WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.820 align:middle line:84% This is also a poem that considers a way 00:00:02.820 --> 00:00:16.940 align:middle line:84% to think about loss, and it is called "House of Beauty." 00:00:16.940 --> 00:00:19.190 align:middle line:84% One morning, a few years back, I was 00:00:19.190 --> 00:00:22.310 align:middle line:84% driving in Jersey City on the way somewhere winter morning, 00:00:22.310 --> 00:00:24.500 align:middle line:84% and I came across a beauty parlor that 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:26.528 align:middle line:90% had recently been set afire. 00:00:26.528 --> 00:00:28.820 align:middle line:84% And I knew this because there was a hole in the window. 00:00:28.820 --> 00:00:30.980 align:middle line:84% There were a few little flames licking out. 00:00:30.980 --> 00:00:33.410 align:middle line:84% You could hear in the distance the fire engine siren, 00:00:33.410 --> 00:00:34.460 align:middle line:84% so you know somebody called them. 00:00:34.460 --> 00:00:35.168 align:middle line:90% They were coming. 00:00:35.168 --> 00:00:36.050 align:middle line:90% What could you do? 00:00:36.050 --> 00:00:40.700 align:middle line:84% I kept on driving, but I could not forget about it. 00:00:40.700 --> 00:00:44.820 align:middle line:84% So pretty soon, a line got in my head about it, 00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:46.520 align:middle line:84% and I began to think about the nursery 00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:47.990 align:middle line:84% rhyme, "The House That Jack Built," 00:00:47.990 --> 00:00:49.820 align:middle line:84% and the form of that amazing rhyme, 00:00:49.820 --> 00:00:53.730 align:middle line:84% which every stanza ends with the same line or a version of it, 00:00:53.730 --> 00:00:56.190 align:middle line:84% and each one is one line longer than the one before. 00:00:56.190 --> 00:00:58.590 align:middle line:84% So hopefully you can sort of hear this stack up. 00:00:58.590 --> 00:00:59.840 align:middle line:90% It's called "House of Beauty." 00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:00.965 align:middle line:90% "Theory of Beauty," rather. 00:01:00.965 --> 00:01:01.565 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:01:01.565 --> 00:01:03.050 align:middle line:90% No. 00:01:03.050 --> 00:01:03.635 align:middle line:90% Wrong page. 00:01:03.635 --> 00:01:13.895 align:middle line:90% 00:01:13.895 --> 00:01:14.645 align:middle line:90% "House of Beauty." 00:01:14.645 --> 00:01:17.510 align:middle line:90% 00:01:17.510 --> 00:01:21.200 align:middle line:84% In Jersey City, on Tonnelle Avenue, the House of Beauty 00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:23.360 align:middle line:90% is burning. 00:01:23.360 --> 00:01:26.810 align:middle line:84% On a Sunday morning in January, under the chilly shadow 00:01:26.810 --> 00:01:31.340 align:middle line:84% of the Pulaski Skyway, the House of Beauty is burning. 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:33.740 align:middle line:84% Who lobbed the fire bottle through the glass 00:01:33.740 --> 00:01:36.860 align:middle line:84% in among the crèmes and thrones, the helmets and clippers 00:01:36.860 --> 00:01:37.730 align:middle line:90% and combs? 00:01:37.730 --> 00:01:41.210 align:middle line:84% Who set the House of Beauty burning? 00:01:41.210 --> 00:01:43.160 align:middle line:84% In the dark recess beside the sink-- 00:01:43.160 --> 00:01:45.860 align:middle line:84% where heads lay back to be laved under the perfected 00:01:45.860 --> 00:01:47.810 align:middle line:90% heads rowed along the walls-- 00:01:47.810 --> 00:01:51.290 align:middle line:84% the hopeful photographs of possibility darken, 00:01:51.290 --> 00:01:54.350 align:middle line:84% now that the House of Beauty is burning. 00:01:54.350 --> 00:01:55.940 align:middle line:84% The Skyway beetles in the ringing 00:01:55.940 --> 00:01:59.600 align:middle line:84% cold, trestle arcing the steel river and warehouses, truck 00:01:59.600 --> 00:02:03.260 align:middle line:84% lots, and Indian groceries, a new plume of smoke joining 00:02:03.260 --> 00:02:06.320 align:middle line:84% the others, billow of dark thought rising 00:02:06.320 --> 00:02:09.530 align:middle line:84% from the broken forehead of the House of Beauty. 00:02:09.530 --> 00:02:12.710 align:middle line:84% An emission almost too small to notice just now, 00:02:12.710 --> 00:02:16.100 align:middle line:84% alarm still ringing, the flames new-launched on their project 00:02:16.100 --> 00:02:17.810 align:middle line:84% of ruining an effort at pleasure, 00:02:17.810 --> 00:02:20.480 align:middle line:84% glass jutting like cracked ice in the window frame. 00:02:20.480 --> 00:02:24.260 align:middle line:84% No one inside, the fire department on the way. 00:02:24.260 --> 00:02:28.910 align:middle line:84% All things by nature, wrote Virgil, are ready to get worse. 00:02:28.910 --> 00:02:33.290 align:middle line:84% No surprise then, that the House of Beauty is burning. 00:02:33.290 --> 00:02:36.140 align:middle line:84% So whatever happens, however far these fires 00:02:36.140 --> 00:02:38.420 align:middle line:84% proceed reducing history to powder, 00:02:38.420 --> 00:02:42.290 align:middle line:84% whatever the House of Beauty made is untouchable now. 00:02:42.290 --> 00:02:44.750 align:middle line:84% Nothing can undo so many heads made 00:02:44.750 --> 00:02:48.020 align:middle line:84% lovely or at least acceptable, so much shapelessness 00:02:48.020 --> 00:02:49.790 align:middle line:84% given what are called "permanents," 00:02:49.790 --> 00:02:52.700 align:middle line:84% though nothing holds a fixed form. 00:02:52.700 --> 00:02:54.120 align:middle line:90% Bring on the flames. 00:02:54.120 --> 00:02:56.840 align:middle line:84% What does it matter if the house is burning? 00:02:56.840 --> 00:03:00.380 align:middle line:84% Propose a new beauty, perennially unhoused. 00:03:00.380 --> 00:03:03.950 align:middle line:84% Neither the lost things, nor the fire itself, but the objects 00:03:03.950 --> 00:03:06.230 align:middle line:84% in their dresses of disaster, anything 00:03:06.230 --> 00:03:08.330 align:middle line:90% clothed in its own passage: 00:03:08.330 --> 00:03:11.210 align:middle line:84% padded vinyl chair burst into smoky tongues, 00:03:11.210 --> 00:03:13.250 align:middle line:84% Lucite helmet sagged to a new version 00:03:13.250 --> 00:03:17.660 align:middle line:84% of its flame, our black bridge, a charred rainbow 00:03:17.660 --> 00:03:22.190 align:middle line:84% on iron legs, two ruby eyes glowering from its crown. 00:03:22.190 --> 00:03:25.880 align:middle line:84% If beauty is burning, what could you save? 00:03:25.880 --> 00:03:29.200 align:middle line:84% The House of Beauty is a house of flames. 00:03:29.200 --> 00:03:35.000 align:middle line:90%