WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.450 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.450 --> 00:00:10.700 align:middle line:84% OK, a long poem about a movie, The Manchurian Candidate. 00:00:10.700 --> 00:00:14.660 align:middle line:84% It's about watching a movie, and if you haven't seen the movie, 00:00:14.660 --> 00:00:17.870 align:middle line:90% hopefully, it doesn't matter. 00:00:17.870 --> 00:00:19.370 align:middle line:84% If you have seen the movie, the poem 00:00:19.370 --> 00:00:22.010 align:middle line:84% isn't going to make any more sense than if you haven't 00:00:22.010 --> 00:00:23.870 align:middle line:90% seen the movie, I don't think. 00:00:23.870 --> 00:00:27.620 align:middle line:84% So don't despair, as the plot fails 00:00:27.620 --> 00:00:31.670 align:middle line:90% to unreel sequentially, OK? 00:00:31.670 --> 00:00:35.920 align:middle line:84% "The Manchurian Candidate: A Remake." 00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:38.890 align:middle line:84% "First shot, for the trailer, also. 00:00:38.890 --> 00:00:41.140 align:middle line:84% Bang we see the crosshairs targeting 00:00:41.140 --> 00:00:43.670 align:middle line:90% the spineless forehead. 00:00:43.670 --> 00:00:44.600 align:middle line:90% Second shot. 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:46.250 align:middle line:84% Didn't you hear me the first time? 00:00:46.250 --> 00:00:49.610 align:middle line:84% We know you know what we're saying to you. 00:00:49.610 --> 00:00:50.840 align:middle line:90% Third shot. 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:54.260 align:middle line:84% They have such power over me, but Frank isn't bothered by them 00:00:54.260 --> 00:00:55.310 align:middle line:90% all that much. 00:00:55.310 --> 00:01:00.270 align:middle line:84% Ulysses lies there on his floor, a closed block with a big name. 00:01:00.270 --> 00:01:01.350 align:middle line:90% Fourth shot. 00:01:01.350 --> 00:01:04.620 align:middle line:84% Closeup of the dustjacket-- words. 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:06.540 align:middle line:90% They have power over me. 00:01:06.540 --> 00:01:08.550 align:middle line:84% The dustjacket is orange and black. 00:01:08.550 --> 00:01:11.370 align:middle line:84% But this is black and white, so I just say it. 00:01:11.370 --> 00:01:14.550 align:middle line:84% The cover isn't part of the book, obviously. 00:01:14.550 --> 00:01:18.600 align:middle line:90% I'm not in the movie, obviously. 00:01:18.600 --> 00:01:21.090 align:middle line:90% Fifth shot, for the trailer. 00:01:21.090 --> 00:01:24.960 align:middle line:84% A harpsichord on the soundtrack signals something's false. 00:01:24.960 --> 00:01:26.820 align:middle line:90% This is the '50s, remember. 00:01:26.820 --> 00:01:29.970 align:middle line:84% On top, they're hearty, fussy old ladies. 00:01:29.970 --> 00:01:33.930 align:middle line:84% Underneath, they're murderous, cold-war hypnotists. 00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:36.660 align:middle line:84% On top, they're discussing hydrangeas. 00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:40.290 align:middle line:84% Underneath, they make soldiers strangle each other. 00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:41.940 align:middle line:90% On top, it's a movie. 00:01:41.940 --> 00:01:44.550 align:middle line:90% On top, the frozen war. 00:01:44.550 --> 00:01:46.800 align:middle line:90% Underneath, markets wither. 00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:50.490 align:middle line:84% Underneath, pleasure, all its eggs in one basket, 00:01:50.490 --> 00:01:52.860 align:middle line:90% explodes at the sound of shots. 00:01:52.860 --> 00:01:56.640 align:middle line:84% Underneath, you have to follow these words to the letter. 00:01:56.640 --> 00:01:59.550 align:middle line:90% You are on top. 00:01:59.550 --> 00:02:01.170 align:middle line:90% Sixth shot. 00:02:01.170 --> 00:02:03.180 align:middle line:90% At last, the truth can be told. 00:02:03.180 --> 00:02:05.700 align:middle line:90% Let all the spies stand naked. 