WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:04.440 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read one story tonight. 00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:09.810 align:middle line:90% It's a longish story. 00:00:09.810 --> 00:00:12.010 align:middle line:84% Rachel, thanks, Rachel, and David, 00:00:12.010 --> 00:00:15.825 align:middle line:84% and everybody for helping set stuff up. 00:00:15.825 --> 00:00:17.700 align:middle line:84% Rachel said, we've got to keep the lights on, 00:00:17.700 --> 00:00:19.283 align:middle line:84% or people go to sleep. (PANICKED) Naw, 00:00:19.283 --> 00:00:20.876 align:middle line:84% you got to turn the damn lights off. 00:00:20.876 --> 00:00:24.597 align:middle line:90% 00:00:24.597 --> 00:00:27.180 align:middle line:84% She said, we have to keep the lights on or people go to sleep. 00:00:27.180 --> 00:00:28.530 align:middle line:90% Will you please turn them off? 00:00:28.530 --> 00:00:29.905 align:middle line:84% I don't want to see them yawning. 00:00:29.905 --> 00:00:31.560 align:middle line:90% I mean, I really-- 00:00:31.560 --> 00:00:32.520 align:middle line:90% off, yeah, thank you. 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:33.750 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:00:33.750 --> 00:00:34.320 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:37.020 align:middle line:90% 00:00:37.020 --> 00:00:40.170 align:middle line:84% Thank you, so yeah, I'll just zone in on this 8 and 1/2 00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:42.450 align:middle line:84% by 11 page, and I'll imagine everybody 00:00:42.450 --> 00:00:43.470 align:middle line:90% out there just smiling. 00:00:43.470 --> 00:00:43.970 align:middle line:90% And-- 00:00:43.970 --> 00:00:46.180 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:00:46.180 --> 00:00:53.500 align:middle line:90% 00:00:53.500 --> 00:00:56.520 align:middle line:90% I won't pick on Bob too much. 00:00:56.520 --> 00:01:04.800 align:middle line:84% But since this is my last chance, when I was in his class 00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:09.960 align:middle line:84% in '83 in Vermont, he came to class that first day, 00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:11.520 align:middle line:84% and he said, writing is very simple. 00:01:11.520 --> 00:01:14.160 align:middle line:90% 00:01:14.160 --> 00:01:17.100 align:middle line:84% A man or woman wants something, and they go after it. 00:01:17.100 --> 00:01:18.720 align:middle line:84% And they either win, lose, or draw-- 00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:20.322 align:middle line:90% end of story. 00:01:20.322 --> 00:01:22.530 align:middle line:84% That's all you need to know about writing, basically. 00:01:22.530 --> 00:01:24.600 align:middle line:84% All the other stuff is just kind of technique, 00:01:24.600 --> 00:01:26.010 align:middle line:90% and refinement, and stuff. 00:01:26.010 --> 00:01:30.690 align:middle line:84% And you know, it really makes teaching positions, 00:01:30.690 --> 00:01:33.240 align:middle line:84% and administration, and such useless. 00:01:33.240 --> 00:01:35.140 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's just a scam and a rip-off, 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:42.390 align:middle line:84% and so I thought I'll let y'all know that's what he said. 00:01:42.390 --> 00:01:45.450 align:middle line:90% Oh, what was it? 00:01:45.450 --> 00:01:48.720 align:middle line:84% He said something tonight at supper-- 00:01:48.720 --> 00:01:51.000 align:middle line:84% another thing about all you need to know about writing 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:53.140 align:middle line:90% was tell the story. 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:54.605 align:middle line:90% That's what it was. 00:01:54.605 --> 00:01:56.730 align:middle line:84% Everything else is just wasted, just-- we're just-- 00:01:56.730 --> 00:02:01.580 align:middle line:90% 00:02:01.580 --> 00:02:04.582 align:middle line:84% I wanted to read a short story tonight, fiction. 