WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.960 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:05.130 align:middle line:84% "Driving from Anchorage to Homer takes just over 4 hours. 00:00:05.130 --> 00:00:08.130 align:middle line:84% As I arrive, I'm listening to an episode of This American 00:00:08.130 --> 00:00:11.430 align:middle line:84% Life, in which Jelani Cobb talks about the activists 00:00:11.430 --> 00:00:15.780 align:middle line:84% from Ferguson who have died mysterious, violent deaths. 00:00:15.780 --> 00:00:18.060 align:middle line:84% This listening overlays the coastline 00:00:18.060 --> 00:00:20.160 align:middle line:84% and the ice-covered mountains, now 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:24.690 align:middle line:84% visible across the pristine bay, with burning cars. 00:00:24.690 --> 00:00:26.670 align:middle line:84% A woman speaks of death threats while I 00:00:26.670 --> 00:00:30.600 align:middle line:84% drive past a sign that says, welcome to Homer. 00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:34.230 align:middle line:84% Shaggy, off the side of the road, that's a moose. 00:00:34.230 --> 00:00:36.750 align:middle line:84% Where exactly have I driven myself?" 00:00:36.750 --> 00:00:39.060 align:middle line:84% I feel like Tucson has a Homer connection. 00:00:39.060 --> 00:00:42.790 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of people here who spend time there. 00:00:42.790 --> 00:00:46.620 align:middle line:84% So if Homer is familiar to you, welcome 00:00:46.620 --> 00:00:50.850 align:middle line:90% to this interpretation of it. 00:00:50.850 --> 00:00:53.610 align:middle line:84% "In a gray journal I've jotted down, go back, 00:00:53.610 --> 00:00:57.000 align:middle line:84% recreate a space you can't return to. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.250 align:middle line:84% On the plane ride over, two white men 00:00:59.250 --> 00:01:02.310 align:middle line:84% discuss the Illuminati loudly, a conspiracy 00:01:02.310 --> 00:01:05.069 align:middle line:84% about the left that the president has been retweeting." 00:01:05.069 --> 00:01:07.950 align:middle line:90% This was in the last presidency. 00:01:07.950 --> 00:01:10.620 align:middle line:84% "I was sitting across from them in the last row in front 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:13.110 align:middle line:84% of the bathroom and people pushed their bodies 00:01:13.110 --> 00:01:17.040 align:middle line:84% into my face while moving by with such pillow-like ferocity, 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:19.500 align:middle line:90% such sparse apology. 00:01:19.500 --> 00:01:22.410 align:middle line:84% It was best to pretend it wasn't happening. 00:01:22.410 --> 00:01:24.480 align:middle line:84% It was like something Marina Abramovic 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:25.995 align:middle line:90% might ask people to do to her. 00:01:25.995 --> 00:01:28.500 align:middle line:90% 00:01:28.500 --> 00:01:30.210 align:middle line:84% My first night in Homer, I dreamed 00:01:30.210 --> 00:01:32.520 align:middle line:84% there are flashlights beaming into the windows 00:01:32.520 --> 00:01:33.930 align:middle line:90% of the tiny house. 00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:37.200 align:middle line:84% My dream self tries to call my Airbnb host, 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:40.110 align:middle line:84% then slinks down from the loft to see out the window 00:01:40.110 --> 00:01:43.680 align:middle line:84% that there are small monkeys who are also the cast of a show I 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:45.330 align:middle line:90% can't quite recall. 00:01:45.330 --> 00:01:47.520 align:middle line:90% I take pictures of them. 00:01:47.520 --> 00:01:49.950 align:middle line:84% A student recently explained that you're only 00:01:49.950 --> 00:01:53.010 align:middle line:84% allowed to write about dreams once in your writing life. 00:01:53.010 --> 00:01:55.125 align:middle line:84% I blurted back, that's for fiction. 