WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.460 align:middle line:90%
The finale.

00:00:01.460 --> 00:00:03.120 align:middle line:90%
Can you take 6 minutes.

00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:04.340 align:middle line:90%
You got it?

00:00:04.340 --> 00:00:05.692 align:middle line:90%
A 6 minute-- it's part of--

00:00:05.692 --> 00:00:07.400 align:middle line:84%
I think this is part
of a novel, but it's

00:00:07.400 --> 00:00:09.200 align:middle line:90%
called "Early Writing."

00:00:09.200 --> 00:00:12.140 align:middle line:84%
And I think part of the
thing about this story

00:00:12.140 --> 00:00:13.940 align:middle line:90%
is that I wrote about--

00:00:13.940 --> 00:00:16.340 align:middle line:84%
when I wrote it, the
people were alive.

00:00:16.340 --> 00:00:19.370 align:middle line:84%
And since then, the
people have died.

00:00:19.370 --> 00:00:21.170 align:middle line:84%
And it feels
different and strange.

00:00:21.170 --> 00:00:26.080 align:middle line:84%
But there's a young writer
in here, and she was alive--

00:00:26.080 --> 00:00:27.010 align:middle line:90%
and is alive.

00:00:27.010 --> 00:00:30.760 align:middle line:84%
So anyway, it's
about writers writing

00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:33.820 align:middle line:90%
about each other, which we do.

00:00:33.820 --> 00:00:36.790 align:middle line:84%
"The thing about being
written about that's a problem

00:00:36.790 --> 00:00:40.480 align:middle line:84%
is that nobody wants you to
have the whole thing, to say it.

00:00:40.480 --> 00:00:42.460 align:middle line:84%
I don't want to be
in your reality.

00:00:42.460 --> 00:00:45.700 align:middle line:84%
I want to be in my girlfriend's,
and I want her to be in mine.

00:00:45.700 --> 00:00:48.767 align:middle line:84%
And I think about a space,
which is this sweet overlap.

00:00:48.767 --> 00:00:50.350 align:middle line:84%
But for instance, I
don't want to hear

00:00:50.350 --> 00:00:53.380 align:middle line:84%
how she talks about our
relationship to her friends.

00:00:53.380 --> 00:00:56.680 align:middle line:84%
Every time I say something about
her to my friend on the phone,

00:00:56.680 --> 00:01:00.130 align:middle line:84%
I think, why is it so easy
here to describe what she does,

00:01:00.130 --> 00:01:02.950 align:middle line:84%
but facing her,
my version melts?

00:01:02.950 --> 00:01:04.690 align:middle line:84%
Writing, however,
is the place where

00:01:04.690 --> 00:01:07.070 align:middle line:84%
we are able to put them
inside of our story.

00:01:07.070 --> 00:01:09.160 align:middle line:84%
And so they are like
little, tiny people

00:01:09.160 --> 00:01:11.080 align:middle line:90%
in the palm of your hand.

00:01:11.080 --> 00:01:12.730 align:middle line:84%
I love when they
were both writers,

00:01:12.730 --> 00:01:14.800 align:middle line:84%
and we could be in this
big story together,

00:01:14.800 --> 00:01:16.300 align:middle line:90%
and nobody wrote it.

00:01:16.300 --> 00:01:18.160 align:middle line:90%
The inside was jagged, happy.

00:01:18.160 --> 00:01:20.500 align:middle line:84%
We could all allude
to it in our poems.

00:01:20.500 --> 00:01:23.080 align:middle line:84%
And one time, he told
us his fantasies,

00:01:23.080 --> 00:01:24.760 align:middle line:90%
and they were disgusting.

00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:26.920 align:middle line:84%
And hers was just like
her poems and were

00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:29.710 align:middle line:84%
filled with compensations
for the sparse pleasures

00:01:29.710 --> 00:01:30.670 align:middle line:90%
of her childhood.

00:01:30.670 --> 00:01:32.500 align:middle line:84%
And now, there was an
abundance of people,

00:01:32.500 --> 00:01:35.330 align:middle line:84%
as opposed to the
grim few in Brooklyn.

00:01:35.330 --> 00:01:36.830 align:middle line:90%
I enjoyed being a poet.

00:01:36.830 --> 00:01:40.130 align:middle line:84%
But even then, I wanted a
house like the one I have now.

00:01:40.130 --> 00:01:43.010 align:middle line:84%
I was adamant that I
needed to get famous then,

00:01:43.010 --> 00:01:44.420 align:middle line:90%
when I was young.