00:02:04.582 --> 00:02:05.540 align:middle line:90% It's really fun being-- 00:02:05.540 --> 00:02:10.560 align:middle line:84% I haven't been on a university campus in a long time. 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:14.550 align:middle line:84% And it's really nice being around one and around 00:02:14.550 --> 00:02:18.630 align:middle line:84% y'all, and seeing the, or feeling the excitement, 00:02:18.630 --> 00:02:22.280 align:middle line:84% the energy for art, and poetry, and fiction, 00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:24.360 align:middle line:84% and creative nonfiction, and stuff, 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:28.010 align:middle line:90% which is what I love to do. 00:02:28.010 --> 00:02:30.530 align:middle line:84% And I really hate doing the activism. 00:02:30.530 --> 00:02:33.852 align:middle line:84% It really, I really resent, I'm getting 00:02:33.852 --> 00:02:35.060 align:middle line:90% kind of an attitude about it. 00:02:35.060 --> 00:02:37.490 align:middle line:84% I'm really getting bitter and resentful 00:02:37.490 --> 00:02:42.710 align:middle line:84% that I feel it's necessary of my time to engage in it, 00:02:42.710 --> 00:02:48.020 align:middle line:84% when I could be playing with art or with short stories, which 00:02:48.020 --> 00:02:52.100 align:middle line:84% is what I considered it-- as being, as a form of play 00:02:52.100 --> 00:02:55.700 align:middle line:90% and recreation. 00:02:55.700 --> 00:02:58.280 align:middle line:84% So I wanted to read a short story 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:00.800 align:middle line:84% tonight because art and short stories 00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:05.030 align:middle line:84% are so important to university campuses. 00:03:05.030 --> 00:03:06.810 align:middle line:84% I mean, you come here as a student. 00:03:06.810 --> 00:03:09.930 align:middle line:84% You're young and all fired up about art. 00:03:09.930 --> 00:03:12.170 align:middle line:84% You don't want some old fart coming and saying 00:03:12.170 --> 00:03:13.110 align:middle line:90% the world's burning. 00:03:13.110 --> 00:03:13.610 align:middle line:90% Do this. 00:03:13.610 --> 00:03:14.110 align:middle line:90% Do that. 00:03:14.110 --> 00:03:16.430 align:middle line:84% I mean, you want to be idealistic, 00:03:16.430 --> 00:03:19.223 align:middle line:84% and pure, and artistic, and that's 00:03:19.223 --> 00:03:21.140 align:middle line:84% what you came here for is to learn that stuff. 00:03:21.140 --> 00:03:25.370 align:middle line:84% And I really wanted to chu-chu-chu- chu 00:03:25.370 --> 00:03:32.070 align:middle line:84% participate in that wonderful, enthusiastic, positive emotion. 00:03:32.070 --> 00:03:34.040 align:middle line:84% But I've got to thinking that it would 00:03:34.040 --> 00:03:37.100 align:middle line:84% give the wrong message that what's 00:03:37.100 --> 00:03:39.795 align:middle line:90% going on where I live is-- 00:03:39.795 --> 00:03:42.170 align:middle line:84% I don't feel like I have the luxury of being able to take 00:03:42.170 --> 00:03:43.730 align:middle line:90% a step away from it yet. 00:03:43.730 --> 00:03:46.742 align:middle line:84% Maybe when those wilderness areas are protected 00:03:46.742 --> 00:03:48.950 align:middle line:84% or those road-less areas are protected as wilderness, 00:03:48.950 --> 00:03:51.710 align:middle line:84% then I really do imagine, envision someday 00:03:51.710 --> 00:03:54.620 align:middle line:84% being able to just step back into that wallowing, 00:03:54.620 --> 00:03:58.940 align:middle line:84% of just pure art, just pure beauty without a message, 00:03:58.940 --> 00:04:00.920 align:middle line:84% without a moral, without a theme, 00:04:00.920 --> 00:04:04.220 align:middle line:84% without asking the audience for something. 