06:34.690 align:middle line:84% IMH, the inability to maintain hope, 00:06:34.690 --> 00:06:41.380 align:middle line:84% which translates into no innate trust in the supreme laws that 00:06:41.380 --> 00:06:43.950 align:middle line:90% govern us. 00:06:43.950 --> 00:06:50.400 align:middle line:84% Cornel West says this is what is wrong with Black people today. 00:06:50.400 --> 00:06:58.230 align:middle line:84% Too nihilistic, too scarred by hope to hope, 00:06:58.230 --> 00:07:04.610 align:middle line:84% too experienced to experience, too close to dead 00:07:04.610 --> 00:07:07.820 align:middle line:90% is what I think. 00:07:07.820 --> 00:07:11.720 align:middle line:90% I lived for a while in London. 00:07:11.720 --> 00:07:17.870 align:middle line:84% And while I was there, there was a thing called the Museum Of. 00:07:17.870 --> 00:07:21.860 align:middle line:84% And it rotated, so sometimes it was the Museum of Circles. 00:07:21.860 --> 00:07:24.680 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, it was the Museum of Hate. 00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:29.390 align:middle line:84% And while I was there, it was the Museum of Emotions. 00:07:29.390 --> 00:07:31.820 align:middle line:84% And it was, appropriately enough, 00:07:31.820 --> 00:07:33.380 align:middle line:90% sponsored by The Body Shop. 00:07:33.380 --> 00:07:38.420 align:middle line:90% 00:07:38.420 --> 00:07:43.490 align:middle line:84% The Museum of Emotions in London has a game 00:07:43.490 --> 00:07:47.240 align:middle line:90% that asks yes and no questions. 00:07:47.240 --> 00:07:52.940 align:middle line:84% As long as you answer correctly, you can continue playing. 00:07:52.940 --> 00:07:57.980 align:middle line:84% The third question is, were you terribly upset 00:07:57.980 --> 00:08:01.080 align:middle line:84% and did you find yourself weeping 00:08:01.080 --> 00:08:04.990 align:middle line:90% when Princess Diana died? 00:08:04.990 --> 00:08:12.240 align:middle line:84% I told the truth and stepped on the no tile. 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:16.320 align:middle line:90% I was not allowed to continue. 00:08:16.320 --> 00:08:21.000 align:middle line:84% The museum employee, who must have had a thing with shame, 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:25.360 align:middle line:90% looked away as I stepped down. 00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:28.470 align:middle line:84% Walking out, I couldn't help but think, 00:08:28.470 --> 00:08:32.610 align:middle line:84% the question should have been, was Princess Diana 00:08:32.610 --> 00:08:35.460 align:middle line:90% ever really alive? 00:08:35.460 --> 00:08:40.020 align:middle line:84% I mean, alive to anyone outside of her friends and family, 00:08:40.020 --> 00:08:42.240 align:middle line:90% truly. 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:46.140 align:middle line:84% The English were very distraught after her death. 00:08:46.140 --> 00:08:50.040 align:middle line:84% On the television, they showed thousands of mourners leaving 00:08:50.040 --> 00:08:53.610 align:middle line:90% flowers in front of the palace. 00:08:53.610 --> 00:08:56.250 align:middle line:84% Weren't they mourning the protection 00:08:56.250 --> 00:09:03.510 align:middle line:84% they felt she should have had, a protection they'll never have? 00:09:03.510 --> 00:09:08.790 align:middle line:84% Weren't they simply grieving the random inevitability 00:09:08.790 --> 00:09:10.335 align:middle line:90% of their own lives? 00:09:10.335 --> 00:09:15.820 align:middle line:90% 00:09:15.820 --> 00:09:19.680 align:middle line:84% My mother tells me, I'm just biding time. 00:09:19.680 --> 00:09:25.380 align:middle line:84% She means it as a push toward not biding time. 00:09:25.380 --> 00:09:29.700 align:middle line:84% She wants me to lead a readable life, one 00:09:29.700 --> 00:09:34.980 align:middle line:84% that can be read as worthwhile and successful. 00:09:34.980 --> 00:09:37.440 align:middle line:84% My mother is not overly concerned 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:43.770 align:middle line:84% with happiness, its fruitless pursuit or otherwise. 00:09:43.770 --> 00:09:46.500 align:middle line:84% As far as she can remember, there 00:09:46.500 --> 00:09:50.790 align:middle line:84% is only pain connected to the joy of childbirth. 00:09:50.790 --> 00:09:56.610 align:middle line:84% She remembers the pain and wants it to have been worthwhile 00:09:56.610 --> 00:10:00.700 align:middle line:90% for a reasonable life. 00:10:00.700 --> 00:10:07.830 align:middle line:84% As I watch my mother's mouth move, I ask myself, 00:10:07.830 --> 00:10:12.970 align:middle line:84% am I often troubled by constipation? 00:10:12.970 --> 00:10:19.020 align:middle line:84% Have I ever vomited love or coughed up blame? 00:10:19.020 --> 00:10:21.900 align:middle line:90% Is anything wrong with my mind? 00:10:21.900 --> 00:10:25.830 align:middle line:90% 00:10:25.830 --> 00:10:27.930 align:middle line:90% That usually gets a laugh. 00:10:27.930 --> 00:10:30.030 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:30.030 --> 00:10:32.805 align:middle line:84% Maybe yours is the more appropriate response. 00:10:32.805 --> 00:10:37.020 align:middle line:90% 00:10:37.020 --> 00:10:39.803 align:middle line:84% Or maybe we have some mother sympathizers. 00:10:39.803 --> 00:10:42.701 align:middle line:90% [LIGHT LAUGHTER] 00:10:42.701 --> 00:10:53.330 align:middle line:90% 00:10:53.330 --> 00:10:57.800 align:middle line:84% In the night, I watch television to help me fall asleep, 00:10:57.800 --> 00:11:02.180 align:middle line:84% or I watch television because I cannot sleep. 00:11:02.180 --> 00:11:05.330 align:middle line:84% My husband sleeps through my sleeplessness and the noise 00:11:05.330 --> 00:11:07.400 align:middle line:90% of the television. 00:11:07.400 --> 00:11:10.500 align:middle line:90% Eventually, it is all a blur. 