00:01:44.420 --> 00:01:46.633 align:middle line:84%
I mean, it's interesting
because if that person had

00:01:46.633 --> 00:01:48.050 align:middle line:84%
got what they
wanted, I can't even

00:01:48.050 --> 00:01:49.760 align:middle line:84%
imagine what that
would look like.

00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:52.880 align:middle line:84%
It's easy to say I'd be
dead, and it might be true.

00:01:52.880 --> 00:01:56.120 align:middle line:84%
When I think of Kurt's
27-year-old body sprawled

00:01:56.120 --> 00:01:58.370 align:middle line:84%
on the floor, it just
gets weirder and weirder.

00:01:58.370 --> 00:02:00.950 align:middle line:84%
When I think of Will
bleeding out in the bathtub,

00:02:00.950 --> 00:02:03.590 align:middle line:84%
when I think of Heather
leaning forward to her bed

00:02:03.590 --> 00:02:05.930 align:middle line:84%
strangling herself,
Christina doing

00:02:05.930 --> 00:02:08.900 align:middle line:84%
the same, Emma with a
scarf in Italy, Tootsie,

00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:11.060 align:middle line:90%
some lonesome place turned blue.

00:02:11.060 --> 00:02:13.010 align:middle line:84%
I wouldn't have died
like them because I

00:02:13.010 --> 00:02:16.700 align:middle line:84%
kept retracting my wishes,
though I may have bumbled in.

00:02:16.700 --> 00:02:19.760 align:middle line:84%
So the house I would have
bought keeps disappearing

00:02:19.760 --> 00:02:22.010 align:middle line:90%
with my dead body in it.

00:02:22.010 --> 00:02:25.100 align:middle line:84%
My dog walks towards the door
and sees that it's a screen,

00:02:25.100 --> 00:02:26.300 align:middle line:90%
and shuffles back.

00:02:26.300 --> 00:02:28.160 align:middle line:84%
I've trained her
to be like that.

00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:31.100 align:middle line:84%
I joke with friends that
you break their spirit.

00:02:31.100 --> 00:02:32.990 align:middle line:84%
I'm thinking about
the impossibility

00:02:32.990 --> 00:02:35.480 align:middle line:84%
of telling my young
story while I was young.

00:02:35.480 --> 00:02:37.700 align:middle line:84%
If I wrote anything
larger than a poem

00:02:37.700 --> 00:02:40.520 align:middle line:84%
or did a play again and
again, if it was good,

00:02:40.520 --> 00:02:43.340 align:middle line:84%
or read the poem that brought
the house down the second night

00:02:43.340 --> 00:02:45.710 align:middle line:84%
instead of needing to be
different all the time,

00:02:45.710 --> 00:02:49.040 align:middle line:84%
no, I just thought reaching
for success seemed fraudulent.

00:02:49.040 --> 00:02:51.560 align:middle line:84%
I thought a calculated
arrival would never

00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:53.510 align:middle line:84%
work because my
hand would vanish

00:02:53.510 --> 00:02:56.150 align:middle line:84%
as I was reaching, vanishing
back into the mists

00:02:56.150 --> 00:02:57.980 align:middle line:90%
of my shifting dream.

00:02:57.980 --> 00:02:59.960 align:middle line:84%
I remember, I
wanted to be a rake,

00:02:59.960 --> 00:03:02.840 align:middle line:84%
a large man in a leather
jacket, irresistible

00:03:02.840 --> 00:03:04.220 align:middle line:90%
in his insouciance.

00:03:04.220 --> 00:03:05.150 align:middle line:90%
French.

00:03:05.150 --> 00:03:07.820 align:middle line:84%
I couldn't tell my
lovers who I was at 31.

00:03:07.820 --> 00:03:10.410 align:middle line:90%
But in my dream, he grew large.

00:03:10.410 --> 00:03:13.940 align:middle line:84%
I would write a novel, a soft
green story in which everyone

00:03:13.940 --> 00:03:16.250 align:middle line:84%
I knew had slightly
altered names,

00:03:16.250 --> 00:03:19.580 align:middle line:84%
and I would declare at least
there who I wanted to be.

00:03:19.580 --> 00:03:22.520 align:middle line:84%
And I sat down daily in
my apartment at my desk,

00:03:22.520 --> 00:03:24.650 align:middle line:90%
and I deployed the results.