00:04:04.220 --> 00:04:09.160 align:middle line:84% But I'm not there right now or yet, so my apologies, 00:04:09.160 --> 00:04:13.250 align:middle line:84% somewhat in advance, for petitioning y'all for something 00:04:13.250 --> 00:04:15.290 align:middle line:90% in this story. 00:04:15.290 --> 00:04:16.850 align:middle line:90% It is kind of a story. 00:04:16.850 --> 00:04:23.870 align:middle line:84% It's not quite an essay, but it's not quite a story either. 00:04:23.870 --> 00:04:29.040 align:middle line:84% It's called Fiber, and it's written in four parts. 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:35.600 align:middle line:84% Part one-- "When we came into this country, runaways, 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:39.710 align:middle line:84% renegades, we were like birds that had to sing. 00:04:39.710 --> 00:04:45.200 align:middle line:84% It was only 10 years ago, but it feels like 100 or maybe 1,000. 00:04:45.200 --> 00:04:47.450 align:middle line:84% No person can know what 1,000 years 00:04:47.450 --> 00:04:50.210 align:middle line:84% feels like, though in the first part of my life, 00:04:50.210 --> 00:04:52.490 align:middle line:84% I was a geologist and was comfortable 00:04:52.490 --> 00:04:56.450 align:middle line:84% holding a foot-long core of Earth and examining such time, 00:04:56.450 --> 00:04:59.780 align:middle line:90% 1,000 years per inch. 00:04:59.780 --> 00:05:01.970 align:middle line:84% In the section of my life after that one, 00:05:01.970 --> 00:05:05.060 align:middle line:84% I was an artist, a writer of brief stories 00:05:05.060 --> 00:05:06.620 align:middle line:84% in which I was comfortable holding 00:05:06.620 --> 00:05:10.160 align:middle line:84% a sheaf of 10 or 12 papers, in which a lifetime, even 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:12.710 align:middle line:90% several lifetimes passed. 00:05:12.710 --> 00:05:15.980 align:middle line:84% A few thousand people would read my slim books. 00:05:15.980 --> 00:05:17.870 align:middle line:84% They would write letters to me then 00:05:17.870 --> 00:05:20.090 align:middle line:84% and talk about the characters in those stories 00:05:20.090 --> 00:05:24.500 align:middle line:84% as if they were real people, which strangely saddened me. 00:05:24.500 --> 00:05:26.420 align:middle line:90% Then came the third life. 00:05:26.420 --> 00:05:28.520 align:middle line:90% I became an activist. 00:05:28.520 --> 00:05:32.690 align:middle line:84% It was as if some wall or dam burst within me, 00:05:32.690 --> 00:05:35.990 align:middle line:84% so that everything I wrote had to be asking for something-- 00:05:35.990 --> 00:05:38.360 align:middle line:84% petition signatures, letters to Congress, 00:05:38.360 --> 00:05:42.770 align:middle line:84% et cetera, instead of giving something. 00:05:42.770 --> 00:05:45.080 align:middle line:84% But any landscape of significance, 00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:48.020 align:middle line:84% of power, whether dramatic or understated, 00:05:48.020 --> 00:05:51.470 align:middle line:84% will alter us if we will let it, and I 00:05:51.470 --> 00:05:55.580 align:middle line:84% am being bent yet again, though not without some fracturing. 00:05:55.580 --> 00:05:58.130 align:middle line:84% Now, I am into my fourth life, one 00:05:58.130 --> 00:06:00.200 align:middle line:84% which is built around things more immediate 00:06:00.200 --> 00:06:02.940 align:middle line:90% than the fairy wing days of art. 00:06:02.940 --> 00:06:06.320 align:middle line:84% Even this narrative, this story is fiction, 00:06:06.320 --> 00:06:09.980 align:middle line:84% but each story I tell feels like the last one I'll do, 00:06:09.980 --> 00:06:13.310 align:middle line:84% as if I've become like some insect or reptile, trying 00:06:13.310 --> 00:06:15.590 align:middle line:84% to shed the husk of its old skin. 00:06:15.590 --> 00:06:18.470 align:middle line:84% And even now, as I struggle toward the perceived freedom 00:06:18.470 --> 00:06:22.040 align:middle line:84% of the next phase of my life, the light ahead, 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:26.060 align:middle line:84% neither you nor I can really be sure of how much of any story 00:06:26.060 --> 00:06:31.160 align:middle line:84% is fiction or art and how much of it is activism. 