WEBVTT

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So any requests from
the students out there

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who were forced to read my book?

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[LAUGHING]

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Forced.

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Any requests?

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"A Remembrance for
David Wong Louie."

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Oh, yes.

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Did you know David?

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Oh, jeez.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, we lost so many
important people.

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So yesterday we talked
about the Hebrew bible,

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about Whitman and Ginsberg
and the long line exultant

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prayer, the long line poem.

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And so I wrote this remembrance
for our friend David Wong

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Louie, a fiction writer
who died three years ago.

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OK.

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Blessed are thy children
Jules and Sogna,

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possessors of the past,
heralds of the future.

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Blessed thy true love,
thy soulmate Jackie,

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and her eternal beauty, fragrant
black hair of compassion,

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red lips of merciful sacrifice.

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Blessed our cozy home,
our dream palace of light.

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Blessed are thy
sister and brothers.

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Blessed Father's Long Island
laundromat and Mother's

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Chinatown Confucius Plaza
of moribund rectitude.

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Blessed are Zsa Zsa
and Genius, piebald

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creatures, bold and
hirsute, rabidly

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democratic and ridiculous.

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Blessed be thy art, by lushness,
thy silences, grueling walls

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that terrorized the mind.

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Blessed that we shall finally
write the great American epic

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to shame Homer and Proust,
humiliate Aristophanes,

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troll Roth, and
tickle Hemingway.

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We shall frolic with
the fearless Queequeg

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and conquer the elusive great
white whale in the afterlife.

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Blessed are the UCLA
food trucks steaming

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with greasy street tacos,
frowzy tamales, and halo-halo.

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Blessed is JR Seafood,
waxing and waning

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between boiled sacred beef
and tepid spirit lobster,

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godless geoduck, salty, smelly
fish on reluctant pork paddies

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from the ancients.

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Blessed are capons stuffed
with frankincense and myrrh

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and transmigrating black
bean sauce uber-mensch souls.

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Blessed, the narrow
roads of Venice--

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fake, redacted canals
of quiet desperation,

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of curated miniature jungles,
manicured curs and mastiffs,

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Gondola Teslas, tiny houses
that shout transient opulence.

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Blessed are the
unfinished bamboo floors,

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decomposing kitchens,
malignant architects,

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carpenter ants who praise the
Lord whilst tunneling corridors

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toward purgatory.

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Blessed, the tall
tales, the university,

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the hierarchical splendor
and interior squalor.

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Blessed, thy students,
blossoming with cumulonimbus

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[LAUGHS] purple adjectives.

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I can't even pronounce that one.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Blessed, thy friends, black,
brown, pink, yellow, whitish,

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with eternal tans, furred,
balding, fitfully unencumbered,

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narcissistic, and mad.

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Blessed are the hypocrites,
liars, sour-faced poets,

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littering along the
River Niranjana.

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Blessed are the
solipsistic fat chefs.

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That means you, Guy Fieri.

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Why are you so famous?

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[LAUGHTER]

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Blessed the haters to
whom we send a thousand

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cuts of good fortune, a thousand
drums of cheap Beaujolais.

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Bottoms up, fools
and ignoramooses.

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For David has slayeth
Goliath and has finally

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achieved transcendence.

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Blessed are thy past loves,
apologies, and a gut laugh.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Blessed are the voice
boxes that cannot speak,

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tongues that cannot taste,
loins that cannot blossom,

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limbs that cannot embrace.

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Blessed be our body ravaged
by disambiguated joy.

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Blessed that
interstitial loneliness,

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our ultimate surrender.

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NA MO PU GUANG FO.

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Blessed be the
Universal Light Buddha.

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NA MO PU JING FO.

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Blessed be the
Universal Purity Buddha.

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NA MO DUO MO LUO...
something, something.

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[LAUGHS] Blessed the Aromatic
Cassia Sandalwood Buddha.

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NA MO DA BEI GUANG FO.

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Blessed be the Great
Compassionate Buddha of light.

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[APPLAUSE]

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I have to practice that one.

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It's-- yeah, those
polysyllabics, yeah.