00:03:24.650 --> 00:03:27.770 align:middle line:84%
Not being satisfied with my
house, I built another one.

00:03:27.770 --> 00:03:30.110 align:middle line:84%
And I could even build
another one inside of that.

00:03:30.110 --> 00:03:31.010 align:middle line:90%
This is that.

00:03:31.010 --> 00:03:34.100 align:middle line:84%
By the time I was writing my
novel about our relationship,

00:03:34.100 --> 00:03:36.800 align:middle line:84%
it was already losing
its elasticity,

00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:38.870 align:middle line:84%
and there was a need
for other projects.

00:03:38.870 --> 00:03:41.780 align:middle line:84%
I was bringing in
the bread in my head.

00:03:41.780 --> 00:03:43.970 align:middle line:84%
Often, the paper I
wrote on was used

00:03:43.970 --> 00:03:46.400 align:middle line:84%
and had some other
typing on the other side.

00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:49.310 align:middle line:84%
My friends were all poets,
making poetry magazines out

00:03:49.310 --> 00:03:51.440 align:middle line:84%
of rough, thick
paper that received

00:03:51.440 --> 00:03:53.690 align:middle line:84%
the chemicals and the
pounding of the keys

00:03:53.690 --> 00:03:55.280 align:middle line:90%
to produce magazines.

00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:59.030 align:middle line:84%
And there were too often
too many copies of page 63.

00:03:59.030 --> 00:03:59.990 align:middle line:90%
I wrote on them.

00:03:59.990 --> 00:04:03.410 align:middle line:84%
And I think I even had extra
pages from my own little book.

00:04:03.410 --> 00:04:05.720 align:middle line:84%
And I would write my
novel on the other side

00:04:05.720 --> 00:04:08.690 align:middle line:84%
so that it indeed really
felt like a draft.

00:04:08.690 --> 00:04:11.510 align:middle line:84%
That paper was too thick
to go someplace else.

00:04:11.510 --> 00:04:13.740 align:middle line:90%
It wanted to be here.

00:04:13.740 --> 00:04:16.950 align:middle line:84%
I had a way to be away from
them now, and not even me,

00:04:16.950 --> 00:04:18.529 align:middle line:84%
but a person in
the future, writing

00:04:18.529 --> 00:04:20.990 align:middle line:84%
like this in a small
apartment I made bigger

00:04:20.990 --> 00:04:22.970 align:middle line:84%
by the effort of
returning every day.

00:04:22.970 --> 00:04:26.750 align:middle line:84%
And it was like building another
room or a tunnel to the world.

00:04:26.750 --> 00:04:30.260 align:middle line:84%
Last winter, she showed me
several passages from her novel

00:04:30.260 --> 00:04:32.900 align:middle line:84%
in which I appear from when
she was obsessed with me.

00:04:32.900 --> 00:04:34.760 align:middle line:84%
I have become, in
some ways, the person

00:04:34.760 --> 00:04:38.335 align:middle line:84%
I long ago planned to be,
but I am not that person.

00:04:38.335 --> 00:04:40.960 align:middle line:84%
It just works that way,
having badly, and then

00:04:40.960 --> 00:04:43.270 align:middle line:84%
repeatedly, and then
successfully done that.

00:04:43.270 --> 00:04:46.240 align:middle line:84%
And now, here they, I,
walk out into the world

00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:49.060 align:middle line:84%
to be pursued by her and
rejecting her, and eventually

00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:51.040 align:middle line:90%
being depicted in print.

00:04:51.040 --> 00:04:51.940 align:middle line:90%
I read it.

00:04:51.940 --> 00:04:54.340 align:middle line:84%
First of all, she
didn't use page numbers,

00:04:54.340 --> 00:04:58.460 align:middle line:84%
my total pet peeve,
because I want everything

00:04:58.460 --> 00:05:00.320 align:middle line:90%
to be over all the time.

00:05:00.320 --> 00:05:01.670 align:middle line:90%
I'm waiting.

00:05:01.670 --> 00:05:04.040 align:middle line:84%
What is that
relationship to pleasure?

00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:05.120 align:middle line:90%
Is there any?

00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:08.460 align:middle line:84%
I am releasing, and I am
counting all the time.

00:05:08.460 --> 00:05:10.250 align:middle line:84%
I have a phone
date in 11 minutes.

00:05:10.250 --> 00:05:11.120 align:middle line:90%
It's Sunday.

00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:12.740 align:middle line:90%
I write in little bursts.