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:35.270 align:middle line:84% I'm trying hard to move ahead cleanly into the next territory, 00:06:35.270 --> 00:06:38.120 align:middle line:84% but still, things slip and fall back. 00:06:38.120 --> 00:06:40.970 align:middle line:84% The old, even when it is buried beneath the new, 00:06:40.970 --> 00:06:46.790 align:middle line:84% sometimes rises and surges, pierces through, and reappears. 00:06:46.790 --> 00:06:49.940 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, it feels as if I'm running toward the future, 00:06:49.940 --> 00:06:52.430 align:middle line:84% with a hunger for it, but other times, 00:06:52.430 --> 00:06:56.720 align:middle line:84% as if I am simply fleeing the past and those old skins. 00:06:56.720 --> 00:06:58.475 align:middle line:90% It's so hard not to look back. 00:06:58.475 --> 00:07:01.220 align:middle line:90% 00:07:01.220 --> 00:07:04.400 align:middle line:84% I cut sawlogs to sell to the mill. 00:07:04.400 --> 00:07:06.860 align:middle line:84% Prices are high on the back end of an election 00:07:06.860 --> 00:07:11.270 align:middle line:84% year, low interest rates, new housing starts, as the economies 00:07:11.270 --> 00:07:15.470 align:middle line:84% of man heat to incandescence, fueled by China's child labor, 00:07:15.470 --> 00:07:19.130 align:middle line:84% Mexico's slave labor, fueled by the $5 an hour 00:07:19.130 --> 00:07:22.790 align:middle line:84% slave labor, slave labor even in our own country. 00:07:22.790 --> 00:07:25.820 align:middle line:84% And in sawing those logs, the first thing I notice 00:07:25.820 --> 00:07:30.200 align:middle line:84% is whether the log I cut is an old tree or a young tree. 00:07:30.200 --> 00:07:32.510 align:middle line:84% I don't mean whether it's a big one or not. 00:07:32.510 --> 00:07:35.840 align:middle line:84% All the logs I cut are roughly the same size-- 00:07:35.840 --> 00:07:39.630 align:middle line:84% big enough so that I can almost get my arms around them. 00:07:39.630 --> 00:07:42.140 align:middle line:84% They are each 100 inches long, a figure 00:07:42.140 --> 00:07:46.970 align:middle line:84% I can measure off in my sleep or can pace blindfolded. 00:07:46.970 --> 00:07:48.860 align:middle line:84% I've cut so many hundred-inch logs 00:07:48.860 --> 00:07:52.550 align:middle line:84% that I tend to see the world now in hundred-inch increments. 00:07:52.550 --> 00:07:55.730 align:middle line:84% That's the size log the LP mill over in Idaho needs 00:07:55.730 --> 00:08:00.650 align:middle line:84% for its laser mill, which makes short, eight foot, two by fours. 00:08:00.650 --> 00:08:02.300 align:middle line:90% There's not a lot of waste. 00:08:02.300 --> 00:08:06.260 align:middle line:84% Those fucking lasers don't leave much curf. 00:08:06.260 --> 00:08:09.260 align:middle line:84% So the logs I cut are all about the same size, 00:08:09.260 --> 00:08:12.830 align:middle line:84% but each one is a different weight and density, based mostly 00:08:12.830 --> 00:08:15.530 align:middle line:84% on age and based also on whether the tree got 00:08:15.530 --> 00:08:19.820 align:middle line:84% to be that big by growing quickly or slowly. 00:08:19.820 --> 00:08:23.120 align:middle line:84% The first cut you make into the log will show you this, 00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:24.920 align:middle line:84% will tell you just about all you'd ever 00:08:24.920 --> 00:08:27.650 align:middle line:84% want to know about that tree's history. 00:08:27.650 --> 00:08:30.290 align:middle line:84% I can handle larger, individual logs, 00:08:30.290 --> 00:08:33.770 align:middle line:84% and sometimes, I'll hump some big-ass honker, tight, green, 00:08:33.770 --> 00:08:37.429 align:middle line:84% old-growth spruce or fir, 400 fucking pounds packed 00:08:37.429 --> 00:08:39.409 align:middle line:90% into that hundred-inch length. 