00:01:55.125 --> 00:01:58.350 align:middle line:90% 00:01:58.350 --> 00:02:02.040 align:middle line:84% This manuscript has become a grid of small white rectangles 00:02:02.040 --> 00:02:03.570 align:middle line:90% on my kitchen table. 00:02:03.570 --> 00:02:06.340 align:middle line:84% I've left space between some of the rectangles. 00:02:06.340 --> 00:02:09.419 align:middle line:84% And now, I'm making collages to better visualize 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:12.120 align:middle line:90% what those spaces might be for. 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:15.090 align:middle line:84% Some might call this procrastination. 00:02:15.090 --> 00:02:17.700 align:middle line:84% I've cut around the billow of a pink explosion 00:02:17.700 --> 00:02:20.100 align:middle line:84% and layered it on top of a gray square. 00:02:20.100 --> 00:02:23.430 align:middle line:84% There's a jolt of blue alongside an oval made 00:02:23.430 --> 00:02:25.230 align:middle line:90% of cotton-candy-hued beach sand. 00:02:25.230 --> 00:02:28.160 align:middle line:90% 00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:31.460 align:middle line:84% In Homer, I drive down the spit, a stretch of land 00:02:31.460 --> 00:02:33.650 align:middle line:84% that curves like a sloppy Spiral Jetty 00:02:33.650 --> 00:02:36.710 align:middle line:84% into the bay, covered in bald eagles. 00:02:36.710 --> 00:02:39.320 align:middle line:84% I drive slowly, remembering the play I once 00:02:39.320 --> 00:02:42.560 align:middle line:84% saw in a red playhouse called The Electric Kool-Aid Antacid 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:43.490 align:middle line:90% Test. 00:02:43.490 --> 00:02:46.760 align:middle line:84% It was like watching Christopher Guest live. 00:02:46.760 --> 00:02:49.430 align:middle line:84% There's an almost carnivalesque area 00:02:49.430 --> 00:02:54.770 align:middle line:84% with a disintegrating ship and piles of colorful ship stuff." 00:02:54.770 --> 00:02:56.600 align:middle line:84% I have a really strong vocabulary 00:02:56.600 --> 00:03:00.860 align:middle line:84% for describing things that you find on a dock. 00:03:00.860 --> 00:03:05.150 align:middle line:84% "Then two rows of shops facing each other, a ferry terminal, 00:03:05.150 --> 00:03:07.160 align:middle line:90% a huge Chinese restaurant. 00:03:07.160 --> 00:03:11.330 align:middle line:84% You can buy art, and candy, and Indigenous halibut hooks. 00:03:11.330 --> 00:03:13.430 align:middle line:84% I've spent three summers here with women 00:03:13.430 --> 00:03:17.870 align:middle line:84% I've dated without access or much access to a car. 00:03:17.870 --> 00:03:19.930 align:middle line:84% I marvel at how many miles we walked 00:03:19.930 --> 00:03:23.700 align:middle line:84% or biked to get to a tent or a cabin with no running water. 00:03:23.700 --> 00:03:26.060 align:middle line:84% Now I drive a compact rental car and stay 00:03:26.060 --> 00:03:30.140 align:middle line:84% in a tiny house that has been decorated with, I imagine, 00:03:30.140 --> 00:03:34.010 align:middle line:84% the guidance of Chip and Joanna Gaines." 00:03:34.010 --> 00:03:37.940 align:middle line:84% A lot of HGTV people here, I like it. 00:03:37.940 --> 00:03:42.440 align:middle line:84% "The floors are that gray, brown wood popularized by HGTV. 00:03:42.440 --> 00:03:44.900 align:middle line:84% There's a sconce with fake flowers. 00:03:44.900 --> 00:03:48.410 align:middle line:84% There is a small loft up a set of steep stairs. 00:03:48.410 --> 00:03:51.650 align:middle line:84% There's just enough room for a couch along the windows, 00:03:51.650 --> 00:03:54.470 align:middle line:90% punctuated by a small table. 