WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.990 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.990 --> 00:00:03.450 align:middle line:84% This is one that is a collaboration between me 00:00:03.450 --> 00:00:04.860 align:middle line:90% and Lyn Hejinian. 00:00:04.860 --> 00:00:09.360 align:middle line:84% February 24, yesterday, there was weather, 00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:11.670 align:middle line:90% tomorrow there will be none. 00:00:11.670 --> 00:00:15.240 align:middle line:84% I'm in an academic office surrounded by screens, 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:17.040 align:middle line:90% each with a keyboard attached. 00:00:17.040 --> 00:00:21.090 align:middle line:84% The screens depict scenes and cityscapes I'm to type in words. 00:00:21.090 --> 00:00:25.540 align:middle line:84% I type play, and the section in the Southeast of the city blows 00:00:25.540 --> 00:00:26.040 align:middle line:90% up. 00:00:26.040 --> 00:00:29.280 align:middle line:84% A seven story parking structure and a big boxy sewage treatment 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:32.310 align:middle line:84% facility with its attendant pond goes boom. 00:00:32.310 --> 00:00:35.220 align:middle line:84% A grainy spray of particles expands up in a V 00:00:35.220 --> 00:00:37.500 align:middle line:84% and then falls while the sound system produces 00:00:37.500 --> 00:00:40.930 align:middle line:84% a sharp burst of static, until the particles have vanished, 00:00:40.930 --> 00:00:43.680 align:middle line:90% leaving a tan crater. 00:00:43.680 --> 00:00:46.380 align:middle line:84% Guilt, on the other hand, creates 00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:48.990 align:middle line:84% a whole, flat, small town on a screen, 00:00:48.990 --> 00:00:51.150 align:middle line:90% which had shown verdant forest. 00:00:51.150 --> 00:00:53.700 align:middle line:84% I see a little car moving down Main Street. 00:00:53.700 --> 00:00:55.740 align:middle line:90% It stops and makes a right. 00:00:55.740 --> 00:00:58.530 align:middle line:84% I go over to a third screen with a generic big city. 00:00:58.530 --> 00:01:02.310 align:middle line:84% I type, I like horses but nothing happens. 00:01:02.310 --> 00:01:05.069 align:middle line:84% I happen to get off on the horses of instruction 00:01:05.069 --> 00:01:08.640 align:middle line:84% to hell with the Marlboro man, nothing. 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:12.180 align:middle line:84% Apparently, syntax cancels out the effects. 00:01:12.180 --> 00:01:14.760 align:middle line:90% OK, so just plain horses. 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:15.660 align:middle line:90% Anything? 00:01:15.660 --> 00:01:16.350 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:01:16.350 --> 00:01:19.020 align:middle line:84% A tiny pup tent has appeared in a lower right hand 00:01:19.020 --> 00:01:22.200 align:middle line:84% corner on the sidewalk in front of a department store. 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:28.110 align:middle line:84% I try, I a second pup tent like a third. 00:01:28.110 --> 00:01:30.120 align:middle line:84% The power of writing in this particular game 00:01:30.120 --> 00:01:33.450 align:middle line:84% is starting to feel, shall we say, illusory. 00:01:33.450 --> 00:01:36.330 align:middle line:84% An authority dressed in blue is in the doorway with three 00:01:36.330 --> 00:01:38.070 align:middle line:90% large yellow envelopes. 00:01:38.070 --> 00:01:39.720 align:middle line:90% He is holding them out to me. 00:01:39.720 --> 00:01:42.240 align:middle line:84% None have returned addresses and the authority is both 00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:44.460 align:middle line:90% offering and withholding them. 00:01:44.460 --> 00:01:48.270 align:middle line:84% It is mail not mail, perhaps one is a letter bomb. 00:01:48.270 --> 00:01:50.317 align:middle line:84% I can see the address on the top envelope. 