00:08:39.409 --> 00:08:41.270 align:middle line:84% But mostly, I try to carry out only 00:08:41.270 --> 00:08:44.240 align:middle line:84% the medium sized ones, which fill up the back of the truck 00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:45.890 align:middle line:90% quickly enough. 00:08:45.890 --> 00:08:48.050 align:middle line:84% Some of them will be 80 or 90 years old 00:08:48.050 --> 00:08:52.070 align:middle line:84% if they grew slowly, in a shadowy, light starved place, 00:08:52.070 --> 00:08:55.640 align:middle line:84% the kind of woods where I best like to work in summer. 00:08:55.640 --> 00:08:59.720 align:middle line:84% And others the same size will be only 20 or 30 years old, 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:04.310 align:middle line:84% with their growth rings spaced a 1/4 inch wide apart or wider-- 00:09:04.310 --> 00:09:06.110 align:middle line:84% trees that are seemingly comprised 00:09:06.110 --> 00:09:08.840 align:middle line:84% of liquid sunlight, trees like pipe straw, 00:09:08.840 --> 00:09:11.990 align:middle line:84% sucking up water and sucking down sunlight, 00:09:11.990 --> 00:09:14.630 align:middle line:84% trees of no real integrity or use, 00:09:14.630 --> 00:09:17.060 align:middle line:84% weakened from having grown too fast 00:09:17.060 --> 00:09:20.390 align:middle line:84% and without ever having been tested. 00:09:20.390 --> 00:09:23.180 align:middle line:84% But I get paid for volume, not quality, 00:09:23.180 --> 00:09:27.260 align:middle line:84% and I load them into the truck, too, 100 inches at a time, 00:09:27.260 --> 00:09:29.600 align:middle line:84% though they feel light as balsa wood, 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:33.000 align:middle line:84% after having just handled an 80 or 90-year-old log before that 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:36.960 align:middle line:84% one, and I feel guilty thinking of some carpenter 3,000 miles 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:41.430 align:middle line:84% away, Florida perhaps, building some flimsy-shit house with 00:09:41.430 --> 00:09:42.630 align:middle line:90% those studs-- 00:09:42.630 --> 00:09:44.400 align:middle line:84% the wood splitting like parchment 00:09:44.400 --> 00:09:47.070 align:middle line:84% at the first tap of a nail, and the carpenter 00:09:47.070 --> 00:09:50.610 align:middle line:84% cursing some unknowable thing, groping with his curse 00:09:50.610 --> 00:09:54.630 align:middle line:84% to reach all the way back to the point of origin, which is what? 00:09:54.630 --> 00:09:55.590 align:middle line:90% The mill? 00:09:55.590 --> 00:09:56.430 align:middle line:90% Me? 00:09:56.430 --> 00:09:57.840 align:middle line:90% The sunlight? 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:00.060 align:middle line:84% The brutality of supply and demand, 00:10:00.060 --> 00:10:02.190 align:middle line:84% and the omnipresent hypercapitalism 00:10:02.190 --> 00:10:05.100 align:middle line:84% here at post-consumer century's end? 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:07.590 align:middle line:84% Finish the house, stucco over the mistakes, 00:10:07.590 --> 00:10:10.320 align:middle line:84% paint it bright red and blue, sell the son of a bitch, 00:10:10.320 --> 00:10:11.970 align:middle line:90% and move on. 00:10:11.970 --> 00:10:13.870 align:middle line:84% What are they trying to do-- dissect the-- 00:10:13.870 --> 00:10:16.680 align:middle line:84% were they going to do-- dissect the house to cross-examine 00:10:16.680 --> 00:10:19.320 align:middle line:90% each strut, each stud? 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:22.080 align:middle line:84% Who knows what's inside anything? 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:25.620 align:middle line:84% More and more, I'm trying not to look back at who I was, 00:10:25.620 --> 00:10:29.580 align:middle line:84% or even who I am, but at the land itself. 