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:13.970 align:middle line:84% I never remember turning the TV off, 00:11:13.970 --> 00:11:18.590 align:middle line:84% but always when I wake up in the morning, it is off. 00:11:18.590 --> 00:11:20.930 align:middle line:90% Perhaps he turns it off. 00:11:20.930 --> 00:11:23.060 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:11:23.060 --> 00:11:25.010 align:middle line:84% Some nights, I count the commercials 00:11:25.010 --> 00:11:27.500 align:middle line:90% for antidepressants. 00:11:27.500 --> 00:11:32.390 align:middle line:84% If the same commercial is repeated, I still count it. 00:11:32.390 --> 00:11:35.030 align:middle line:84% It seems right that pharmaceutical companies 00:11:35.030 --> 00:11:37.730 align:middle line:84% should advertise in the middle of the night 00:11:37.730 --> 00:11:45.500 align:middle line:84% when people are less distracted and capable of tuning in more 00:11:45.500 --> 00:11:49.940 align:middle line:84% and more, and most precisely to their fearful bodies 00:11:49.940 --> 00:11:53.690 align:middle line:84% and their accompanying anxieties. 00:11:53.690 --> 00:12:02.420 align:middle line:84% One commercial for Paxil says simply, your life is waiting. 00:12:02.420 --> 00:12:08.930 align:middle line:84% Parataxis, I think first, but then I wonder, for what? 00:12:08.930 --> 00:12:12.290 align:middle line:90% For what does it wait? 00:12:12.290 --> 00:12:15.590 align:middle line:90% For life, I guess. 00:12:15.590 --> 00:12:20.450 align:middle line:84% Across the screen, this time minus audio flashes, 00:12:20.450 --> 00:12:24.050 align:middle line:90% your life is waiting. 00:12:24.050 --> 00:12:26.330 align:middle line:84% It remains on the screen long enough so 00:12:26.330 --> 00:12:31.670 align:middle line:84% that when I close my eyes to check if I am sleeping, instead 00:12:31.670 --> 00:12:37.550 align:middle line:84% of darkness, your life is waiting stares back at me. 00:12:37.550 --> 00:12:40.538 align:middle line:90% 00:12:40.538 --> 00:12:43.526 align:middle line:90% [NO AUDIO] 00:12:43.526 --> 00:13:06.440 align:middle line:90% 00:13:06.440 --> 00:13:11.270 align:middle line:84% And I am not exactly a crying person, 00:13:11.270 --> 00:13:13.670 align:middle line:84% though my eyes tear up frequently 00:13:13.670 --> 00:13:16.400 align:middle line:90% because of my allergies. 00:13:16.400 --> 00:13:19.190 align:middle line:90% In any case, the other tears-- 00:13:19.190 --> 00:13:22.520 align:middle line:84% the ones that express emotions, the ones that 00:13:22.520 --> 00:13:26.240 align:middle line:84% recognize and take responsibility for the soul-- 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:28.520 align:middle line:90% don't come. 00:13:28.520 --> 00:13:32.240 align:middle line:84% Instead, I get a sharp pain in my gut. 00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:34.490 align:middle line:84% And though heart disease is the leading 00:13:34.490 --> 00:13:38.000 align:middle line:84% killer of American women, the pain 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.820 align:middle line:90% has nothing to do with that. 00:13:41.820 --> 00:13:44.480 align:middle line:90% I've had it all my life. 00:13:44.480 --> 00:13:49.490 align:middle line:84% Not quite a caving in, just a feeling of bits of my inside 00:13:49.490 --> 00:13:56.630 align:middle line:84% twisting away from flesh in the form of a blow to the body. 00:13:56.630 --> 00:14:00.050 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, I look into someone's face, 00:14:00.050 --> 00:14:06.400 align:middle line:84% and I must brace myself, the blow on its way. 00:14:06.400 --> 00:14:09.730 align:middle line:84% For instance, I go into my bedroom 00:14:09.730 --> 00:14:14.380 align:middle line:84% to put on socks because my toes could be cold, 00:14:14.380 --> 00:14:17.125 align:middle line:90% and on the TV is Abner Louima. 00:14:17.125 --> 00:14:20.200 align:middle line:90% 00:14:20.200 --> 00:14:23.830 align:middle line:84% I hope what comes out of my case is changed. 00:14:23.830 --> 00:14:25.510 align:middle line:84% What happened to me should not happen 00:14:25.510 --> 00:14:28.630 align:middle line:84% to any human being, to my children, 00:14:28.630 --> 00:14:32.150 align:middle line:90% or anybody else's children. 00:14:32.150 --> 00:14:34.870 align:middle line:84% It's been four years since he was 00:14:34.870 --> 00:14:41.170 align:middle line:84% sodomized by a broken broomstick while in police custody. 00:14:41.170 --> 00:14:43.540 align:middle line:84% It was two months and three surgeries 00:14:43.540 --> 00:14:47.120 align:middle line:84% before he could leave the hospital. 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:49.270 align:middle line:84% He has just agreed to a settlement 00:14:49.270 --> 00:14:55.870 align:middle line:84% with the city and the police union for $8.7 million. 00:14:55.870 --> 00:14:59.860 align:middle line:84% Louima's lawyer, Johnnie L Cochran, Jr, 00:14:59.860 --> 00:15:03.040 align:middle line:90% is standing next to him. 00:15:03.040 --> 00:15:06.700 align:middle line:90% Louima looks OK. 00:15:06.700 --> 00:15:15.220 align:middle line:84% A reporter asks him how it feels to be a rich man. 00:15:15.220 --> 00:15:20.410 align:middle line:90% Not rich, says Louima, lucky-- 00:15:20.410 --> 00:15:24.070 align:middle line:90% lucky to be alive. 00:15:24.070 --> 00:15:28.645 align:middle line:84% Instinctively, my hand braces my abdomen. 00:15:28.645 --> 00:15:36.720 align:middle line:90% 00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:43.230 align:middle line:84% I've felt it, too, the loneliness. 00:15:43.230 --> 00:15:51.620 align:middle line:84% I let it happen by feeling, by not, not feeling. 00:15:51.620 --> 00:16:01.745 align:middle line:84% That's too much, like dying maybe, or death is second. 00:16:01.745 --> 00:16:04.350 align:middle line:90% Second to what? 00:16:04.350 --> 00:16:06.900 align:middle line:90% To loneliness. 00:16:06.900 --> 00:16:09.350 align:middle line:90% Define loneliness. 00:16:09.350 --> 00:16:20.480 align:middle line:90% 00:16:20.480 --> 00:16:23.570 align:middle line:90% Why are we alive? 00:16:23.570 --> 00:16:26.990 align:middle line:84% My sister had a daughter and a son. 00:16:26.990 --> 00:16:28.910 align:middle line:90% Is she dead? 00:16:28.910 --> 00:16:30.780 align:middle line:90% Is he dead? 00:16:30.780 --> 00:16:33.870 align:middle line:90% Yes, they're dead. 00:16:33.870 --> 00:16:38.360 align:middle line:84% My sister's children and her husband died in a car crash. 