00:03:54.470 --> 00:03:56.900 align:middle line:84% A heater that is meant to look old-timey lurks 00:03:56.900 --> 00:03:59.600 align:middle line:84% underneath the stairs, a bathroom 00:03:59.600 --> 00:04:03.230 align:middle line:84% beyond the kitchen with a bounty of clean, white towels. 00:04:03.230 --> 00:04:06.080 align:middle line:84% I lay copies of Lorna Simpson's paintings 00:04:06.080 --> 00:04:08.660 align:middle line:90% on the couch like an altar. 00:04:08.660 --> 00:04:11.000 align:middle line:84% All along the spit, Sinatra sings 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:13.710 align:middle line:90% When I Was 17 on the car radio. 00:04:13.710 --> 00:04:17.550 align:middle line:84% It is a very slow song like an empty dance floor. 00:04:17.550 --> 00:04:18.740 align:middle line:90% It is lonely. 00:04:18.740 --> 00:04:22.340 align:middle line:84% And it supposes that 35 is the last point in this man's life 00:04:22.340 --> 00:04:24.470 align:middle line:90% you will ever feel young. 00:04:24.470 --> 00:04:28.460 align:middle line:84% I feel all of my ages now, imagining those selves walking 00:04:28.460 --> 00:04:31.520 align:middle line:84% or biking along the water's edge. 00:04:31.520 --> 00:04:34.070 align:middle line:84% If I were going to choose a quotation 00:04:34.070 --> 00:04:37.460 align:middle line:84% to describe my relationship to this place, 00:04:37.460 --> 00:04:40.910 align:middle line:84% it would be this from Renee Gladman, quote, 00:04:40.910 --> 00:04:43.430 align:middle line:84% 'I began the day asking the individuals 00:04:43.430 --> 00:04:47.360 align:middle line:84% of this group of my ex-lovers to map a problem of space, 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:48.950 align:middle line:84% but not the problem that involved 00:04:48.950 --> 00:04:51.830 align:middle line:84% the anxiety of whether they could or could not draw, 00:04:51.830 --> 00:04:54.800 align:middle line:84% nor the one that asked how it was even possible to translate 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:56.600 align:middle line:90% problems into lines. 00:04:56.600 --> 00:05:00.200 align:middle line:84% Rather, I meant real problems where you had to think about 00:05:00.200 --> 00:05:03.500 align:middle line:84% where you were in a defined space and what your purpose was 00:05:03.500 --> 00:05:06.750 align:middle line:90% for being there.' 00:05:06.750 --> 00:05:10.230 align:middle line:84% I asked out K, my college girlfriend, with a quote 00:05:10.230 --> 00:05:12.720 align:middle line:90% from the film Crossing Delancey. 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:15.540 align:middle line:84% I crafted courtly emails in a rush of adrenaline 00:05:15.540 --> 00:05:17.550 align:middle line:90% to entertain my friends. 00:05:17.550 --> 00:05:20.190 align:middle line:84% On our first date we drink sweet, hot beverages 00:05:20.190 --> 00:05:23.530 align:middle line:84% at a quiet bar in our small, midwestern town. 00:05:23.530 --> 00:05:25.590 align:middle line:84% Someone was wearing cowboy boots. 00:05:25.590 --> 00:05:27.390 align:middle line:90% It was me. 00:05:27.390 --> 00:05:29.970 align:middle line:90% After the first--" Thanks, Lisa. 00:05:29.970 --> 00:05:32.820 align:middle line:90% 00:05:32.820 --> 00:05:35.310 align:middle line:90% I lost my place. 00:05:35.310 --> 00:05:37.050 align:middle line:84% "After the first night at her co-op, 00:05:37.050 --> 00:05:40.740 align:middle line:84% I woke to go to the printmaking studio, high off of her, 00:05:40.740 --> 00:05:43.380 align:middle line:84% living out a scene from the movie I had and had not 00:05:43.380 --> 00:05:46.620 align:middle line:84% imagined for my life, rumpled sheets, morning 00:05:46.620 --> 00:05:50.460 align:middle line:90% light, and an empty art space. 