00:02:05.700 --> 00:02:07.350 align:middle line:84% I was sitting in the den, watching 00:02:07.350 --> 00:02:09.449 align:middle line:84% a tape of The Manchurian Candidate, 00:02:09.449 --> 00:02:12.750 align:middle line:84% secular, married, legible, American, 00:02:12.750 --> 00:02:15.000 align:middle line:90% looking at what's showing. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:18.030 align:middle line:84% Let all the words be sold at cost. 00:02:18.030 --> 00:02:20.910 align:middle line:84% Let all the words be read at cost. 00:02:20.910 --> 00:02:23.400 align:middle line:84% I was playing solitaire because of Korea. 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:27.210 align:middle line:84% The deck contained 52 diamond queens. 00:02:27.210 --> 00:02:28.740 align:middle line:90% Seventh shot. 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:31.170 align:middle line:84% That was in the movie, but a picture 00:02:31.170 --> 00:02:35.070 align:middle line:84% is exactly where I don't want to live. 00:02:35.070 --> 00:02:36.990 align:middle line:84% Panda-- where would you like to live? 00:02:36.990 --> 00:02:38.190 align:middle line:90% China? 00:02:38.190 --> 00:02:40.440 align:middle line:90% Koala-- I'd love to visit. 00:02:40.440 --> 00:02:42.780 align:middle line:84% The food, the umbrellas, the bicycles. 00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:44.160 align:middle line:90% Where would you like to live? 00:02:44.160 --> 00:02:45.330 align:middle line:90% Australia? 00:02:45.330 --> 00:02:48.660 align:middle line:84% Panda-- Australia is too ironic for my taste. 00:02:48.660 --> 00:02:49.920 align:middle line:90% I'd love to visit, though. 00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:51.510 align:middle line:90% I've never seen a kangaroo. 00:02:51.510 --> 00:02:54.600 align:middle line:84% Their leg muscles must be remarkable. 00:02:54.600 --> 00:02:57.300 align:middle line:84% It looked as if I was coming out ahead, not quite victory, 00:02:57.300 --> 00:03:00.630 align:middle line:84% perhaps, but what have we been fighting for all our lives 00:03:00.630 --> 00:03:04.110 align:middle line:84% if not a New York where you can go into a bar in the '50s, 00:03:04.110 --> 00:03:06.900 align:middle line:90% order a beer, and read Ulysses? 00:03:06.900 --> 00:03:09.000 align:middle line:90% I saw paradise the other night. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:12.060 align:middle line:84% It was as easy to read as breathing and writing 00:03:12.060 --> 00:03:16.050 align:middle line:84% one's invitation to the world in progress, frank, surprised, 00:03:16.050 --> 00:03:17.190 align:middle line:90% very amused. 00:03:17.190 --> 00:03:21.000 align:middle line:84% It was a dream I can't remember, obviously, in a phrase, 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:22.050 align:middle line:90% not this one. 00:03:22.050 --> 00:03:24.930 align:middle line:84% This is just an assertive shielding echo, 00:03:24.930 --> 00:03:27.000 align:middle line:90% a deeply loved surface. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:28.440 align:middle line:90% Then I woke up. 00:03:28.440 --> 00:03:30.960 align:middle line:90% I was watching television. 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:32.010 align:middle line:90% Eighth shot. 00:03:32.010 --> 00:03:37.170 align:middle line:84% The clicker and a right hand above gray couch material. 00:03:37.170 --> 00:03:38.130 align:middle line:90% Ninth shot. 00:03:38.130 --> 00:03:40.290 align:middle line:84% The gray voice never transgressing 00:03:40.290 --> 00:03:43.800 align:middle line:84% word boundaries, the plate compartmentalized, the carrot 00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:46.950 align:middle line:84% section filled precisely, never a spatter 00:03:46.950 --> 00:03:50.790 align:middle line:84% of pureed orange slopping into the section for desire, 00:03:50.790 --> 00:03:53.610 align:middle line:84% which was filled with a clear layering of deeply 00:03:53.610 --> 00:03:54.810 align:middle line:90% loved picture-- 00:03:54.810 --> 00:03:57.870 align:middle line:84% the beautiful blonde biking by, tearing off 00:03:57.870 --> 00:04:01.800 align:middle line:84% her blouse to bandage his leg where the snake had conveniently 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:06.240 align:middle line:84% just sunk his admittedly abstract, offscreen fangs. 