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:43.100 align:middle line:84% She's a psychiatrist, but she cannot help herself. 00:16:43.100 --> 00:16:48.470 align:middle line:84% She does not, probably cannot legally prescribe herself any 00:16:48.470 --> 00:16:50.240 align:middle line:90% drugs. 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:54.350 align:middle line:90% Her world-- she's letting it-- 00:16:54.350 --> 00:16:57.300 align:middle line:90% is crumbling. 00:16:57.300 --> 00:16:59.160 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:16:59.160 --> 00:17:01.570 align:middle line:90% What? 00:17:01.570 --> 00:17:04.690 align:middle line:90% I listen, but I do not speak. 00:17:04.690 --> 00:17:07.270 align:middle line:90% I look into her eyes. 00:17:07.270 --> 00:17:12.640 align:middle line:84% We sit on the floor of public places, our faces wet. 00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:17.680 align:middle line:84% Then, like that, I'm in my car, turning 00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:24.700 align:middle line:84% the key in the ignition, my own quotidian affairs breaking in. 00:17:24.700 --> 00:17:30.010 align:middle line:84% Who will she be when she's too tired to cry? 00:17:30.010 --> 00:17:34.360 align:middle line:90% Where does her kind of grief go? 00:17:34.360 --> 00:17:39.880 align:middle line:84% Paul Celan whispers in my ear, all those sleep 00:17:39.880 --> 00:17:46.510 align:middle line:84% shapes, crystalline, that you assumed in the languid shadow, 00:17:46.510 --> 00:17:50.200 align:middle line:90% to those I lead my blood. 00:17:50.200 --> 00:17:57.910 align:middle line:84% Those image lines-- them I'm to our harbor in the slit arteries 00:17:57.910 --> 00:18:00.640 align:middle line:90% of my cognition. 00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:05.590 align:middle line:84% My grief, I can see, is deserting you. 00:18:05.590 --> 00:18:11.410 align:middle line:90% 00:18:11.410 --> 00:18:13.670 align:middle line:90% Define loneliness? 00:18:13.670 --> 00:18:14.170 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:18:14.170 --> 00:18:16.770 align:middle line:90% 00:18:16.770 --> 00:18:21.970 align:middle line:84% It's what we can't do for each other. 00:18:21.970 --> 00:18:25.930 align:middle line:90% What do we mean to each other? 00:18:25.930 --> 00:18:29.120 align:middle line:90% What does a life mean? 00:18:29.120 --> 00:18:32.420 align:middle line:84% Why are we here, if not for each other? 00:18:32.420 --> 00:18:38.140 align:middle line:90% 00:18:38.140 --> 00:18:41.950 align:middle line:84% Or a friend's mother dies when she's on her way home 00:18:41.950 --> 00:18:46.240 align:middle line:84% from her father's funeral in Switzerland. 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:49.030 align:middle line:84% While her plane crosses the Atlantic, 00:18:49.030 --> 00:18:54.170 align:middle line:84% her mother dies of a heart attack in New Hampshire. 00:18:54.170 --> 00:18:58.370 align:middle line:84% I run into this friend in Soho at the Cupping Room. 00:18:58.370 --> 00:19:03.260 align:middle line:90% She is wearing a long fur coat. 00:19:03.260 --> 00:19:05.210 align:middle line:90% It was my mother's. 00:19:05.210 --> 00:19:07.730 align:middle line:90% She died. 00:19:07.730 --> 00:19:12.690 align:middle line:84% This woman, a college friend, seems fine. 00:19:12.690 --> 00:19:17.090 align:middle line:84% Perhaps we are not responsible for the lives of our parents, 00:19:17.090 --> 00:19:21.170 align:middle line:84% not in our pores or our very breath. 00:19:21.170 --> 00:19:23.270 align:middle line:90% We can expect. 00:19:23.270 --> 00:19:25.430 align:middle line:90% We can resolve. 00:19:25.430 --> 00:19:28.550 align:middle line:90% We can come to terms with. 00:19:28.550 --> 00:19:33.890 align:middle line:84% Afterwards, we wear their clothing, sit in their chairs, 00:19:33.890 --> 00:19:39.750 align:middle line:84% and remember them, profoundly remember them. 00:19:39.750 --> 00:19:43.860 align:middle line:90% But we are not responsible. 00:19:43.860 --> 00:19:51.150 align:middle line:84% The construct of my sister, this character, feels erased. 00:19:51.150 --> 00:19:54.510 align:middle line:90% Anything, I tell her. 00:19:54.510 --> 00:19:59.790 align:middle line:84% I write in my notes, I will do anything. 00:19:59.790 --> 00:20:04.380 align:middle line:84% In truth, I can do nothing but see 00:20:04.380 --> 00:20:10.260 align:middle line:84% in the activity of her grief three people's death. 00:20:10.260 --> 00:20:15.900 align:middle line:84% The end of each day is followed by mourning. 00:20:15.900 --> 00:20:21.870 align:middle line:84% A husband wakes up beside me, stretching, asking 00:20:21.870 --> 00:20:27.045 align:middle line:84% sweetheart, honey, dearest, how did you sleep? 00:20:27.045 --> 00:20:32.808 align:middle line:90% 00:20:32.808 --> 00:20:35.310 align:middle line:90% [CELL PHONE DINGING] 00:20:35.310 --> 00:20:36.990 align:middle line:90% We have musical accompaniment. 00:20:36.990 --> 00:20:46.330 align:middle line:90% 00:20:46.330 --> 00:20:50.800 align:middle line:84% I love these little fantastic ironies in life. 00:20:50.800 --> 00:20:55.840 align:middle line:84% But the guy who was the first guy 00:20:55.840 --> 00:21:00.415 align:middle line:84% to get the first artificial heart, his name was Mr Tools. 00:21:00.415 --> 00:21:04.390 align:middle line:90% 00:21:04.390 --> 00:21:08.410 align:middle line:84% Mr Tools, for a while the only person 00:21:08.410 --> 00:21:13.300 align:middle line:84% in the world walking around with an artificial heart, 00:21:13.300 --> 00:21:18.160 align:middle line:84% said the weirdest thing was being without a heartbeat. 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:23.380 align:middle line:84% His was a private and perhaps lonely singularity. 00:21:23.380 --> 00:21:28.990 align:middle line:84% No one else could say, I know how you feel. 00:21:28.990 --> 00:21:32.890 align:middle line:84% The only living being without a heartbeat, 00:21:32.890 --> 00:21:36.730 align:middle line:90% he had a whir instead. 