00:01:50.317 --> 00:01:51.900 align:middle line:84% It was written with a sweeping gesture 00:01:51.900 --> 00:01:54.720 align:middle line:84% by someone using a two tone red and silver pen 00:01:54.720 --> 00:01:56.610 align:middle line:90% and shows great flourish. 00:01:56.610 --> 00:01:58.890 align:middle line:84% I know from this that the top envelope 00:01:58.890 --> 00:02:01.410 align:middle line:90% contains a literary magazine. 00:02:01.410 --> 00:02:04.560 align:middle line:84% Suddenly, I feel deeply vexed, tears start, 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:06.780 align:middle line:84% though I hold them and I feel dizzy. 00:02:06.780 --> 00:02:09.509 align:middle line:84% I don't know about the other two envelopes, I don't take them. 00:02:09.509 --> 00:02:12.750 align:middle line:84% A gesture toward the screens: you take a turn I say, 00:02:12.750 --> 00:02:13.920 align:middle line:90% but he pauses. 00:02:13.920 --> 00:02:15.780 align:middle line:90% A turn doesn't compute. 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:18.480 align:middle line:84% He seems to feel that the screens and keyboards are 00:02:18.480 --> 00:02:22.050 align:middle line:84% a sight fraught with dignity and heroic challenge. 00:02:22.050 --> 00:02:24.420 align:middle line:84% I offer him a cigarette, he takes it 00:02:24.420 --> 00:02:26.040 align:middle line:90% with earnest gratefulness. 00:02:26.040 --> 00:02:29.220 align:middle line:84% As I offer the match, he's in bureaucratic heaven. inhaling 00:02:29.220 --> 00:02:31.290 align:middle line:90% with rapt concentration. 00:02:31.290 --> 00:02:34.410 align:middle line:84% I drop the pack to the floor squash it, rubbing it-- 00:02:34.410 --> 00:02:36.300 align:middle line:84% rubbing it heavily with the ball of my foot 00:02:36.300 --> 00:02:38.430 align:middle line:84% until tobacco and paper are spread, 00:02:38.430 --> 00:02:40.170 align:middle line:84% tears are flowing down my cheeks, 00:02:40.170 --> 00:02:43.620 align:middle line:90% he's smoking, wide eyed, silent. 00:02:43.620 --> 00:02:45.150 align:middle line:84% Sullen, I'm standing on the grass 00:02:45.150 --> 00:02:49.230 align:middle line:84% near home, which is set amid an array of terraced gardens. 00:02:49.230 --> 00:02:52.620 align:middle line:84% Other people are there, including T three times 00:02:52.620 --> 00:02:54.780 align:middle line:84% in quick succession, a terrific thunderous roar 00:02:54.780 --> 00:02:57.360 align:middle line:84% fills the air and the ground rumbles and shakes. 00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:00.480 align:middle line:84% We all know then that hundreds of miles away great monsters 00:03:00.480 --> 00:03:02.200 align:middle line:90% have emerged from the ground. 00:03:02.200 --> 00:03:05.220 align:middle line:84% They are reptilian, but insect like giant ants 00:03:05.220 --> 00:03:07.560 align:middle line:90% with nimble alligator limbs. 00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:09.630 align:middle line:84% It is comforting to know they are maybe 00:03:09.630 --> 00:03:12.700 align:middle line:84% thousands of miles away but eventually they will come. 00:03:12.700 --> 00:03:16.380 align:middle line:84% It's common knowledge that they particularly hate poets. 00:03:16.380 --> 00:03:18.870 align:middle line:84% Their most fearsome postures when they arrange themselves 00:03:18.870 --> 00:03:19.750 align:middle line:90% into words. 00:03:19.750 --> 00:03:23.450 align:middle line:84% They can get us at a distance that way. 00:03:23.450 --> 00:03:26.300 align:middle line:84% We talked nervously trying to inhabit our seconds 00:03:26.300 --> 00:03:28.010 align:middle line:84% with the timbres of our voices, we 00:03:28.010 --> 00:03:30.380 align:middle line:84% make long sentences, we gesture and laugh 00:03:30.380 --> 00:03:32.000 align:middle line:90% as accurately as we can. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.240 align:middle line:90% Timing is crucial. 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:35.000 align:middle line:90%