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:10.470 align:middle line:84% But narrative homeruns over the abyss of incoherence 00:04:10.470 --> 00:04:12.480 align:middle line:90% are America's ice cream. 00:04:12.480 --> 00:04:17.339 align:middle line:84% I saw leaden geo-toy Raymond Shaw murder mother and father 00:04:17.339 --> 00:04:19.560 align:middle line:90% in the snap of the plot. 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:20.760 align:middle line:90% 10th shot. 00:04:20.760 --> 00:04:22.470 align:middle line:84% While I was waiting for the kids to go 00:04:22.470 --> 00:04:25.830 align:middle line:84% to sleep so you could nicely slip your underwear off, 00:04:25.830 --> 00:04:27.600 align:middle line:90% oops, you went to sleep. 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:29.400 align:middle line:90% I never meant any of this. 00:04:29.400 --> 00:04:30.930 align:middle line:90% I have not done these things. 00:04:30.930 --> 00:04:32.340 align:middle line:90% Any of these things. 00:04:32.340 --> 00:04:35.970 align:middle line:90% I write for you and strangers. 00:04:35.970 --> 00:04:37.020 align:middle line:90% 11th shot. 00:04:37.020 --> 00:04:39.000 align:middle line:90% In her bra, outside. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:39.870 align:middle line:90% Summer. 00:04:39.870 --> 00:04:41.490 align:middle line:90% Some are others. 00:04:41.490 --> 00:04:42.510 align:middle line:90% Not her. 00:04:42.510 --> 00:04:43.410 align:middle line:90% Friendly. 00:04:43.410 --> 00:04:45.140 align:middle line:90% Filmy. 00:04:45.140 --> 00:04:46.880 align:middle line:90% 12th shot. 00:04:46.880 --> 00:04:49.460 align:middle line:84% I placed myself in the position of the viewer. 00:04:49.460 --> 00:04:51.110 align:middle line:90% Then I view. 00:04:51.110 --> 00:04:55.940 align:middle line:84% On the night in question, I was home all evening, viewing. 00:04:55.940 --> 00:04:58.310 align:middle line:90% 13th shot. 00:04:58.310 --> 00:05:00.500 align:middle line:90% Frank Sinatra's had it. 00:05:00.500 --> 00:05:03.890 align:middle line:84% The social cardboard's not worth the sweat he constantly 00:05:03.890 --> 00:05:05.900 align:middle line:90% carries around on his face. 00:05:05.900 --> 00:05:09.470 align:middle line:84% Wherever he looks, locked American lives. 00:05:09.470 --> 00:05:11.480 align:middle line:90% No writing the grade book. 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:14.570 align:middle line:84% Might as well read the ashtray No loving 00:05:14.570 --> 00:05:18.170 align:middle line:84% the great smile, no riding the city down to bodies 00:05:18.170 --> 00:05:21.260 align:middle line:84% that can be yours for the right song, the instant aria 00:05:21.260 --> 00:05:23.120 align:middle line:90% just before the light changes. 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:26.760 align:middle line:84% Too many cigarettes, too many buddies strangling each other. 00:05:26.760 --> 00:05:27.590 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:05:27.590 --> 00:05:28.880 align:middle line:90% Because. 00:05:28.880 --> 00:05:29.960 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:05:29.960 --> 00:05:35.270 align:middle line:84% Because the smiling Chinese totalizing science [AUDIO OUT].. 00:05:35.270 --> 00:05:37.250 align:middle line:90% But now he can't read Ulysses. 00:05:37.250 --> 00:05:39.980 align:middle line:84% It means nothing to him, just another big brick 00:05:39.980 --> 00:05:42.890 align:middle line:90% of paper named after itself. 00:05:42.890 --> 00:05:45.830 align:middle line:84% When the world is weird, being bounced around 00:05:45.830 --> 00:05:49.250 align:middle line:84% on a word trampoline won't get you any rest. 00:05:49.250 --> 00:05:52.230 align:middle line:84% From in front of the VCR field in the psychic past of the Cold 00:05:52.230 --> 00:05:55.600 align:middle line:90% War, this is Bob Perelman. 