00:21:36.730 --> 00:21:40.390 align:middle line:84% It was not the same whir of a siren, 00:21:40.390 --> 00:21:43.120 align:middle line:84% but rather the fast, repetitive whir 00:21:43.120 --> 00:21:47.530 align:middle line:84% of a machine whose insistent motion might eventually 00:21:47.530 --> 00:21:50.680 align:middle line:90% seem like silence. 00:21:50.680 --> 00:21:56.270 align:middle line:84% Mr Tools had the ultimate tool in his body. 00:21:56.270 --> 00:21:58.810 align:middle line:90% He felt its heaviness. 00:21:58.810 --> 00:22:04.300 align:middle line:84% The weight on his heart was his heart. 00:22:04.300 --> 00:22:08.140 align:middle line:84% All his apparatus-- artificial heart, 00:22:08.140 --> 00:22:12.220 align:middle line:84% energy coil, battery, and controller-- 00:22:12.220 --> 00:22:16.360 align:middle line:90% weighed more than four pounds. 00:22:16.360 --> 00:22:20.380 align:middle line:84% The whir, if you are not Mr Tools, 00:22:20.380 --> 00:22:25.090 align:middle line:84% is detectable only with a stethoscope. 00:22:25.090 --> 00:22:33.145 align:middle line:84% For Mr Tools, that whir was his sign that he was alive. 00:22:33.145 --> 00:22:36.055 align:middle line:90% 00:22:36.055 --> 00:22:39.025 align:middle line:90% [NO AUDIO] 00:22:39.025 --> 00:22:52.390 align:middle line:90% 00:22:52.390 --> 00:22:56.590 align:middle line:84% In a taxi, speeding uptown on the West Side Highway, 00:22:56.590 --> 00:23:00.610 align:middle line:84% I let my thoughts drift below the surface of the Hudson 00:23:00.610 --> 00:23:03.640 align:middle line:84% until it finally occurs to me that feelings 00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:09.550 align:middle line:84% fill the gaps created by the indirectness of experience. 00:23:09.550 --> 00:23:12.220 align:middle line:84% Though the experience is social, thoughts 00:23:12.220 --> 00:23:15.640 align:middle line:84% carry it into a singular space, and it 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:21.490 align:middle line:84% is this that causes the feelings of loneliness. 00:23:21.490 --> 00:23:25.720 align:middle line:84% Or it is this that collides the feeling with the experience 00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:31.030 align:middle line:84% so that what is left is the solitude called loneliness. 00:23:31.030 --> 00:23:33.310 align:middle line:84% And from that space of loneliness, 00:23:33.310 --> 00:23:36.580 align:middle line:84% I can feel the cab driver watching me 00:23:36.580 --> 00:23:40.310 align:middle line:90% in the rear view mirror. 00:23:40.310 --> 00:23:45.730 align:middle line:84% He wants to know if I attend Columbia University. 00:23:45.730 --> 00:23:47.470 align:middle line:90% Years ago. 00:23:47.470 --> 00:23:51.460 align:middle line:84% Now, I just live in the neighborhood. 00:23:51.460 --> 00:23:53.470 align:middle line:90% You seem like a smart lady. 00:23:53.470 --> 00:23:56.650 align:middle line:90% What do you do for your living? 00:23:56.650 --> 00:24:00.190 align:middle line:90% I write about the liver. 00:24:00.190 --> 00:24:02.830 align:middle line:90% The liver, really? 00:24:02.830 --> 00:24:05.590 align:middle line:90% You're a doctor? 00:24:05.590 --> 00:24:06.250 align:middle line:90% No, no. 00:24:06.250 --> 00:24:09.430 align:middle line:84% I write about the liver because I'm 00:24:09.430 --> 00:24:13.960 align:middle line:90% thinking as if trying to weep. 00:24:13.960 --> 00:24:16.660 align:middle line:90% Excuse me? 00:24:16.660 --> 00:24:20.830 align:middle line:84% You think the liver is connected to thoughts? 00:24:20.830 --> 00:24:24.070 align:middle line:90% Well, not exactly. 00:24:24.070 --> 00:24:26.830 align:middle line:90% Anyway, tell me something. 00:24:26.830 --> 00:24:30.340 align:middle line:84% You have lived in this country many years? 00:24:30.340 --> 00:24:33.100 align:middle line:90% Over 30. 00:24:33.100 --> 00:24:34.840 align:middle line:90% Well, yes, then. 00:24:34.840 --> 00:24:37.030 align:middle line:90% So, tell me this. 00:24:37.030 --> 00:24:39.580 align:middle line:84% Have you noticed these white people? 00:24:39.580 --> 00:24:43.330 align:middle line:84% They think they are better than everyone else. 00:24:43.330 --> 00:24:45.520 align:middle line:90% Have I noticed? 00:24:45.520 --> 00:24:48.550 align:middle line:90% Are you joking? 00:24:48.550 --> 00:24:50.980 align:middle line:90% You're not joking. 00:24:50.980 --> 00:24:53.830 align:middle line:90% Where are you from? 00:24:53.830 --> 00:24:56.230 align:middle line:90% Pakistan. 00:24:56.230 --> 00:24:58.120 align:middle line:90% I see. 00:24:58.120 --> 00:25:00.820 align:middle line:84% It's only a few months since 9/11. 00:25:00.820 --> 00:25:03.850 align:middle line:90% They think you're al-Qaeda. 00:25:03.850 --> 00:25:05.140 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:25:05.140 --> 00:25:10.840 align:middle line:84% But the things they say to me, they don't know anything. 00:25:10.840 --> 00:25:16.510 align:middle line:84% Be happy you can't read their thoughts, I want to say to him. 00:25:16.510 --> 00:25:20.710 align:middle line:84% I smile into the rear view mirror instead. 00:25:20.710 --> 00:25:23.320 align:middle line:84% Why, with such a nice smile, are you 00:25:23.320 --> 00:25:28.690 align:middle line:84% trying to weep he asks, as we pull up to my building. 00:25:28.690 --> 00:25:33.580 align:middle line:90% 00:25:33.580 --> 00:25:38.345 align:middle line:84% To roll over, or not to roll over, that IRA. 00:25:38.345 --> 00:25:41.750 align:middle line:90% 00:25:41.750 --> 00:25:48.020 align:middle line:84% To have a new iMac, or not to have it. 00:25:48.020 --> 00:25:54.440 align:middle line:90% To e-trade, or not to e-trade. 00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:59.030 align:middle line:84% Again and again, these were Kodak moments 00:25:59.030 --> 00:26:02.420 align:middle line:90% full of individuation. 00:26:02.420 --> 00:26:07.640 align:middle line:84% We were all on our way to our personal best. 00:26:07.640 --> 00:26:13.440 align:middle line:84% America was seemingly a meritocracy. 