00:05:12.740 --> 00:05:14.570 align:middle line:84%
So I appear in my
friends' novel,

00:05:14.570 --> 00:05:17.210 align:middle line:84%
as I bluntly wrote myself,
as I appear in the world,

00:05:17.210 --> 00:05:17.900 align:middle line:90%
and I'm not.

00:05:17.900 --> 00:05:19.940 align:middle line:84%
And therefore,
I'm hiding happily

00:05:19.940 --> 00:05:22.280 align:middle line:84%
in the house inside the
house inside the house,

00:05:22.280 --> 00:05:23.330 align:middle line:90%
but that's not it.

00:05:23.330 --> 00:05:24.680 align:middle line:90%
That would be too cute.

00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:26.130 align:middle line:90%
Her writing is very good.

00:05:26.130 --> 00:05:28.680 align:middle line:84%
And I even think she's learned
from me, but not too much.

00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:29.840 align:middle line:90%
It's all her.

00:05:29.840 --> 00:05:32.263 align:middle line:84%
That's the thing that's
weird about the people who

00:05:32.263 --> 00:05:33.680 align:middle line:84%
have taught you
something, and you

00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:36.830 align:middle line:84%
dwell for a while in that
teaching and that love.

00:05:36.830 --> 00:05:38.930 align:middle line:84%
And they declare, I
taught you nothing.

00:05:38.930 --> 00:05:41.750 align:middle line:84%
But they tipped your hand
and expanded your map,

00:05:41.750 --> 00:05:44.210 align:middle line:84%
if this doesn't sound
like fundraising prose.

00:05:44.210 --> 00:05:46.790 align:middle line:84%
The horse was gifted
with a number of jumps,

00:05:46.790 --> 00:05:48.140 align:middle line:90%
but it's still the horse.

00:05:48.140 --> 00:05:49.760 align:middle line:84%
And at first, you
stop at the jump

00:05:49.760 --> 00:05:51.200 align:middle line:90%
and say, no, I don't do that.

00:05:51.200 --> 00:05:52.520 align:middle line:90%
And then you do.

00:05:52.520 --> 00:05:54.830 align:middle line:84%
And it's odd but
occasionally brilliant.

00:05:54.830 --> 00:05:56.570 align:middle line:90%
And occasionally, it sticks.

00:05:56.570 --> 00:05:59.560 align:middle line:84%
Your love for a teacher
enhances your game.

00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:00.900 align:middle line:90%
They were not my teachers.

00:06:00.900 --> 00:06:01.980 align:middle line:90%
They were my lovers.

00:06:01.980 --> 00:06:05.110 align:middle line:84%
I would go to my room, and I
was in practice for my life.

00:06:05.110 --> 00:06:06.600 align:middle line:90%
I had a collarless shirt.

00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:08.310 align:middle line:90%
I wrote 58 pages.

00:06:08.310 --> 00:06:09.660 align:middle line:90%
I showed it to him.

00:06:09.660 --> 00:06:11.220 align:middle line:90%
She would not look.

00:06:11.220 --> 00:06:15.090 align:middle line:84%
Firstly, she was mad and
ashamed that I depicted myself

00:06:15.090 --> 00:06:18.960 align:middle line:84%
as an arrogant and
lazy preening man.

00:06:18.960 --> 00:06:22.110 align:middle line:84%
Putting him and his wife and
his children inside my world

00:06:22.110 --> 00:06:23.910 align:middle line:90%
was the worst hot air.

00:06:23.910 --> 00:06:25.930 align:middle line:90%
What about me? he cried.

00:06:25.930 --> 00:06:28.140 align:middle line:84%
They were now in my
little crystal ball,

00:06:28.140 --> 00:06:31.050 align:middle line:84%
and I was making those
mesmerizing waving hands,

00:06:31.050 --> 00:06:32.550 align:middle line:90%
being a little swami.

00:06:32.550 --> 00:06:36.510 align:middle line:84%
And the power of my childhood,
indeed the magic I saw,

00:06:36.510 --> 00:06:38.760 align:middle line:84%
had always been
coming from the east.

00:06:38.760 --> 00:06:40.320 align:middle line:90%
I was nature boy.

00:06:40.320 --> 00:06:42.600 align:middle line:84%
He would not look
inside my ball and see

00:06:42.600 --> 00:06:46.110 align:middle line:84%
the tiny family and his dream,
which was merely patriarchal.