00:10:29.580 --> 00:10:33.090 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to let the land tell me who and what I am, 00:10:33.090 --> 00:10:35.280 align:middle line:84% trying to let it pace and direct me, 00:10:35.280 --> 00:10:40.350 align:middle line:84% until it is as if I have become part of it. 00:10:40.350 --> 00:10:42.810 align:middle line:84% This country, the Yaak Valley, way up 00:10:42.810 --> 00:10:47.460 align:middle line:84% in the northwest tip of Montana, burns and rots both. 00:10:47.460 --> 00:10:49.590 align:middle line:84% The shape of the land beneath the forest 00:10:49.590 --> 00:10:51.960 align:middle line:84% is like the sluggish waves in an ancient, 00:10:51.960 --> 00:10:54.270 align:middle line:90% nearly petrified ocean-- 00:10:54.270 --> 00:10:56.040 align:middle line:84% the waves of the northern Rockies 00:10:56.040 --> 00:10:59.380 align:middle line:84% sliding into the waves of the Pacific Northwest, 00:10:59.380 --> 00:11:02.040 align:middle line:84% so that it is like being lost or like having 00:11:02.040 --> 00:11:06.030 align:middle line:84% found the rich, dense place you were always looking for. 00:11:06.030 --> 00:11:08.310 align:middle line:84% You can walk around any given corner, 00:11:08.310 --> 00:11:12.210 align:middle line:84% and in less than 100 paces, go from fire-dependent ponderosa 00:11:12.210 --> 00:11:16.350 align:middle line:84% pine and grassland into the shadowy, dripping, mossy cedar 00:11:16.350 --> 00:11:21.270 align:middle line:84% and hemlock forests, rich with the almost sexual smell of rot. 00:11:21.270 --> 00:11:25.500 align:middle line:84% Tree frogs, electric-red salamanders, wood thrushes, 00:11:25.500 --> 00:11:27.120 align:middle line:90% ferns-- 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:30.270 align:middle line:84% climb a little farther, past the trickling waterfall, 00:11:30.270 --> 00:11:33.240 align:middle line:84% past the mossy green skull of a woodland caribou, 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:36.110 align:middle line:84% and you come to a small glacier, across which 00:11:36.110 --> 00:11:38.820 align:middle line:84% are sculpted the transient, sun-melting tracks of where 00:11:38.820 --> 00:11:42.300 align:middle line:84% a wolverine passed by the day before. 00:11:42.300 --> 00:11:44.760 align:middle line:84% The tracks and scourings of the glacier itself, 00:11:44.760 --> 00:11:47.880 align:middle line:84% across the stone mountain, beneath all that ice, 00:11:47.880 --> 00:11:51.540 align:middle line:84% are only slightly less transient. 00:11:51.540 --> 00:11:53.700 align:middle line:84% Down the sunny backside of the mountain, 00:11:53.700 --> 00:11:56.820 align:middle line:84% you can pass through one of the old 1910 burns, 00:11:56.820 --> 00:12:00.090 align:middle line:84% where there are still giant larch snags from that fire, 00:12:00.090 --> 00:12:02.730 align:middle line:84% each one a hollowed-out home to woodpeckers, 00:12:02.730 --> 00:12:06.180 align:middle line:84% and martens, bear cubs, and flying squirrels. 00:12:06.180 --> 00:12:10.110 align:middle line:84% This old burned-out forest still has its own peculiar vital force 00:12:10.110 --> 00:12:14.430 align:middle line:84% and energy, and seems to almost seethe, drunk or intoxicated 00:12:14.430 --> 00:12:17.340 align:middle line:84% on the health of so much available sunlight, 00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:19.230 align:middle line:84% and drunk on the health of the fire, 00:12:19.230 --> 00:12:25.080 align:middle line:84% the rich fire-blackened soil, the nutritiousness of ashes. 