00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:19.640 align:middle line:90% I I, I am Tiger Woods. 00:26:19.640 --> 00:26:22.790 align:middle line:90% It was the '90s. 00:26:22.790 --> 00:26:28.010 align:middle line:84% Now, it's the 21st century, and either you are with us 00:26:28.010 --> 00:26:30.800 align:middle line:90% or you're against us. 00:26:30.800 --> 00:26:33.170 align:middle line:90% Where is your flag? 00:26:33.170 --> 00:26:35.940 align:middle line:90% 00:26:35.940 --> 00:26:39.960 align:middle line:84% It strikes me that what the attack on the World Trade 00:26:39.960 --> 00:26:47.550 align:middle line:84% Center stole from us is our willingness to be complex. 00:26:47.550 --> 00:26:52.290 align:middle line:84% Or what the attack on the World Trade Center revealed to us 00:26:52.290 --> 00:26:55.920 align:middle line:90% is that we were never complex. 00:26:55.920 --> 00:26:59.460 align:middle line:84% We might want to believe that we can condemn and we can love 00:26:59.460 --> 00:27:04.410 align:middle line:84% and we can condemn because we love our country. 00:27:04.410 --> 00:27:08.730 align:middle line:90% But that's too complex. 00:27:08.730 --> 00:27:12.420 align:middle line:84% Over lunch, someone says, what's all this 00:27:12.420 --> 00:27:14.340 align:middle line:84% about detaining hundreds of people 00:27:14.340 --> 00:27:19.110 align:middle line:84% and monitoring lawyer client conversations? 00:27:19.110 --> 00:27:23.820 align:middle line:90% Who do we think we are, China? 00:27:23.820 --> 00:27:27.120 align:middle line:84% Inside the space of the constructed joke, 00:27:27.120 --> 00:27:31.550 align:middle line:90% everyone laughs and laughs. 00:27:31.550 --> 00:27:39.410 align:middle line:84% My flushing toilet, my hot water, my air conditioner, 00:27:39.410 --> 00:27:45.230 align:middle line:90% my health insurance, my my, my. 00:27:45.230 --> 00:27:50.450 align:middle line:90% All my mys were American made. 00:27:50.450 --> 00:27:53.480 align:middle line:90% This is how I was alive. 00:27:53.480 --> 00:27:56.000 align:middle line:90% Or I wasn't alive. 00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:00.890 align:middle line:84% I was a product, or I was like a product-- 00:28:00.890 --> 00:28:07.670 align:middle line:84% a product of and like Walt Disney's cel animation, 00:28:07.670 --> 00:28:14.300 align:middle line:84% stylishly animated, somewhat comic. 00:28:14.300 --> 00:28:18.650 align:middle line:84% I used to think of myself as a fearless person. 00:28:18.650 --> 00:28:21.530 align:middle line:90% 00:28:21.530 --> 00:28:24.482 align:middle line:90% [NO AUDIO] 00:28:24.482 --> 00:28:43.680 align:middle line:90% 00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:48.660 align:middle line:84% In my dream, I apologize to everyone I meet. 00:28:48.660 --> 00:28:53.040 align:middle line:84% Instead of introducing myself, I apologize 00:28:53.040 --> 00:28:57.420 align:middle line:90% for not knowing why I am alive. 00:28:57.420 --> 00:28:59.040 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry. 00:28:59.040 --> 00:29:00.690 align:middle line:90% I am sorry. 00:29:00.690 --> 00:29:03.420 align:middle line:90% I apologize. 00:29:03.420 --> 00:29:06.810 align:middle line:84% In real life, oddly enough, when I'm fully awake 00:29:06.810 --> 00:29:10.500 align:middle line:84% and out and about, if I catch someone's eye, 00:29:10.500 --> 00:29:12.135 align:middle line:90% I quickly look away. 00:29:12.135 --> 00:29:15.930 align:middle line:90% 00:29:15.930 --> 00:29:20.100 align:middle line:84% Perhaps this, too, is a form of apology. 00:29:20.100 --> 00:29:25.470 align:middle line:84% Perhaps this is the form apologies take in real life. 00:29:25.470 --> 00:29:29.700 align:middle line:84% In real life, the looking away is the apology, 00:29:29.700 --> 00:29:32.310 align:middle line:84% despite the fact that when I look away, 00:29:32.310 --> 00:29:36.270 align:middle line:90% I almost always feel guilty. 00:29:36.270 --> 00:29:39.580 align:middle line:84% I do not feel as if I have apologized. 00:29:39.580 --> 00:29:45.060 align:middle line:84% Instead, I feel as if I have created a reason to apologize. 00:29:45.060 --> 00:29:47.640 align:middle line:84% I feel the guilt of having ignored 00:29:47.640 --> 00:29:52.020 align:middle line:90% that thing, the encounter. 00:29:52.020 --> 00:29:52.935 align:middle line:90% I could have nodded. 00:29:52.935 --> 00:29:56.210 align:middle line:90% 00:29:56.210 --> 00:29:58.970 align:middle line:84% I could have smiled without showing my teeth. 00:29:58.970 --> 00:30:04.640 align:middle line:90% 00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:09.590 align:middle line:84% In some small way, I could have wordlessly said, 00:30:09.590 --> 00:30:14.780 align:middle line:84% I see you seeing me, and I apologize 00:30:14.780 --> 00:30:17.915 align:middle line:90% for not knowing why I am alive. 00:30:17.915 --> 00:30:20.470 align:middle line:90% 00:30:20.470 --> 00:30:24.580 align:middle line:90% I am sorry, I am sorry. 00:30:24.580 --> 00:30:25.580 align:middle line:90% I apologize. 00:30:25.580 --> 00:30:28.090 align:middle line:90% 00:30:28.090 --> 00:30:32.560 align:middle line:84% Afterwards, after I have looked away, 00:30:32.560 --> 00:30:37.030 align:middle line:84% I never feel as if I can say, look. 00:30:37.030 --> 00:30:41.920 align:middle line:84% Look at me again so that I can see you, 00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:45.790 align:middle line:84% so that I can acknowledge that I have seen you, 00:30:45.790 --> 00:30:51.380 align:middle line:84% so that I can see you and apologize. 00:30:51.380 --> 00:30:54.320 align:middle line:90% [NO AUDIO] 00:30:54.320 --> 00:31:09.040 align:middle line:90% 00:31:09.040 --> 00:31:11.680 align:middle line:84% At the airport security checkpoint 00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:14.410 align:middle line:84% on the way to visit my grandmother, 00:31:14.410 --> 00:31:20.210 align:middle line:84% I'm asked to drink from my water bottle. 00:31:20.210 --> 00:31:23.360 align:middle line:90% This water bottle? 