WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.670 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.670 --> 00:00:01.170 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:01.170 --> 00:00:04.500 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.500 --> 00:00:05.430 align:middle line:90% How much longer? 00:00:05.430 --> 00:00:09.230 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:00:09.230 --> 00:00:09.860 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:00:09.860 --> 00:00:17.430 align:middle line:90% 00:00:17.430 --> 00:00:20.970 align:middle line:84% This poem-- well, so that poem is just short. 00:00:20.970 --> 00:00:24.390 align:middle line:84% Sometimes you get asked as a poet 00:00:24.390 --> 00:00:30.330 align:middle line:84% to read at some kind of fancy event like at the Disney Opera 00:00:30.330 --> 00:00:31.710 align:middle line:90% Hall downtown. 00:00:31.710 --> 00:00:35.700 align:middle line:84% And then you're all proud, and you're like, wow, $500 just 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:37.280 align:middle line:90% to read one poem? 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:43.410 align:middle line:84% And then you go there because it's the Disney Hall, though. 00:00:43.410 --> 00:00:46.530 align:middle line:84% And then when they see you they're like, oh, yeah, 00:00:46.530 --> 00:00:49.760 align:middle line:90% we invited a poet. 00:00:49.760 --> 00:00:53.640 align:middle line:84% Can you keep it to three minutes? 00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:56.105 align:middle line:84% And then I'm like, I could keep it to one minute. 00:00:56.105 --> 00:00:58.610 align:middle line:90% 00:00:58.610 --> 00:01:02.330 align:middle line:84% And just read that short poem, and that's it. 00:01:02.330 --> 00:01:03.170 align:middle line:90% Get out of there. 00:01:03.170 --> 00:01:05.810 align:middle line:90% 00:01:05.810 --> 00:01:07.760 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:11.720 align:middle line:84% This poem is a plug for my friend Lisa Chen's new novel. 00:01:11.720 --> 00:01:13.680 align:middle line:90% I want you to check it out. 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:17.840 align:middle line:84% It's called Activities of Daily Living, ADOL, 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:24.920 align:middle line:84% which is a term like a convalescent facility term that 00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:29.390 align:middle line:84% indicates the level of disability that handicapped 00:01:29.390 --> 00:01:33.770 align:middle line:84% or disabled people, or injured people, 00:01:33.770 --> 00:01:41.570 align:middle line:84% or elderly people suffer from when they cannot do those 00:01:41.570 --> 00:01:45.400 align:middle line:84% activities of daily living like tie your shoes, 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:47.980 align:middle line:84% walk to the bathroom, stuff like that. 00:01:47.980 --> 00:01:50.860 align:middle line:90% Her book is about that. 00:01:50.860 --> 00:01:53.560 align:middle line:84% Her book is about her activities of daily living 00:01:53.560 --> 00:02:03.150 align:middle line:84% partly as a caretaker to her aging and dying stepdad. 00:02:03.150 --> 00:02:04.455 align:middle line:90% So her book is about that. 00:02:04.455 --> 00:02:08.280 align:middle line:90% 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:16.120 align:middle line:84% It's not really a sad book or whatever. 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:18.580 align:middle line:84% It is a kind of serious contemplation 00:02:18.580 --> 00:02:24.440 align:middle line:84% of daily activities in the face of your own mortality, 00:02:24.440 --> 00:02:26.430 align:middle line:90% in the face of time passing. 00:02:26.430 --> 00:02:27.500 align:middle line:90% So check it out. 00:02:27.500 --> 00:02:31.250 align:middle line:84% Lisa Chen, she's mentioned in this poem. 00:02:31.250 --> 00:02:34.250 align:middle line:90% 00:02:34.250 --> 00:02:36.480 align:middle line:90% Yeah, you'll see. 00:02:36.480 --> 00:02:39.690 align:middle line:84% "I met Tede Matthews when he was enthused, 00:02:39.690 --> 00:02:45.060 align:middle line:84% pale, and sweating in Nicaragua in '87 or '89 at events 00:02:45.060 --> 00:02:49.700 align:middle line:84% hosted by Ernesto Cardenal's ministry of culture. 00:02:49.700 --> 00:02:51.980 align:middle line:84% Tede worked for Modern Times bookstore 00:02:51.980 --> 00:02:56.780 align:middle line:84% in San Francisco, a gay activist with an anti-war agenda. 00:02:56.780 --> 00:02:59.180 align:middle line:84% Years later, I heard he died of AIDS. 00:02:59.180 --> 00:03:00.740 align:middle line:90% Hey, you remember Tede? 00:03:00.740 --> 00:03:05.750 align:middle line:84% Eulogized as an agitator, energizer, heart beating 00:03:05.750 --> 00:03:08.170 align:middle line:90% in the mission. 00:03:08.170 --> 00:03:13.120 align:middle line:84% 20 years, later Lisa sends me Ishmael Reed's first book 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:15.910 align:middle line:84% of poetry, Conjure, she bought last week 00:03:15.910 --> 00:03:18.260 align:middle line:84% in the used bookstore in San Francisco. 00:03:18.260 --> 00:03:23.590 align:middle line:84% And in the upper corner of the first page, in his handwriting, 00:03:23.590 --> 00:03:29.240 align:middle line:84% it says 'Tede Matthews.'" So there. 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:30.910 align:middle line:90% All right.