WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.990 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.990 --> 00:00:04.590 align:middle line:84% On the downside part of the hill now. 00:00:04.590 --> 00:00:05.640 align:middle line:90% Oh, yeah. 00:00:05.640 --> 00:00:07.710 align:middle line:90% Really groovy reading it. 00:00:07.710 --> 00:00:11.410 align:middle line:84% You have to read the poem that you just wrote today. 00:00:11.410 --> 00:00:12.420 align:middle line:90% So this is it. 00:00:12.420 --> 00:00:16.059 align:middle line:90% 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:16.900 align:middle line:90% It's good poem. 00:00:16.900 --> 00:00:17.470 align:middle line:90% Don't laugh. 00:00:17.470 --> 00:00:25.020 align:middle line:90% 00:00:25.020 --> 00:00:27.480 align:middle line:90% Few things you-- 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:30.240 align:middle line:84% Also stolen from something I heard. 00:00:30.240 --> 00:00:33.250 align:middle line:90% 00:00:33.250 --> 00:00:37.780 align:middle line:84% Someone on the radio was helping out the lovelorn and otherwise 00:00:37.780 --> 00:00:42.190 align:middle line:84% miserable and said something to the effect that singles 00:00:42.190 --> 00:00:44.980 align:middle line:90% don't like to go out alone. 00:00:44.980 --> 00:00:48.190 align:middle line:90% Wow, what a line. 00:00:48.190 --> 00:00:50.260 align:middle line:90% There's poems all around us. 00:00:50.260 --> 00:00:52.270 align:middle line:84% They talk about disease in the air. 00:00:52.270 --> 00:00:53.710 align:middle line:90% Those aren't disease germs. 00:00:53.710 --> 00:00:55.210 align:middle line:90% Those are poems in the air. 00:00:55.210 --> 00:00:58.630 align:middle line:90% 00:00:58.630 --> 00:01:03.566 align:middle line:84% This poem is in the category of strange happenings. 00:01:03.566 --> 00:01:06.830 align:middle line:90% 00:01:06.830 --> 00:01:10.570 align:middle line:84% And strange happenings come with good authority. 00:01:10.570 --> 00:01:14.150 align:middle line:84% One of my favorite authors, Mary Austin, 00:01:14.150 --> 00:01:19.040 align:middle line:84% when she was a girl of, I don't know, 9, 10 years old, 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:22.520 align:middle line:84% saw God in the walnut tree in her backyard. 00:01:22.520 --> 00:01:26.210 align:middle line:84% And I've never seen that and probably don't 00:01:26.210 --> 00:01:27.170 align:middle line:90% want to see that. 00:01:27.170 --> 00:01:29.960 align:middle line:84% But I'm always fascinated by people 00:01:29.960 --> 00:01:33.710 align:middle line:90% who do see things like that. 00:01:33.710 --> 00:01:36.530 align:middle line:84% Also, I grew up in the woods, and I always felt that there 00:01:36.530 --> 00:01:42.080 align:middle line:84% were strange things happening out there that other people 00:01:42.080 --> 00:01:43.670 align:middle line:90% were seeing, but I wasn't. 00:01:43.670 --> 00:01:46.280 align:middle line:84% Actually, what I did see and what has marred me 00:01:46.280 --> 00:01:48.530 align:middle line:84% for life is when I was little kid, 00:01:48.530 --> 00:01:51.590 align:middle line:84% I was always frightened of cows because I was so small 00:01:51.590 --> 00:01:53.360 align:middle line:90% and they were so big. 00:01:53.360 --> 00:01:56.180 align:middle line:84% And they'll always look at you with those weird eyes 00:01:56.180 --> 00:01:58.700 align:middle line:90% and move their horns like this. 00:01:58.700 --> 00:02:05.420 align:middle line:90% 00:02:05.420 --> 00:02:08.479 align:middle line:90% One word you may need to know-- 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:10.880 align:middle line:84% some of you probably already know it-- is mycelium. 00:02:10.880 --> 00:02:14.660 align:middle line:84% That's simply a reference to the fibrous ball of tissue 00:02:14.660 --> 00:02:18.680 align:middle line:90% that makes up fungus. 00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:20.555 align:middle line:84% That appears at the end of the poem. 00:02:20.555 --> 00:02:24.250 align:middle line:90% 00:02:24.250 --> 00:02:27.600 align:middle line:84% So this is my idea of what star people must be like. 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:29.790 align:middle line:84% You know those people who come to Earth? 00:02:29.790 --> 00:02:32.332 align:middle line:84% You see them out at El Con walking around. 00:02:32.332 --> 00:02:34.542 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:34.542 --> 00:02:35.430 align:middle line:90% 00:02:35.430 --> 00:02:38.520 align:middle line:84% And I really want to believe that those people are really 00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:39.165 align:middle line:90% from stars. 