WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.320 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.320 --> 00:00:03.150 align:middle line:84% Did any of you, by any chance, follow 00:00:03.150 --> 00:00:06.240 align:middle line:84% the plight of Dava Sobel, a couple of years ago? 00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:08.940 align:middle line:84% She was then a science reporter for The New York 00:00:08.940 --> 00:00:12.630 align:middle line:90% Times, who was volunteered-- 00:00:12.630 --> 00:00:15.450 align:middle line:84% I think is the polite way to put this-- 00:00:15.450 --> 00:00:20.100 align:middle line:84% to spend a month in a sleep lab having her circadian rhythms 00:00:20.100 --> 00:00:20.730 align:middle line:90% studied. 00:00:20.730 --> 00:00:22.230 align:middle line:84% She was told that she would not have 00:00:22.230 --> 00:00:24.240 align:middle line:90% her job if she didn't do it. 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:25.800 align:middle line:84% And in truth, all they discovered 00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:28.080 align:middle line:84% was that, left to its own devices, 00:00:28.080 --> 00:00:32.520 align:middle line:84% a body would run on a 25-hour rather than a 24-hour day. 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:35.790 align:middle line:84% But in order to discover this, they put her into a sleep lab 00:00:35.790 --> 00:00:38.640 align:middle line:84% where there were no windows, no clocks. 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:42.390 align:middle line:84% There was a large one-way mirror through which she was watched. 00:00:42.390 --> 00:00:45.840 align:middle line:84% She was attached to all kinds of devices. 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.360 align:middle line:84% She said, at one point, that she knew when 00:00:48.360 --> 00:00:49.680 align:middle line:90% they were taking blood samples. 00:00:49.680 --> 00:00:54.450 align:middle line:84% She could feel this very gentle tugging that would go on. 00:00:54.450 --> 00:00:57.930 align:middle line:84% She was not alone even in the bathroom or to sleep, not ever. 00:00:57.930 --> 00:01:01.620 align:middle line:84% And she was not allowed to have things like chocolate, 00:01:01.620 --> 00:01:04.200 align:middle line:84% coffee, letters from friends that 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:07.290 align:middle line:90% might have dates, newspapers. 00:01:07.290 --> 00:01:09.790 align:middle line:84% Nor was she told when she would be released. 00:01:09.790 --> 00:01:13.050 align:middle line:84% So you can just imagine what this was like. 00:01:13.050 --> 00:01:17.490 align:middle line:84% And she sent out weekly heartbreaking letters 00:01:17.490 --> 00:01:22.050 align:middle line:84% that became progressively more and more desperate, more 00:01:22.050 --> 00:01:22.770 align:middle line:90% and more intense. 00:01:22.770 --> 00:01:25.890 align:middle line:84% And they were published by The New York Times. 00:01:25.890 --> 00:01:27.900 align:middle line:90% I couldn't write to her. 00:01:27.900 --> 00:01:30.210 align:middle line:84% So I wrote her this poem instead. 00:01:30.210 --> 00:01:32.970 align:middle line:84% It's called "Sleeping Beauty of The Bronx." 00:01:32.970 --> 00:01:36.480 align:middle line:84% And it begins with a little quote from The New York Times. 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:39.660 align:middle line:84% Last Friday, Dava Sobel, science reporter from The New York 00:01:39.660 --> 00:01:43.620 align:middle line:84% Times, entered the human chronophysiology laboratory, 00:01:43.620 --> 00:01:49.080 align:middle line:84% Montefiore Hospital, to begin 25 days as a research subject. 00:01:49.080 --> 00:01:52.500 align:middle line:84% She is cut off from the outside world. 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:56.130 align:middle line:84% Freed of the constraints of the 24-hour day, her body 00:01:56.130 --> 00:01:59.130 align:middle line:84% is expected to establish its own biological day. 00:01:59.130 --> 00:02:02.350 align:middle line:90% 00:02:02.350 --> 00:02:06.640 align:middle line:84% Dearest friend, dead to me by time's present fiction, 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:08.889 align:middle line:84% I read your plight weekly through the dream 00:02:08.889 --> 00:02:12.550 align:middle line:84% whorl of print, how they pox your face and arms 00:02:12.550 --> 00:02:17.090 align:middle line:84% with high-strung electrodes, chart your blood tides, stint 00:02:17.090 --> 00:02:19.780 align:middle line:90% you sunlight and chocolate. 00:02:19.780 --> 00:02:22.390 align:middle line:84% A pheasant under glass, you are all alone, 00:02:22.390 --> 00:02:24.700 align:middle line:90% yet, never alone enough. 00:02:24.700 --> 00:02:27.910 align:middle line:84% Glad-eyed by a legion of mute observers, 00:02:27.910 --> 00:02:31.720 align:middle line:84% drawn to the oasis of your vital signs. 00:02:31.720 --> 00:02:36.370 align:middle line:84% Even your spine begins lower now with a rectal probe, 00:02:36.370 --> 00:02:40.180 align:middle line:84% in throwback irony, almost a tail. 00:02:40.180 --> 00:02:45.010 align:middle line:84% Eeriest of all, you feel blood samples leached from your veins 00:02:45.010 --> 00:02:48.940 align:middle line:84% at random moments, a quiet tugging. 00:02:48.940 --> 00:02:50.590 align:middle line:90% How can I picture you? 00:02:50.590 --> 00:02:55.720 align:middle line:84% Glass-frail in a glass burrow, neon blazing, and all your life 00:02:55.720 --> 00:03:01.150 align:middle line:84% signs open with only a syringe's steel kiss on your birthday, 00:03:01.150 --> 00:03:04.990 align:middle line:84% yesterday, though you told no one. 00:03:04.990 --> 00:03:08.110 align:middle line:84% Outside, in the fidget and bloom you crave, 00:03:08.110 --> 00:03:11.470 align:middle line:84% summer is like a new philosophy in the air, 00:03:11.470 --> 00:03:16.030 align:middle line:84% crammed with wild strawberries and speckle-throated lilies, 00:03:16.030 --> 00:03:20.260 align:middle line:84% baby garter snakes lying like pencil leads in the grass, 00:03:20.260 --> 00:03:22.570 align:middle line:84% and the pool, a single blue shudder 00:03:22.570 --> 00:03:26.590 align:middle line:84% where mallards bill dip and ceremonially mate. 00:03:26.590 --> 00:03:30.040 align:middle line:84% Sleeping beauty, I read your Times article this morning 00:03:30.040 --> 00:03:31.390 align:middle line:90% and cried. 00:03:31.390 --> 00:03:34.270 align:middle line:84% One day, through no fault of our friendship, 00:03:34.270 --> 00:03:37.540 align:middle line:84% we'll find ourselves asleep apart forever, 00:03:37.540 --> 00:03:40.390 align:middle line:84% betrayed by the green anthem we love 00:03:40.390 --> 00:03:44.710 align:middle line:84% and have plighted our word troth to in such different ways, 00:03:44.710 --> 00:03:48.070 align:middle line:84% exiled to the nightmare we ferry in our cells, 00:03:48.070 --> 00:03:51.500 align:middle line:84% rubbed to silence by the thickening waves. 00:03:51.500 --> 00:03:52.000 align:middle line:90%