00:05:50.460 --> 00:05:52.920 align:middle line:84% After we graduated, she moved to Alaska, 00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:55.200 align:middle line:84% lived through a rose and slate-skied winter 00:05:55.200 --> 00:05:58.360 align:middle line:84% with her best friend in a cabin with no running water. 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:01.110 align:middle line:84% She had a day job, assisting a dog musher. 00:06:01.110 --> 00:06:03.780 align:middle line:84% We were on again, off again when she got a dog 00:06:03.780 --> 00:06:06.900 align:middle line:84% and named him after a tropical bird. 00:06:06.900 --> 00:06:09.930 align:middle line:84% I moved home to California and had panic attacks, 00:06:09.930 --> 00:06:12.660 align:middle line:84% looping the golf course where sometimes I 00:06:12.660 --> 00:06:15.240 align:middle line:90% might jog past Dustin Hoffman. 00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:17.940 align:middle line:84% I looked at the ocean a lot, and worked at a bookstore 00:06:17.940 --> 00:06:22.290 align:middle line:84% in a mall, and cried constantly in the self-help section. 00:06:22.290 --> 00:06:26.010 align:middle line:84% I boarded a flight from Montana to Los Angeles when suddenly, I 00:06:26.010 --> 00:06:28.200 align:middle line:84% got the idea to get off the plane 00:06:28.200 --> 00:06:30.570 align:middle line:90% and buy a ticket to Alaska. 00:06:30.570 --> 00:06:33.630 align:middle line:84% I kept unbuckling my seat belt, thinking 00:06:33.630 --> 00:06:35.430 align:middle line:84% I would march down the gangplank, 00:06:35.430 --> 00:06:38.250 align:middle line:84% go up to the counter, and fly to Fairbanks. 00:06:38.250 --> 00:06:39.900 align:middle line:90% It was the middle of winter. 00:06:39.900 --> 00:06:43.920 align:middle line:84% I had no coat much as I do now because I came from Michigan 00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:47.190 align:middle line:84% and forgot that it's cold at night in the desert. 00:06:47.190 --> 00:06:50.580 align:middle line:84% So the thin white man next to me turned slowly 00:06:50.580 --> 00:06:52.320 align:middle line:90% and asked if I was OK. 00:06:52.320 --> 00:06:54.570 align:middle line:90% I kept rising to disembark. 00:06:54.570 --> 00:06:57.450 align:middle line:84% For some reason, I told him everything. 00:06:57.450 --> 00:07:00.870 align:middle line:84% He listened calmly and suggested my relationship with K 00:07:00.870 --> 00:07:05.460 align:middle line:84% was not contingent on me flying to Alaska on a whim. 00:07:05.460 --> 00:07:07.680 align:middle line:84% I flew back to my parents' apartment. 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:09.600 align:middle line:84% I thought I might be a nanny in France 00:07:09.600 --> 00:07:12.390 align:middle line:84% and was saving money without making any plans. 00:07:12.390 --> 00:07:15.240 align:middle line:84% One day after hearing a friend's roommate had moved out, 00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:18.420 align:middle line:84% I asked my manager if I could transfer to another bookstore, 00:07:18.420 --> 00:07:21.150 align:middle line:90% and moved on a whim to Boston. 00:07:21.150 --> 00:07:24.060 align:middle line:84% When K invited me to spend the summer with her and Homer, 00:07:24.060 --> 00:07:26.190 align:middle line:90% we'd been on a long pause. 00:07:26.190 --> 00:07:28.860 align:middle line:84% It was a gorgeous depression of winter. 00:07:28.860 --> 00:07:31.860 align:middle line:84% I walked to the bookstore, modeled with my clothes 00:07:31.860 --> 00:07:34.590 align:middle line:84% on for a drawing class near the Alewife stop 00:07:34.590 --> 00:07:37.710 align:middle line:84% at the end of the Red Line, saw Eternal Sunshine 00:07:37.710 --> 00:07:40.050 align:middle line:84% of the Spotless Mind in the theater. 00:07:40.050 --> 00:07:41.760 align:middle line:84% I was sleeping with a coworker who 00:07:41.760 --> 00:07:45.810 align:middle line:84% had freckles and the most delicious gap in her teeth. 