00:02:39.165 --> 00:02:48.450 align:middle line:90% 00:02:48.450 --> 00:02:50.670 align:middle line:90% Called "Saints". 00:02:50.670 --> 00:02:55.050 align:middle line:84% "Because singles don't feel comfortable among the herd 00:02:55.050 --> 00:02:58.650 align:middle line:84% but also don't like to go out alone, 00:02:58.650 --> 00:03:01.650 align:middle line:84% I've always thought of famous people 00:03:01.650 --> 00:03:05.070 align:middle line:84% as those who choose someplace like the countryside 00:03:05.070 --> 00:03:08.160 align:middle line:84% around Darien, Connecticut, to step out 00:03:08.160 --> 00:03:12.720 align:middle line:84% of an old oak tree, desiccated but holy, 00:03:12.720 --> 00:03:18.780 align:middle line:84% prefiguring Jane Fonda emerging from her orgasmatron, 00:03:18.780 --> 00:03:21.900 align:middle line:84% innocently looking around in search of a more 00:03:21.900 --> 00:03:25.830 align:middle line:90% classical music experience. 00:03:25.830 --> 00:03:27.660 align:middle line:84% The wandering child who sees this 00:03:27.660 --> 00:03:31.350 align:middle line:84% is damaged for life, his head thereafter a bruised 00:03:31.350 --> 00:03:34.020 align:middle line:84% peach he carries on his shoulders, 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:37.320 align:middle line:84% and runs off to become a musician or dig 00:03:37.320 --> 00:03:39.540 align:middle line:90% holes in the ground. 00:03:39.540 --> 00:03:44.130 align:middle line:84% And after that, disappears from my story. 00:03:44.130 --> 00:03:48.810 align:middle line:84% But for most of us, not having to bear witness to that 00:03:48.810 --> 00:03:51.210 align:middle line:84% but knowing such things are going on 00:03:51.210 --> 00:03:56.550 align:middle line:84% out in the woods every day, how do we handle it? 00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:59.430 align:middle line:84% Of average intelligence, our experience 00:03:59.430 --> 00:04:02.520 align:middle line:90% is mostly with cows-- 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:06.600 align:middle line:84% gentle but monstrous, who roll their eyes at us 00:04:06.600 --> 00:04:09.870 align:middle line:90% at 4:00 in the morning. 00:04:09.870 --> 00:04:13.440 align:middle line:84% Armed like that, we go on through life telling 00:04:13.440 --> 00:04:17.430 align:middle line:90% no one, not even our spouses. 00:04:17.430 --> 00:04:21.630 align:middle line:84% But when out strolling in the wilds around the Tiergarten, 00:04:21.630 --> 00:04:26.940 align:middle line:84% we see them, noses to ground, hearing the fish when they cry. 00:04:26.940 --> 00:04:29.580 align:middle line:84% Or as a surprise, in the middle of a baseball game, 00:04:29.580 --> 00:04:33.390 align:middle line:84% one jumps up and runs around the bases, his robes and sandals 00:04:33.390 --> 00:04:36.870 align:middle line:90% flapping while the crowd cheers. 00:04:36.870 --> 00:04:39.450 align:middle line:90% We know who he is. 00:04:39.450 --> 00:04:42.510 align:middle line:84% Or on an airplane, sitting next to a business 00:04:42.510 --> 00:04:48.150 align:middle line:84% man who, for an hour or two, shows us his family pictures. 00:04:48.150 --> 00:04:51.120 align:middle line:84% Getting an inkling, we make bold and tell them 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:55.170 align:middle line:84% about this, who at that turns knowingly, 00:04:55.170 --> 00:04:58.080 align:middle line:90% takes our hand in his cold grip. 00:04:58.080 --> 00:05:02.490 align:middle line:84% And for a moment, the jewel, the tumultuous mycelium 00:05:02.490 --> 00:05:07.740 align:middle line:84% of the globe glitters in the middle of his forehead." 00:05:07.740 --> 00:05:13.500 align:middle line:84% That's why I don't fly on planes, especially 00:05:13.500 --> 00:05:15.767 align:middle line:84% on planes which have passengers with jewels 00:05:15.767 --> 00:05:17.100 align:middle line:90% in the middle of their forehead. 00:05:17.100 --> 00:05:20.530 align:middle line:90% 00:05:20.530 --> 00:05:22.600 align:middle line:84% When you're on a plane, don't you 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:25.180 align:middle line:84% feel like maybe the person next to you 00:05:25.180 --> 00:05:27.435 align:middle line:84% has a jewel in the middle of his forehead 00:05:27.435 --> 00:05:28.435 align:middle line:90% and you don't dare look? 00:05:28.435 --> 00:05:32.350 align:middle line:90% 00:05:32.350 --> 00:05:33.400 align:middle line:90% You never feel that way? 00:05:33.400 --> 00:05:35.400 align:middle line:90% I always do.