00:31:23.360 --> 00:31:25.040 align:middle line:90% That's right. 00:31:25.040 --> 00:31:27.620 align:middle line:90% Open it and drink from it. 00:31:27.620 --> 00:31:33.600 align:middle line:90% 00:31:33.600 --> 00:31:37.020 align:middle line:84% At the airport security checkpoint 00:31:37.020 --> 00:31:39.900 align:middle line:84% on the way to visit my grandmother, 00:31:39.900 --> 00:31:44.580 align:middle line:90% I am asked to take off my shoes. 00:31:44.580 --> 00:31:47.340 align:middle line:90% Take off my shoes? 00:31:47.340 --> 00:31:48.900 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:31:48.900 --> 00:31:50.010 align:middle line:90% Both, please. 00:31:50.010 --> 00:31:52.860 align:middle line:90% 00:31:52.860 --> 00:31:55.980 align:middle line:84% At the airport security checkpoint 00:31:55.980 --> 00:31:59.070 align:middle line:84% on the way to visit my grandmother, 00:31:59.070 --> 00:32:03.780 align:middle line:90% I am asked if I have a fever. 00:32:03.780 --> 00:32:07.560 align:middle line:90% A fever, really? 00:32:07.560 --> 00:32:09.525 align:middle line:90% Yes, really. 00:32:09.525 --> 00:32:14.750 align:middle line:90% 00:32:14.750 --> 00:32:18.170 align:middle line:84% My grandmother is in a nursing home. 00:32:18.170 --> 00:32:19.880 align:middle line:90% It's not bad. 00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:22.490 align:middle line:90% It doesn't smell like pee. 00:32:22.490 --> 00:32:25.520 align:middle line:90% It doesn't smell like anything. 00:32:25.520 --> 00:32:29.720 align:middle line:84% When I go to see her, as I walk through the hall 00:32:29.720 --> 00:32:32.930 align:middle line:84% past the common room and the nurse's station, 00:32:32.930 --> 00:32:39.210 align:middle line:84% old person after old person puts out her hand to me. 00:32:39.210 --> 00:32:43.370 align:middle line:90% Steven, one calls. 00:32:43.370 --> 00:32:47.390 align:middle line:90% Anne, another says. 00:32:47.390 --> 00:32:51.020 align:middle line:84% It's like being in a third world country, 00:32:51.020 --> 00:32:57.770 align:middle line:84% but instead of food or money, you are what is wanted. 00:32:57.770 --> 00:33:05.600 align:middle line:84% In third world countries, I have felt overwhelmingly American-- 00:33:05.600 --> 00:33:11.120 align:middle line:84% calcium-rich, privileged, and white. 00:33:11.120 --> 00:33:18.800 align:middle line:84% Here, I feel young, lucky, and sad. 00:33:18.800 --> 00:33:21.920 align:middle line:84% Sad is one of those words that has given up 00:33:21.920 --> 00:33:25.680 align:middle line:90% its life for our country. 00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:29.600 align:middle line:84% It's been a martyr for the American dream. 00:33:29.600 --> 00:33:33.530 align:middle line:84% It's been neutralized, co-opted by our culture, 00:33:33.530 --> 00:33:37.340 align:middle line:84% to suggest a tinge of discomfort that 00:33:37.340 --> 00:33:43.970 align:middle line:84% lasts the time it takes for this and then for that to happen, 00:33:43.970 --> 00:33:48.200 align:middle line:84% the time it takes to change a channel. 00:33:48.200 --> 00:33:54.680 align:middle line:84% But sadness is real, because once it meant something real. 00:33:54.680 --> 00:33:58.790 align:middle line:90% It meant dignified, grave. 00:33:58.790 --> 00:34:01.340 align:middle line:90% It meant trustworthy. 00:34:01.340 --> 00:34:07.670 align:middle line:84% It meant exceptionally bad, deplorable, shameful. 00:34:07.670 --> 00:34:14.210 align:middle line:84% It meant massive, weighty, forming a compact body. 00:34:14.210 --> 00:34:17.480 align:middle line:90% It meant falling heavily. 00:34:17.480 --> 00:34:21.949 align:middle line:90% And it meant of a color, dark. 00:34:21.949 --> 00:34:26.659 align:middle line:84% It meant dark in color, to darken. 00:34:26.659 --> 00:34:28.730 align:middle line:90% It meant me. 00:34:28.730 --> 00:34:30.589 align:middle line:90% I felt sad. 00:34:30.589 --> 00:34:33.450 align:middle line:90% 00:34:33.450 --> 00:34:36.342 align:middle line:90% [NO AUDIO] 00:34:36.342 --> 00:34:42.969 align:middle line:90% 00:34:42.969 --> 00:34:45.550 align:middle line:84% Homi Bhabha, also in The Location of Culture, 00:34:45.550 --> 00:34:53.530 align:middle line:84% says that certain absences are so stressed that they arrest us 00:34:53.530 --> 00:34:57.130 align:middle line:84% with their intentionality and purpose, 00:34:57.130 --> 00:35:01.480 align:middle line:84% like neighborhoods that are defined by the population held 00:35:01.480 --> 00:35:04.330 align:middle line:90% away from them. 00:35:04.330 --> 00:35:06.820 align:middle line:84% The shadow of the presence-- where 00:35:06.820 --> 00:35:11.425 align:middle line:84% is the shadow of the presence from which the text has fled? 00:35:11.425 --> 00:35:14.380 align:middle line:90% 00:35:14.380 --> 00:35:17.620 align:middle line:84% The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of South 00:35:17.620 --> 00:35:26.020 align:middle line:84% Africa, Alcon Laboratories Limited, Bayer Limited, 00:35:26.020 --> 00:35:33.490 align:middle line:84% Bristol-Meyers Squibb Limited, BYK Madras Limited, 00:35:33.490 --> 00:35:41.740 align:middle line:84% Eli Lilly Limited, Glaxco Welcome Limited, 00:35:41.740 --> 00:35:46.360 align:middle line:84% Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Limited, 00:35:46.360 --> 00:35:51.310 align:middle line:84% Janssen-Cilag Pharmaceutical Limited, 00:35:51.310 --> 00:35:58.660 align:middle line:84% No Pharmaceuticals South Africa Limited, Lundbeck South Africa 00:35:58.660 --> 00:36:08.740 align:middle line:84% Limited, Merck Limited, MSD Limited, Novartis South Africa 00:36:08.740 --> 00:36:14.950 align:middle line:84% Limited, Pharmaceutica and Upjohn Limited, 00:36:14.950 --> 00:36:22.420 align:middle line:84% Roche Products Limited, SA Scientific Pharmaceuticals 00:36:22.420 --> 00:36:28.690 align:middle line:84% Limited, Universal Pharmaceuticals Limited, 00:36:28.690 --> 00:36:34.180 align:middle line:90% WIAT Limited, Bayer Limited. 