00:07:45.810 --> 00:07:48.750 align:middle line:84% In Kinds of Water by Anne Carson, 00:07:48.750 --> 00:07:51.780 align:middle line:84% the speaker describes a pilgrimage along the road 00:07:51.780 --> 00:07:53.340 align:middle line:90% to Compostela. 00:07:53.340 --> 00:07:56.250 align:middle line:84% She writes about a river underneath her hotel window 00:07:56.250 --> 00:07:59.100 align:middle line:84% with a big waterfall, quote, 'There 00:07:59.100 --> 00:08:01.140 align:middle line:84% is a dark shape at the edge of the falls 00:08:01.140 --> 00:08:03.390 align:middle line:84% as I look down, knocking this way and that 00:08:03.390 --> 00:08:04.980 align:middle line:90% in the force of the current. 00:08:04.980 --> 00:08:07.230 align:middle line:84% It would seem to be a drowned dog. 00:08:07.230 --> 00:08:09.240 align:middle line:90% It is a drowned dog.' 00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:11.730 align:middle line:84% She goes back and forth about it, quote, 00:08:11.730 --> 00:08:14.340 align:middle line:84% 'Could there be a sculpture of a drowned dog on the ledge 00:08:14.340 --> 00:08:16.920 align:middle line:90% of an ancient waterfall?' 00:08:16.920 --> 00:08:18.360 align:middle line:90% End quote. 00:08:18.360 --> 00:08:19.920 align:middle line:84% The first time I read this passage, 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:22.050 align:middle line:84% I felt quite positive it was about the time 00:08:22.050 --> 00:08:24.180 align:middle line:84% when I sat with K at a restaurant 00:08:24.180 --> 00:08:26.640 align:middle line:90% alongside a river in Fairbanks. 00:08:26.640 --> 00:08:28.410 align:middle line:90% There was no dead dog. 00:08:28.410 --> 00:08:30.420 align:middle line:84% The memory has a pleasant feeling, 00:08:30.420 --> 00:08:33.659 align:middle line:84% the gray sluice of water below, a strange trip 00:08:33.659 --> 00:08:35.370 align:middle line:90% so far into nowhere. 00:08:35.370 --> 00:08:38.250 align:middle line:84% It must be the sensation of coming to an edge 00:08:38.250 --> 00:08:42.900 align:middle line:84% and looking over a fragment of an afternoon from that time. 00:08:42.900 --> 00:08:46.260 align:middle line:84% We took a walk from a friend's cabin toward an intersection. 00:08:46.260 --> 00:08:48.600 align:middle line:84% I remember feeling the degree to which we 00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:51.750 align:middle line:84% were inland like barometric pressure, a sensation 00:08:51.750 --> 00:08:53.050 align:middle line:90% at my sides. 00:08:53.050 --> 00:08:55.200 align:middle line:84% We were surrounded by a nostalgic version 00:08:55.200 --> 00:08:58.470 align:middle line:84% of the colors pink, and green, and yellow, and light brown, 00:08:58.470 --> 00:09:02.010 align:middle line:84% like experiencing summer for the first time. 00:09:02.010 --> 00:09:04.890 align:middle line:84% A character in a TV show is named Prairie. 00:09:04.890 --> 00:09:09.120 align:middle line:84% And I keep imagining something about her is relevant here. 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:11.510 align:middle line:84% We crossed a bridge between Homer and Fairbanks 00:09:11.510 --> 00:09:13.910 align:middle line:84% where my girlfriend told me trucks had been knocked over 00:09:13.910 --> 00:09:15.140 align:middle line:90% by the wind. 00:09:15.140 --> 00:09:18.080 align:middle line:84% There was a moment in what I recall a silver light 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:22.310 align:middle line:84% when I seemed to say to myself, Alaska, Alaska. 00:09:22.310 --> 00:09:24.500 align:middle line:90% There must have been moon then. 00:09:24.500 --> 00:09:28.070 align:middle line:84% We stood next to a car on the edge of a road between cities. 