00:05:55.600 --> 00:05:57.700 align:middle line:90% 16th shot. 00:05:57.700 --> 00:06:00.700 align:middle line:84% Yes, mother, every word must count-- 00:06:00.700 --> 00:06:02.080 align:middle line:90% six. 00:06:02.080 --> 00:06:05.560 align:middle line:84% Yes, father, I will count each word-- 00:06:05.560 --> 00:06:06.550 align:middle line:90% seven. 00:06:06.550 --> 00:06:08.920 align:middle line:84% If any one of them gets away, then I 00:06:08.920 --> 00:06:11.290 align:middle line:90% will be alone in a locked mess. 00:06:11.290 --> 00:06:13.600 align:middle line:84% The warm curves, the grassy hills, 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:16.300 align:middle line:84% the actual caves I will want to write myself. 00:06:16.300 --> 00:06:18.250 align:middle line:90% Please, I'll write it myself. 00:06:18.250 --> 00:06:21.400 align:middle line:84% The way streets look from inside the house at night, 00:06:21.400 --> 00:06:24.280 align:middle line:84% either end blocked or shielded by maple leaves 00:06:24.280 --> 00:06:27.070 align:middle line:84% lit black green by streetlights, stating 00:06:27.070 --> 00:06:29.560 align:middle line:84% my feelings of home, mouth and ear 00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:32.110 align:middle line:84% and leading them out to the attentive spark. 00:06:32.110 --> 00:06:34.810 align:middle line:84% I read Jack Kerouac who is free to drive 00:06:34.810 --> 00:06:37.090 align:middle line:84% a Ford in the specific direction of heaven 00:06:37.090 --> 00:06:39.880 align:middle line:84% where art is a very good investment, although you should 00:06:39.880 --> 00:06:42.310 align:middle line:84% only say that well after the fact. 00:06:42.310 --> 00:06:47.288 align:middle line:84% In 1955, the many love the few, or at least the few 00:06:47.288 --> 00:06:48.580 align:middle line:90% are free to think that they do. 00:06:48.580 --> 00:06:52.780 align:middle line:84% And it was a very good year, the present recording its pleasure 00:06:52.780 --> 00:06:54.280 align:middle line:90% in being recorded. 00:06:54.280 --> 00:06:58.600 align:middle line:84% Frank Sinatra is rewarded with a stage full of underwear and keys 00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:02.290 align:middle line:84% while standing up and swaying, his inward light spotlit 00:07:02.290 --> 00:07:06.610 align:middle line:84% smokily, his throat open to extort every sung syllable, 00:07:06.610 --> 00:07:09.910 align:middle line:84% the bedroom board meeting smoldering, shareholders 00:07:09.910 --> 00:07:11.800 align:middle line:90% on fire, humming along. 00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:16.120 align:middle line:84% In 1955, art is as exciting as the perfect bid, 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:19.720 align:middle line:84% the sunsoaked homerun, the victory over the others 00:07:19.720 --> 00:07:22.720 align:middle line:84% that they like, too, acknowledge, buy, 00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:24.050 align:middle line:90% put on the wall. 00:07:24.050 --> 00:07:29.180 align:middle line:84% Kids wait, but the early offscreen doors don't reopen. 00:07:29.180 --> 00:07:31.610 align:middle line:90% 17th shot, voiceover. 00:07:31.610 --> 00:07:34.580 align:middle line:84% The Manchurian Candidate stars Frank Sinatra 00:07:34.580 --> 00:07:38.270 align:middle line:84% as Benny Marco, Lawrence Harvey as the horrible Raymond Shaw, 00:07:38.270 --> 00:07:40.010 align:middle line:84% Janet Leigh as Benny's girlfriend. 00:07:40.010 --> 00:07:44.000 align:middle line:84% Angela Lansbury as Raymond's mastermind mother. 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:46.730 align:middle line:84% American soldiers are betrayed in Korea, captured 00:07:46.730 --> 00:07:48.830 align:middle line:90% by the Chinese Communists. 00:07:48.830 --> 00:07:52.460 align:middle line:84% After offscreen brainwashing, they are shown to the Russians. 