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:27.000 align:middle line:84% Then farther down the mountain, you'll 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:31.170 align:middle line:84% be back into damp creekside, silent old growth, more moss 00:12:31.170 --> 00:12:35.700 align:middle line:84% and that dark Northwest forest, spruce and fir. 00:12:35.700 --> 00:12:38.220 align:middle line:84% Back home in your cabin, your dreams 00:12:38.220 --> 00:12:42.060 align:middle line:84% swirled as if you were still traveling, still walking, even 00:12:42.060 --> 00:12:45.180 align:middle line:84% in your sleep, across this blessed landscape, 00:12:45.180 --> 00:12:47.430 align:middle line:84% with all its incredible diversity, 00:12:47.430 --> 00:12:48.945 align:middle line:90% and the strength that brings. 00:12:48.945 --> 00:12:52.890 align:middle line:90% 00:12:52.890 --> 00:12:56.940 align:middle line:84% In the first life, back in Louisiana, I took things-- 00:12:56.940 --> 00:13:00.810 align:middle line:84% just the oil, at first, from so deep, beneath the ground, 00:13:00.810 --> 00:13:03.300 align:middle line:84% and from such a distant past, that at first it 00:13:03.300 --> 00:13:07.470 align:middle line:84% did not seem like a taking, but then, gradually and increasingly 00:13:07.470 --> 00:13:09.630 align:middle line:90% from the surface. 00:13:09.630 --> 00:13:12.480 align:middle line:84% I took boats, big boats from their moorings 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:16.110 align:middle line:84% at the Marina at night, sailed them all night long-- 00:13:16.110 --> 00:13:20.160 align:middle line:84% sometimes, alone, other times with my wife Hope. 00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:22.800 align:middle line:84% Before dawn, we would sail back towards shore, 00:13:22.800 --> 00:13:24.990 align:middle line:84% then open the boat's drain to try 00:13:24.990 --> 00:13:28.380 align:middle line:84% to sink it, or sometimes, would even torch the boat 00:13:28.380 --> 00:13:31.050 align:middle line:84% and swim back in that last distance to shore, 00:13:31.050 --> 00:13:33.540 align:middle line:84% and then watch for a while, in the darkness, 00:13:33.540 --> 00:13:37.660 align:middle line:84% the beautiful, flaming spectacle of waste. 00:13:37.660 --> 00:13:40.110 align:middle line:84% I would take everything, anything, 00:13:40.110 --> 00:13:42.180 align:middle line:84% the manhole covers to flood sewers 00:13:42.180 --> 00:13:45.450 align:middle line:84% in the street, license plates, once, 00:13:45.450 --> 00:13:49.590 align:middle line:84% a sewing machine, from a backyard in suburban Lafayette, 00:13:49.590 --> 00:13:51.630 align:middle line:90% a picnic table. 00:13:51.630 --> 00:13:56.370 align:middle line:84% It was as if I was trying to eat the world or that part of it. 00:13:56.370 --> 00:14:00.060 align:middle line:84% The newspapers began reporting the strange disappearances. 00:14:00.060 --> 00:14:02.160 align:middle line:84% They couldn't make rhyme or reason of it. 00:14:02.160 --> 00:14:05.430 align:middle line:90% There seemed no logic to it. 00:14:05.430 --> 00:14:07.980 align:middle line:84% I went in through windows and from dresser tops, 00:14:07.980 --> 00:14:10.710 align:middle line:90% took jewelry and other riches. 00:14:10.710 --> 00:14:12.360 align:middle line:90% I didn't ever sell anything. 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:13.800 align:middle line:90% I just took it. 00:14:13.800 --> 00:14:15.660 align:middle line:90% It pleased me. 00:14:15.660 --> 00:14:18.240 align:middle line:84% I would place the objects elsewhere. 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:21.480 align:middle line:84% There are diamond necklaces hung in the bowels of cypress trees 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:26.700 align:middle line:84% in Louisiana, pearl earrings in bird nests in the Atchafalaya. 00:14:26.700 --> 00:14:30.180 align:middle line:84% I took cars, got in them, and drove a short distance, 00:14:30.180 --> 00:14:32.790 align:middle line:90% then hid them, or sank them. 00:14:32.790 --> 00:14:35.070 align:middle line:90% It filled a need in me. 00:14:35.070 --> 00:14:37.890 align:middle line:84% I would look at my two hands and think, what are these 00:14:37.890 --> 00:14:40.636 align:middle line:90% made for if not to take. 00:14:40.636 --> 00:14:41.136 align:middle line:90%