00:09:28.070 --> 00:09:31.250 align:middle line:84% Like eclipse, it would have been an off glow. 00:09:31.250 --> 00:09:33.470 align:middle line:84% The dog named after a tropical bird 00:09:33.470 --> 00:09:36.500 align:middle line:84% would one day die on the night of a total eclipse, 00:09:36.500 --> 00:09:38.780 align:middle line:84% a short-legged black baby with ears 00:09:38.780 --> 00:09:43.280 align:middle line:84% like an art teacher's haircut, who scream-sang at squirrels. 00:09:43.280 --> 00:09:46.670 align:middle line:84% Carson writes, "The moon makes a traveler hunger for something 00:09:46.670 --> 00:09:47.810 align:middle line:90% better in the world. 00:09:47.810 --> 00:09:48.830 align:middle line:90% What is it? 00:09:48.830 --> 00:09:50.060 align:middle line:90% I will vanish. 00:09:50.060 --> 00:09:51.290 align:middle line:90% Others will come here. 00:09:51.290 --> 00:09:52.310 align:middle line:90% What is that? 00:09:52.310 --> 00:09:56.020 align:middle line:90% An old question." 00:09:56.020 --> 00:09:59.920 align:middle line:84% Lorna Simpson has been painting glaciers, human-sized, 00:09:59.920 --> 00:10:04.690 align:middle line:84% cataclysmic, eviscerated ice overlaid by a deep blue wash, 00:10:04.690 --> 00:10:09.160 align:middle line:84% tumbling ash, full spectrum of gray, volcanic clouds, 00:10:09.160 --> 00:10:11.200 align:middle line:90% nothing whatsoever warm. 00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:13.180 align:middle line:84% I have long loved her photography, 00:10:13.180 --> 00:10:17.440 align:middle line:84% which is often paired with text and has an archival feel. 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:21.490 align:middle line:84% Bodies of evidence laid out with numerical precision like slides 00:10:21.490 --> 00:10:25.690 align:middle line:84% on a light box, clinical, amid a world of white space. 00:10:25.690 --> 00:10:28.240 align:middle line:84% Whereas these paintings gut, they 00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:33.190 align:middle line:84% are unfurling and torn open, a wound before the blood comes. 00:10:33.190 --> 00:10:37.270 align:middle line:84% A Vogue article explains, nature hasn't looked this turbulent 00:10:37.270 --> 00:10:41.470 align:middle line:84% in a painting since J.M.W. Turner. 00:10:41.470 --> 00:10:44.410 align:middle line:84% According to my father, the ghost of J.M.W. Turner 00:10:44.410 --> 00:10:46.690 align:middle line:90% used to visit Gordon Parks. 00:10:46.690 --> 00:10:48.640 align:middle line:84% The dead painter sat--" I just found 00:10:48.640 --> 00:10:50.590 align:middle line:84% the most beautiful portrait of Gordon Parks 00:10:50.590 --> 00:10:51.563 align:middle line:90% in my dad's archives. 00:10:51.563 --> 00:10:52.730 align:middle line:90% I'm really excited about it. 00:10:52.730 --> 00:10:55.690 align:middle line:84% I wish I had some of his pictures today. 00:10:55.690 --> 00:10:57.670 align:middle line:84% "The dead painter sat on the edge 00:10:57.670 --> 00:11:01.180 align:middle line:84% of the dying photographer's bed and told him stories. 00:11:01.180 --> 00:11:03.160 align:middle line:84% Parks was writing a novel about Turner 00:11:03.160 --> 00:11:05.950 align:middle line:84% at the time called The Sun Stalker. 00:11:05.950 --> 00:11:08.680 align:middle line:84% Robin Coste Lewis uses the titles of paintings 00:11:08.680 --> 00:11:12.010 align:middle line:84% to create poems, refracting the meaning of Black womanhood 00:11:12.010 --> 00:11:14.680 align:middle line:84% in her book, Voyage of the Sable Venus. 00:11:14.680 --> 00:11:17.950 align:middle line:84% In class I assign students to mimic her approach, 00:11:17.950 --> 00:11:20.980 align:middle line:84% harvesting language from the titles of art. 00:11:20.980 --> 00:11:23.740 align:middle line:84% In my notebook, I reassemble words from paintings 00:11:23.740 --> 00:11:26.680 align:middle line:84% by J.M.W. Turner and call it an explanation 00:11:26.680 --> 00:11:29.830 align:middle line:84% for his appeal among Black artists: 00:11:29.830 --> 00:11:32.140 align:middle line:90% The Battle of Light and Color. 