WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.030 align:middle line:90% "Many a woman has a past. 00:00:03.030 --> 00:00:06.930 align:middle line:84% But I'm told, that she has at least a dozen. 00:00:06.930 --> 00:00:08.940 align:middle line:90% And that they all fit." 00:00:08.940 --> 00:00:12.390 align:middle line:90% Oscar Wilde. "Past and Present:" 00:00:12.390 --> 00:00:15.640 align:middle line:90% 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:16.270 align:middle line:90% "The Past." 00:00:16.270 --> 00:00:19.810 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.810 --> 00:00:23.590 align:middle line:84% "Where did she come from, that dig in the ribs? 00:00:23.590 --> 00:00:26.920 align:middle line:84% And who is she to pretend she's me 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:30.940 align:middle line:84% and take on that ditched in hopeless tone? 00:00:30.940 --> 00:00:35.620 align:middle line:84% Who is this phony yokel, this $2 bill, this pig knuckle? 00:00:35.620 --> 00:00:40.450 align:middle line:84% Honey, I tell her, my name is Lynn Collins Emanuel. 00:00:40.450 --> 00:00:44.710 align:middle line:84% Someone whose whole manner says, yes, I'm overeducated. 00:00:44.710 --> 00:00:46.270 align:middle line:90% But I'm recovering. 00:00:46.270 --> 00:00:47.740 align:middle line:90% I have been to Europe. 00:00:47.740 --> 00:00:51.550 align:middle line:84% And I don't even recall that stain in the road 00:00:51.550 --> 00:00:55.000 align:middle line:84% that you refer to as Ely, Nevada. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:58.120 align:middle line:84% Oh please, I think, give me a break, woman. 00:00:58.120 --> 00:01:01.060 align:middle line:84% I mean, who would believe this arms akimbo 00:01:01.060 --> 00:01:05.170 align:middle line:84% and faded calico West Coast depiction of the West. 00:01:05.170 --> 00:01:08.650 align:middle line:84% Get out of here, with your fibs and your lesions. 00:01:08.650 --> 00:01:11.830 align:middle line:84% Your deaf ear wired to its hearing aid. 00:01:11.830 --> 00:01:16.900 align:middle line:84% I know stories about Gertrude Stein in silk stockings 00:01:16.900 --> 00:01:19.510 align:middle line:90% drunk on Bordeaux in a garden. 00:01:19.510 --> 00:01:21.610 align:middle line:84% What do I want to sit at your table 00:01:21.610 --> 00:01:26.020 align:middle line:84% for, to be passed the faded confetti of the succotash, 00:01:26.020 --> 00:01:29.020 align:middle line:84% the turkey trussed like a hostage. 00:01:29.020 --> 00:01:32.440 align:middle line:90% Listen, I am money in the bank-- 00:01:32.440 --> 00:01:38.020 align:middle line:84% swank with it, well-informed, full of a Semitic glamour, 00:01:38.020 --> 00:01:40.120 align:middle line:90% doleful, sleek and dark. 00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:43.930 align:middle line:84% And shit, honey, how did you even get by the bouncer? 00:01:43.930 --> 00:01:45.500 align:middle line:90% Editor within me, me-- 00:01:45.500 --> 00:01:47.500 align:middle line:90% Mr. Right. 00:01:47.500 --> 00:01:50.650 align:middle line:84% And why am I now like a new tenant, 00:01:50.650 --> 00:01:55.300 align:middle line:84% moving into the little vericosity on your left calf, 00:01:55.300 --> 00:01:58.930 align:middle line:84% into the nylons knotted just above the knee. 00:01:58.930 --> 00:02:04.840 align:middle line:84% And further, into the hands that held that soft gray lump of rag, 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:09.699 align:middle line:84% and washed, and washed again the greasy formica of the dinner 00:02:09.699 --> 00:02:11.060 align:middle line:90% table. 00:02:11.060 --> 00:02:15.820 align:middle line:84% How did I get to be at the head of a long line of unlucky women, 00:02:15.820 --> 00:02:19.750 align:middle line:84% with their propensity for poverty, influenza, 00:02:19.750 --> 00:02:21.820 align:middle line:90% weak chests, and bad judgment? 00:02:21.820 --> 00:02:25.270 align:middle line:84% How did their troubles get to be mine? 00:02:25.270 --> 00:02:31.480 align:middle line:84% And no, I have no idea who could be in that hand-dug grave 00:02:31.480 --> 00:02:33.610 align:middle line:90% at the Rosebud cemetery. 00:02:33.610 --> 00:02:38.830 align:middle line:84% The little dusty picket fence of teeth smiling up from that too 00:02:38.830 --> 00:02:41.170 align:middle line:90% shallow niche is not mine. 00:02:41.170 --> 00:02:43.220 align:middle line:90% I don't know who she is. 00:02:43.220 --> 00:02:44.980 align:middle line:90% I've never seen her. 00:02:44.980 --> 00:02:48.120 align:middle line:90% I was in Paris at the time."