00:06:46.110 --> 00:06:48.660 align:middle line:84%
You are predictable,
was even worse.

00:06:48.660 --> 00:06:52.080 align:middle line:84%
There was only one man in
the family, and it was him.

00:06:52.080 --> 00:06:54.990 align:middle line:84%
But I was cute and 6
feet tall and lazy.

00:06:54.990 --> 00:06:56.220 align:middle line:90%
I wore a leather jacket.

00:06:56.220 --> 00:06:57.030 align:middle line:90%
I had bangs.

00:06:57.030 --> 00:06:58.140 align:middle line:90%
I was a mooch.

00:06:58.140 --> 00:07:01.440 align:middle line:84%
They were utterly charmed by
me and that was my hustle.

00:07:01.440 --> 00:07:02.140 align:middle line:90%
No!

00:07:02.140 --> 00:07:02.640 align:middle line:90%
No!

00:07:02.640 --> 00:07:03.480 align:middle line:90%
He screamed.

00:07:03.480 --> 00:07:06.690 align:middle line:84%
He sneered that the writing
was bad, so terrible.

00:07:06.690 --> 00:07:08.400 align:middle line:90%
It's a miracle.

00:07:08.400 --> 00:07:10.560 align:middle line:84%
I realized that
deep in my archive

00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:13.320 align:middle line:84%
is a folder that contains
this very bad novel.

00:07:13.320 --> 00:07:15.930 align:middle line:84%
If I have a bad
day here, most days

00:07:15.930 --> 00:07:18.690 align:middle line:84%
increasingly magic, and
trippy, and not real,

00:07:18.690 --> 00:07:20.070 align:middle line:90%
I am growing my life.

00:07:20.070 --> 00:07:21.330 align:middle line:90%
I am growing another.

00:07:21.330 --> 00:07:23.580 align:middle line:84%
I want my writing
to be transporting.

00:07:23.580 --> 00:07:24.870 align:middle line:90%
I want to take you away.

00:07:24.870 --> 00:07:27.450 align:middle line:84%
But on bad days, I
am writing exactly

00:07:27.450 --> 00:07:31.740 align:middle line:84%
like that large, lazy, seductive
man until he had to do a thing.

00:07:31.740 --> 00:07:34.470 align:middle line:84%
And my poorly named
characters, ho ho,

00:07:34.470 --> 00:07:37.950 align:middle line:84%
were a beloved jumble
by confused, hungover,

00:07:37.950 --> 00:07:39.930 align:middle line:90%
and amphetamine-driven--

00:07:39.930 --> 00:07:41.110 align:middle line:90%
I was hungry.

00:07:41.110 --> 00:07:41.860 align:middle line:90%
I was young.

00:07:41.860 --> 00:07:43.360 align:middle line:84%
I didn't even know
how to sit down.

00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:46.590 align:middle line:84%
I watch a cat walking
stealthily across my yard.

00:07:46.590 --> 00:07:48.720 align:middle line:84%
And they know a
dog is living here,

00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:51.930 align:middle line:84%
who is sleeping right near
me in a tiny writing house.

00:07:51.930 --> 00:07:54.570 align:middle line:84%
The bad writing is
the sleeping dog

00:07:54.570 --> 00:07:58.020 align:middle line:84%
that just doesn't know
what's swift and good,

00:07:58.020 --> 00:08:00.210 align:middle line:84%
is the smart
tippy-toeing cat that

00:08:00.210 --> 00:08:03.240 align:middle line:84%
manages to make their way across
the yard without a ruckus.

00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:07.350 align:middle line:84%
And here, all here now,
here in my crystal ball,

00:08:07.350 --> 00:08:10.920 align:middle line:84%
even the kindness I feel now
towards the one who sits down

00:08:10.920 --> 00:08:13.680 align:middle line:84%
writing badly, full
of all their louche

00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:16.380 align:middle line:84%
and sexy desires,
frankly offensive,

00:08:16.380 --> 00:08:20.310 align:middle line:84%
banging paper to make him
a house that got them here.

00:08:20.310 --> 00:08:22.920 align:middle line:90%
I hope it will be magic."

00:08:22.920 --> 00:08:23.520 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:08:23.520 --> 00:08:26.830 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:08:26.830 --> 00:08:27.330 align:middle line:90%


00:08:27.330 --> 00:08:29.570 align:middle line:90%
Thank you so much.

00:08:29.570 --> 00:08:38.000 align:middle line:90%