00:11:32.140 --> 00:11:34.570 align:middle line:84% The Decline of the Burning of the Modern. 00:11:34.570 --> 00:11:37.480 align:middle line:84% The Shipwreck of Moses Rising through Vapor. 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:38.980 align:middle line:90% The Fighting Peace. 00:11:38.980 --> 00:11:41.260 align:middle line:90% The Burial of Becalmed Heaving. 00:11:41.260 --> 00:11:43.210 align:middle line:90% His Mouth, the Fighting. 00:11:43.210 --> 00:11:44.980 align:middle line:90% Porch of the Deluge. 00:11:44.980 --> 00:11:47.200 align:middle line:90% Crossing the Alps of Empire. 00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:51.305 align:middle line:90% Rain, Slave, and Speed." 00:11:51.305 --> 00:11:51.805 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:11:51.805 --> 00:11:56.260 align:middle line:90% 00:11:56.260 --> 00:11:58.300 align:middle line:84% I'm just going to read one more short section. 00:11:58.300 --> 00:12:00.070 align:middle line:84% "I first heard about Matthew Henson 00:12:00.070 --> 00:12:02.320 align:middle line:84% when an art professor showed us a sneak peek 00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:04.960 align:middle line:84% of the video project True North created 00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:07.630 align:middle line:84% by the conceptual artist Isaac Julien. 00:12:07.630 --> 00:12:09.880 align:middle line:84% Inspired by Julien's stark photographs 00:12:09.880 --> 00:12:12.220 align:middle line:84% of Black skin against blue, light snow, 00:12:12.220 --> 00:12:14.050 align:middle line:84% I wrote about Matthew Henson's journey 00:12:14.050 --> 00:12:16.390 align:middle line:84% to Antarctica in a letter to my nephew 00:12:16.390 --> 00:12:19.840 align:middle line:84% who'd recently been put into solitary confinement. 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:22.210 align:middle line:84% Something in me positioned the prison cell 00:12:22.210 --> 00:12:26.020 align:middle line:84% against the glacier, an immediate and insistent binary. 00:12:26.020 --> 00:12:28.330 align:middle line:84% I was newly discovering meditation 00:12:28.330 --> 00:12:30.280 align:middle line:84% and interwove the letter with stories 00:12:30.280 --> 00:12:34.240 align:middle line:84% from the Anapanasati Sutta about the Buddha's awakening. 00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:38.320 align:middle line:84% I wanted to give my nephew ]proselytize] the sensation 00:12:38.320 --> 00:12:39.700 align:middle line:90% of space. 00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:41.800 align:middle line:84% The glacier made me feel as if I were 00:12:41.800 --> 00:12:43.780 align:middle line:90% on the very edge of the planet. 00:12:43.780 --> 00:12:47.860 align:middle line:84% One time I called it a jewel that adorned my quiet life, 00:12:47.860 --> 00:12:51.010 align:middle line:84% as a freedom of movement could be crystallized, cut, 00:12:51.010 --> 00:12:52.870 align:middle line:90% and set into a ring. 00:12:52.870 --> 00:12:57.550 align:middle line:84% But ice is a lock, a container of suspended time. 00:12:57.550 --> 00:13:00.880 align:middle line:84% During a conversation with Fred Moten about The Black Outdoors, 00:13:00.880 --> 00:13:02.920 align:middle line:84% Saidiya Hartman talks about the effort 00:13:02.920 --> 00:13:06.940 align:middle line:84% to produce a thought of the outside while in the inside. 00:13:06.940 --> 00:13:09.490 align:middle line:84% She speaks of trying to produce an outside, 00:13:09.490 --> 00:13:11.920 align:middle line:90% trying to create an opening." 00:13:11.920 --> 00:13:12.880 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much. 00:13:12.880 --> 00:13:16.230 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:13:16.230 --> 00:13:22.000 align:middle line:90%