00:36:34.180 --> 00:36:38.140 align:middle line:90% 00:36:38.140 --> 00:36:40.300 align:middle line:84% Or over breakfast, the New York Times 00:36:40.300 --> 00:36:44.410 align:middle line:84% is barely visible between the boxes of cereal juice and milk. 00:36:44.410 --> 00:36:46.930 align:middle line:84% But because I have been waiting for this day 00:36:46.930 --> 00:36:49.720 align:middle line:84% without realizing I was waiting, I 00:36:49.720 --> 00:36:52.810 align:middle line:90% see the story at first glance. 00:36:52.810 --> 00:36:56.350 align:middle line:84% President Mbeki has decided antiretrovirals 00:36:56.350 --> 00:36:58.900 align:middle line:84% will be made available to the five million 00:36:58.900 --> 00:37:04.570 align:middle line:84% South Africans infected by the HIV virus. 00:37:04.570 --> 00:37:06.910 align:middle line:90% My body relaxes. 00:37:06.910 --> 00:37:09.700 align:middle line:90% My shoulders fall back. 00:37:09.700 --> 00:37:14.470 align:middle line:84% I had not known that my distress over Mbeki's previous position 00:37:14.470 --> 00:37:17.200 align:middle line:84% against distribution of the drugs 00:37:17.200 --> 00:37:22.840 align:middle line:84% had physically lodged itself like a virus within me. 00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:25.870 align:middle line:84% Before Mbeki, 39 drug companies filed suit 00:37:25.870 --> 00:37:29.170 align:middle line:84% in order to prevent South Africa's manufacture 00:37:29.170 --> 00:37:32.230 align:middle line:90% of generic AIDS drugs. 00:37:32.230 --> 00:37:35.780 align:middle line:84% Possible trade sanctions were threatened, 00:37:35.780 --> 00:37:38.770 align:middle line:84% then President Clinton did an about face and the lawsuit 00:37:38.770 --> 00:37:40.450 align:middle line:90% was dismissed. 00:37:40.450 --> 00:37:43.450 align:middle line:84% But like an absurdist dream, Mbeki 00:37:43.450 --> 00:37:49.570 align:middle line:84% stood between the now available drugs and the dying. 00:37:49.570 --> 00:37:54.370 align:middle line:84% It is not possible to communicate how useless, 00:37:54.370 --> 00:38:00.700 align:middle line:84% how much like a skin sack of uselessness I felt. 00:38:00.700 --> 00:38:03.610 align:middle line:90% I am better than thou art now. 00:38:03.610 --> 00:38:07.630 align:middle line:90% I am a fool, the fool said. 00:38:07.630 --> 00:38:10.780 align:middle line:90% Thou art nothing. 00:38:10.780 --> 00:38:12.790 align:middle line:90% Is she dead? 00:38:12.790 --> 00:38:14.920 align:middle line:90% Is he dead? 00:38:14.920 --> 00:38:19.150 align:middle line:90% Yes, they're dead. 00:38:19.150 --> 00:38:21.190 align:middle line:90% One observes. 00:38:21.190 --> 00:38:24.940 align:middle line:84% One recognizes without being recognized. 00:38:24.940 --> 00:38:27.160 align:middle line:90% One opens the paper. 00:38:27.160 --> 00:38:30.010 align:middle line:90% One turns on the television. 00:38:30.010 --> 00:38:32.590 align:middle line:90% Nothing changes. 00:38:32.590 --> 00:38:35.980 align:middle line:90% My distress grows into nothing. 00:38:35.980 --> 00:38:39.460 align:middle line:90% Thou art nothing. 00:38:39.460 --> 00:38:44.470 align:middle line:84% Such distress moved in with muscle and bone, its entrance 00:38:44.470 --> 00:38:47.590 align:middle line:84% by necessity slowly translated my already 00:38:47.590 --> 00:38:53.770 align:middle line:84% grief into a tremendously exhausted hope. 00:38:53.770 --> 00:38:58.210 align:middle line:84% The translation occurred unconsciously, perhaps occurred 00:38:58.210 --> 00:39:01.270 align:middle line:90% simply because I am alive. 00:39:01.270 --> 00:39:05.140 align:middle line:84% The translation occurs as a form of life. 00:39:05.140 --> 00:39:09.910 align:middle line:84% Then life, which seems so full of waiting, 00:39:09.910 --> 00:39:14.065 align:middle line:84% awakes suddenly into a life of hope. 00:39:14.065 --> 00:39:16.740 align:middle line:90% 00:39:16.740 --> 00:39:22.620 align:middle line:84% Life is a form of hope, if you are hopeful. 00:39:22.620 --> 00:39:26.400 align:middle line:84% Maybe hope is the same as birth, part of what 00:39:26.400 --> 00:39:30.330 align:middle line:90% it means to be human and alive. 00:39:30.330 --> 00:39:35.610 align:middle line:84% Or maybe hoping is the same as waiting. 00:39:35.610 --> 00:39:38.850 align:middle line:90% It can be futile. 00:39:38.850 --> 00:39:41.640 align:middle line:90% Waiting for what? 00:39:41.640 --> 00:39:44.670 align:middle line:90% For life to begin. 00:39:44.670 --> 00:39:50.490 align:middle line:84% I am here, and I am still lonely. 00:39:50.490 --> 00:39:57.735 align:middle line:90% And I will close with this. 00:39:57.735 --> 00:40:00.560 align:middle line:90% 00:40:00.560 --> 00:40:03.464 align:middle line:90% [NO AUDIO] 00:40:03.464 --> 00:40:11.700 align:middle line:90% 00:40:11.700 --> 00:40:16.050 align:middle line:84% I would have to drink five more cups of coffee a day 00:40:16.050 --> 00:40:22.080 align:middle line:84% to reduce my chances of getting type 2 diabetes. 00:40:22.080 --> 00:40:25.980 align:middle line:84% I usually have one cup in the morning. 00:40:25.980 --> 00:40:29.340 align:middle line:84% Today, I'm staring into a possible second cup, 00:40:29.340 --> 00:40:32.880 align:middle line:84% and I do not see my husband's expression 00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:36.105 align:middle line:84% when I tell him about the darkness and the curtain. 00:40:36.105 --> 00:40:38.610 align:middle line:90% 00:40:38.610 --> 00:40:40.080 align:middle line:90% I have a dream. 00:40:40.080 --> 00:40:43.290 align:middle line:84% Or rather, in my dream, the lights 00:40:43.290 --> 00:40:46.140 align:middle line:90% are out in New York City. 00:40:46.140 --> 00:40:49.230 align:middle line:84% They're out because they were out. 00:40:49.230 --> 00:40:53.550 align:middle line:84% Even inside the dream, I know I am dreaming. 00:40:53.550 --> 00:40:57.720 align:middle line:84% The events of my dream are a form of my basis. 00:40:57.720 --> 00:41:00.600 align:middle line:84% The darkness that accompanied the blackout 00:41:00.600 --> 00:41:06.360 align:middle line:84% existed, but does not now in the world outside the dream. 