WEBVTT

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Well, a question of
a different sort.

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Do we have any optometrists
in the audience?

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No?

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How about dentists?

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No dentists?

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Dentists don't go
to poetry reading?

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How about English professors?

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They're just like dentists.

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They pull teeth all the time.

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Knowing this professor--
one over there.

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Well, I've always sympathized
with people like optometrists

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and dentists because, of
course, although they're

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highly educated
and highly skilled,

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they do pretty much the same
thing day in day out-- drill,

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drill, pull, pull, right?

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And it must be a little
frustrating for them.

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So optometrists are on
my mind quite a bit.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And also, I feel sorry
because you know yourself

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when you go to a
doctor or a dentist,

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you feel a little nervous and
you tend to talk too much.

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You feel like you're on stage
as your 10 minutes on stage.

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And certainly, these
people must get very tired

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of dealing with people like
that who are constantly babbling

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and telling them all sorts of
things they're not interested.

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And I'm also fascinated,
as many people are,

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by the marvelous
structure of the eye.

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And if you ever looked
in someone's eyes

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through one of those
weird little machines,

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it's a whole world,
of course, in there.

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So this is my celebration
of optometrists.

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"Optometrists."

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"At night, when I stand out
on my front lawn, anaphylactic

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again, I can see the porch
light, drops of dew exuding

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from the houses of my neighbors
that will last all night long.

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While behind them, they
are reading novels,

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watching television, celebrating
inside their own civilization.

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But tomorrow early,
standing outside,

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they will be amazed
at the performance

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of the regular sunrise.

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Those adobes painted pink
and blue, sleeping all night,

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but like an old horse,
stricken by the daylight,

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struggling to its feet again.

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And full of themselves,
skipping breakfast,

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putting on fresh
shirts, rush downtown

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to complain about
their water bills,

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wait in a lawyer's office
to make out their wills, as

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self-righteous and satisfied
as someone who once a year

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goes to church or
buy a newspaper,

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then simply sit
having their eyes

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examined while he dances
before them, fascinated

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by what is going on in that
sloshed world of macula

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and phobia.

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A woman's womb, the eucalyptus
bark that he's always

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admired grown around
that all day is penlight,

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dances, and dances on."

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