WEBVTT

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OK, so we'll have
four more, I think.

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This is called "The Testimony
of Robert Oppenheimer,"

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and this also has the
subtitle "A Fiction."

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I ought to drink
some water first.

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I'm terrified of flying.

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I don't know how many
of you heard the word.

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I didn't know if
I would make it,

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so I didn't even call
my friends or my family

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and say, hey, I'm coming.

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There was a question
right up to the end.

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I had a reading in Houston.

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When I left, I had to go
from Lexington, Kentucky

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to Cincinnati.

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And the only way I could get
out to get the Cincinnati plane

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was to take a commuter
plane, which is a 30 seater.

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And they had promised
us thunderstorms.

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So I got a limousine.

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The only way you can get
out of Kentucky-- you know,

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you're also lucky that I'm here
because I have such a hard time

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getting out of there.

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So I took the limo
to Cincinnati,

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and we just ran into this
really heavy rain storm.

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No, no, you know, like,
go ahead and get on.

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You just get on.

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Once you get through takeoff,
OK, it'll be all right.

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But you get up there and the
plane is just bouncing around.

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And finally, the pilot
came on and he said,

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I'm sorry we're running late,
but these 110-mile-an-hour

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winds pushing us back.

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And so for a half hour, I was
totally, totally terrified.

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I felt like-- you know
those characters in films

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who go crazy during a disaster?

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They become hysterical.

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I thought the
stewardess was going

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to have to come and slap me.

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I was actually going--

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[LAUGHTER]

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You know what helps is
like, I just moan out loud.

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I really was, oh,
Lord, you know, right?

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Oh my God.

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And I had my little
stereo cassette.

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That's another way I'm able
to fly, is Michael Jackson

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and "Beat It" have helped me.

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"Beat It" and "Billie Jean"
have gotten me off the ground

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a number of times.

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So I had that turned
up really loud,

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and I was sitting there with it.

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And then I have this turquoise
fetish that is a bear,

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and I'm clutching my fetish.

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I'm wearing my
turquoise earrings.

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I feel I must wear a
turquoise when I fly, right?

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And I was just sitting
there, it was just awful.

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So at any rate,
today when I got--

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I don't even relax till I'm
actually in the airport.

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Doesn't matter
that we've landed.

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I must be in the airport.

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When I got in, I opened the
door with all my luggage,

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and I lost it.

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I was really in shock.

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I really didn't think
I would be here.

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I just didn't.

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I thought I would just
run away this morning,

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once the people who drove
me to the airport left.

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I would have been
too embarrassed

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when they were there.

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I've actually had to
book myself into motels.

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I've been unable to fly
out when I was scheduled.

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I've had to go to a motel till
I could work up the nerve later.

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It's a terrible thing to have.

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You wouldn't think I would be
afraid of anything, would you?

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But see, that just
goes to show that there

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is a difference between
me and my poetry.

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OK, now, I gave you the title,
didn't I, some time ago?

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"The Testimony of
Robert Oppenheimer."

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"When I attained enlightenment,
I threw off the night

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like an old skin.

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My eyes filled with light,
and I fell to the ground.

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I lay in Los Alamos,
while at the same time

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I fell toward Hiroshima, faster
and faster, till the Earth,

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till the morning
slipped away beneath me.

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Some say when I hit,
there was an explosion.

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A searing wind that
swept the dead before it.

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But there was only silence, only
the soothing baby-blue morning

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rocking me in its
cradle of cumulus cloud.

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Only rest.

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There beyond the
blur of mortality,

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the roots of the trees of
life and death, the trees

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William Blake called
art and science

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joined in a kind of Gordian knot
even Alexander couldn't cut.

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To me, the ideological
high wire is for fools

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to balance on with
their illusions.

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It is better to
leap into the void.

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Isn't that what we
all want anyway?

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To eliminate all pretense
till, like the oppressed who

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in the end identifies
with the oppressor,

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we accept the worst in
ourselves and are set free.

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In high school, they
told me all scientists

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start from the hypothesis
"what if," and it's true.

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What we as a brotherhood
lack in imagination

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we make up for with curiosity.

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I was always motivated by
a ferocious need to know.

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Can you tell me, gentlemen,
that you don't want it too?

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The public collapse.

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The big fall smooth as
honey down a throat.

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Anything that gets you
closer to what you are.

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O, to be born again and again
from that dark metal womb.

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The sweet, intoxicating smell
of decay the imminent dead

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give off rising to embrace me.

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But I could say
anything, couldn't I?

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Like a bed we make
and unmake at whim,

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the truth is always changing,
always shaped by the latest

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collective urge to destroy.

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So I sit here, gnawed
down by the teeth

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of my nightmares, my soul
the wound that will not heal.

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All I know is that urge.

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The pure, sibylline
intensity of it.

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I bartered my humanity for it.

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So have you.

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Now, here at parade's
end, all that matters--

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our military and readiness;
our private citizens

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in a constant
frenzy of patriotism

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and jingoistic pride;
our enemies endless;

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our need to defend infinite.

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Good soldiers, we do
not regret or mourn,

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but pick up the guns of
our fallen my characters

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in the funny papers
under the heading,

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'Further Adventures
of the Lost Tribe.'

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We march past the
third eye of history

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as it rocks back and forth
in its hammock of stars.

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We strip away the
tattered fabric

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of the universe to
the juicy dark meat,

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the nothing beyond time.

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We tell ourselves down, atom by
atom, to electron and positron.

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We become our own
transcendent annihilation."

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[APPLAUSE]

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I always do a little
bit of research

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for these historical ones.

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I watched that PBS
series on Oppenheimer,

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and then I bought the
book and I read that,

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and I learned how to make
the bomb and everything.

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There are all these
diagrams in there.

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I actually-- I read them.

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I couldn't believe
I was doing it.

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What the hell, I
paid for the book.

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I may as well get
total use out of it.

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And I think even though
Houghton Mifflin did

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it and I could get a discount,
I couldn't wait to have it,

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you know?

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So I went and paid full price.

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I think it was $15 at the time.

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Of course, now they're
much more expensive.

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As I approach the middle
years and now that I'm single,

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I talk to myself more.

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At home, I've got the
cat so it doesn't matter.

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I'm so thirsty.

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I don't know what I had to
make me feel this thirsty.

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