00:41:06.360 --> 00:41:10.320 align:middle line:84% In my dream, the lights are out because I cannot see ahead 00:41:10.320 --> 00:41:13.170 align:middle line:90% of me. 00:41:13.170 --> 00:41:18.600 align:middle line:84% Or in this dark dream, I am looking for a chance. 00:41:18.600 --> 00:41:27.520 align:middle line:84% My chance to or my chance for, it is not clear. 00:41:27.520 --> 00:41:34.530 align:middle line:84% Then, where I am going or what I want is behind a black curtain. 00:41:34.530 --> 00:41:39.540 align:middle line:84% But it is so dark, the curtain becomes the night. 00:41:39.540 --> 00:41:43.990 align:middle line:84% I want to fall asleep inside my dream. 00:41:43.990 --> 00:41:47.610 align:middle line:84% This wish for further paralysis wakes me. 00:41:47.610 --> 00:41:50.190 align:middle line:90% 00:41:50.190 --> 00:41:56.010 align:middle line:84% You think voting won't make a difference, says my husband. 00:41:56.010 --> 00:41:59.430 align:middle line:84% This might be a wise thing to think. 00:41:59.430 --> 00:42:03.390 align:middle line:84% He says all this without lifting his gaze from the morning 00:42:03.390 --> 00:42:05.850 align:middle line:90% paper. 00:42:05.850 --> 00:42:09.180 align:middle line:84% My dream is about a voting booth? 00:42:09.180 --> 00:42:11.920 align:middle line:90% I am not convinced. 00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:15.570 align:middle line:84% He is not interested in convincing me. 00:42:15.570 --> 00:42:20.010 align:middle line:84% He is reading about the candidates for the presidency. 00:42:20.010 --> 00:42:23.070 align:middle line:84% He is wondering if voting against someone 00:42:23.070 --> 00:42:30.600 align:middle line:84% is enough to drag a country away from its inevitable course. 00:42:30.600 --> 00:42:33.840 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, you read something and a thought that 00:42:33.840 --> 00:42:36.150 align:middle line:84% was floating around in your veins 00:42:36.150 --> 00:42:41.670 align:middle line:84% organizes itself into the sentence that reflects it. 00:42:41.670 --> 00:42:46.980 align:middle line:84% This might also be a form of dreaming. 00:42:46.980 --> 00:42:50.040 align:middle line:84% Or I remember that the last two sentences 00:42:50.040 --> 00:42:53.520 align:middle line:84% I read in Fanny Howe's Tis of Thee 00:42:53.520 --> 00:42:57.570 align:middle line:84% before falling asleep the previous night were, 00:42:57.570 --> 00:43:03.250 align:middle line:84% "I learned to renounce a sense of independence by degrees 00:43:03.250 --> 00:43:08.520 align:middle line:84% and finally felt defeated by the times I lived in, 00:43:08.520 --> 00:43:12.360 align:middle line:90% obedient to them." 00:43:12.360 --> 00:43:16.350 align:middle line:84% Or, well, I tried to fit language 00:43:16.350 --> 00:43:19.470 align:middle line:90% into the shape of usefulness. 00:43:19.470 --> 00:43:21.450 align:middle line:84% The world moves through words, as 00:43:21.450 --> 00:43:26.700 align:middle line:84% if the bodies the words reflect did not exist. 00:43:26.700 --> 00:43:30.120 align:middle line:84% The world like a giant liver receives 00:43:30.120 --> 00:43:35.010 align:middle line:84% everyone and everything, including these words. 00:43:35.010 --> 00:43:36.870 align:middle line:90% Is he dead? 00:43:36.870 --> 00:43:38.880 align:middle line:90% Is she dead? 00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:42.240 align:middle line:84% The words remain an inscription on the surface 00:43:42.240 --> 00:43:44.940 align:middle line:90% of my loneliness. 00:43:44.940 --> 00:43:50.310 align:middle line:84% This loneliness stems from a feeling of uselessness. 00:43:50.310 --> 00:43:54.420 align:middle line:84% Then, Coetzee's Costello says in her fictional lecture, 00:43:54.420 --> 00:43:59.820 align:middle line:84% for instance, at a time, I know what it is like to be a corpse. 00:43:59.820 --> 00:44:02.490 align:middle line:90% 00:44:02.490 --> 00:44:06.450 align:middle line:84% Or Paul Celan said that the poem was no different 00:44:06.450 --> 00:44:08.910 align:middle line:90% from a handshake. 00:44:08.910 --> 00:44:12.510 align:middle line:84% I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake 00:44:12.510 --> 00:44:18.870 align:middle line:84% and a poem, is how Rosmarie Waldrop translated his German. 00:44:18.870 --> 00:44:21.720 align:middle line:84% The handshake is our decided ritual 00:44:21.720 --> 00:44:27.810 align:middle line:84% of both asserting I am here and handing over 00:44:27.810 --> 00:44:32.610 align:middle line:90% here a self to another. 00:44:32.610 --> 00:44:35.250 align:middle line:90% Hence, the poem is that. 00:44:35.250 --> 00:44:39.060 align:middle line:90% Here, I am here. 00:44:39.060 --> 00:44:42.150 align:middle line:84% This conflation of the solidity of presence 00:44:42.150 --> 00:44:45.370 align:middle line:84% with the offering of this same presence 00:44:45.370 --> 00:44:52.290 align:middle line:84% perhaps has everything to do with being alive. 00:44:52.290 --> 00:44:59.160 align:middle line:84% Or one meaning of here is in this world, in this life, 00:44:59.160 --> 00:45:04.740 align:middle line:84% on Earth, in this place or position, indicating 00:45:04.740 --> 00:45:07.770 align:middle line:90% the presence of. 00:45:07.770 --> 00:45:12.360 align:middle line:90% Or in other words, I am here. 00:45:12.360 --> 00:45:17.190 align:middle line:84% It also means to hand something to somebody. 00:45:17.190 --> 00:45:19.890 align:middle line:90% Here you are. 00:45:19.890 --> 00:45:23.400 align:middle line:90% Here, he said to her. 00:45:23.400 --> 00:45:30.270 align:middle line:84% Here both recognizes and demands recognition. 00:45:30.270 --> 00:45:37.230 align:middle line:84% I see you, or here, he said to her. 00:45:37.230 --> 00:45:43.290 align:middle line:84% In order for something to be handed over, a hand must extend 00:45:43.290 --> 00:45:46.970 align:middle line:90% and a hand must receive. 00:45:46.970 --> 00:45:51.660 align:middle line:84% We must both be here in this world, 00:45:51.660 --> 00:46:00.230 align:middle line:84% in this life, in this place, indicating the presence of. 00:46:00.230 --> 00:46:02.110 align:middle line:90% Thank you.