00:07:52.460 --> 00:07:56.360 align:middle line:84% Both groups are intellectuals, quoting conflicting studies 00:07:56.360 --> 00:07:58.340 align:middle line:84% as the commonsense Americans sit, 00:07:58.340 --> 00:08:02.330 align:middle line:84% bored but patient, in alternate shots, brainwashed into thinking 00:08:02.330 --> 00:08:04.400 align:middle line:84% they're at a horticultural meeting in New Jersey 00:08:04.400 --> 00:08:07.310 align:middle line:84% where matrons in white dresses and broad flowery hats 00:08:07.310 --> 00:08:10.340 align:middle line:84% are attending a lecture extolling scientific gardening. 00:08:10.340 --> 00:08:14.180 align:middle line:84% Quote: 'Another modern discovery which we owe to the hydrangea 00:08:14.180 --> 00:08:17.480 align:middle line:84% concerns the influence of air drainage upon plant 00:08:17.480 --> 00:08:19.520 align:middle line:90% climate,' unquote. 00:08:19.520 --> 00:08:23.960 align:middle line:84% Slow modern harpsichord jangles the soundtrack. 00:08:23.960 --> 00:08:26.390 align:middle line:84% The film is racially progressive. 00:08:26.390 --> 00:08:29.600 align:middle line:84% When onscreen American soldier is Black, 00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:32.720 align:middle line:84% his hallucinated matrons are uppermiddleclass Black. 00:08:32.720 --> 00:08:35.840 align:middle line:90% There's no plantation subtext. 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:38.600 align:middle line:84% When Shaw is ordered to strangle another soldier, 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:41.570 align:middle line:84% he's almost too polite, saying, 'Excuse me' 00:08:41.570 --> 00:08:43.100 align:middle line:90% as he brushes another's chair. 00:08:43.100 --> 00:08:46.100 align:middle line:84% The soldier to be strangled is polite, too. 00:08:46.100 --> 00:08:48.080 align:middle line:90% It's a liberal utopia. 00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:51.740 align:middle line:84% Good manners have triumphed over competition. 00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:54.170 align:middle line:84% The Chinese are jovial and authoritative. 00:08:54.170 --> 00:08:56.090 align:middle line:90% They've perfected the procedure. 00:08:56.090 --> 00:08:58.490 align:middle line:84% They can make the Americans believe anything. 00:08:58.490 --> 00:09:01.970 align:middle line:84% The Camels they're smoking turn out to be yak dung. 00:09:01.970 --> 00:09:06.080 align:middle line:84% It is to laugh, for the Chinese mastermind at least. 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:10.850 align:middle line:84% The Russians are surly and badly in need of dental work. 00:09:10.850 --> 00:09:13.010 align:middle line:90% You can't believe what you see. 00:09:13.010 --> 00:09:14.690 align:middle line:90% But you have to look. 00:09:14.690 --> 00:09:17.600 align:middle line:84% Finally, the poem is beginning to focus. 00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:23.280 align:middle line:84% We know you know what we're saying to you. 00:09:23.280 --> 00:09:25.290 align:middle line:90% Koala-- I hit my head. 00:09:25.290 --> 00:09:26.250 align:middle line:90% I had a dream. 00:09:26.250 --> 00:09:28.695 align:middle line:90% Isn't that how it always starts? 00:09:28.695 --> 00:09:31.880 align:middle line:84% Panda-- maybe that's the way it starts in the West. 00:09:31.880 --> 00:09:33.320 align:middle line:90% It's not a collective form. 00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:35.990 align:middle line:84% There's no rhetorical place for people to come together. 00:09:35.990 --> 00:09:38.600 align:middle line:84% That's the way you started, but that's not 00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:39.950 align:middle line:90% the way it's supposed to start. 00:09:39.950 --> 00:09:42.290 align:middle line:90% Hitting your head is personal. 00:09:42.290 --> 00:09:45.410 align:middle line:84% Koala-- I was cutting the grass, and I hit my head 00:09:45.410 --> 00:09:46.940 align:middle line:90% on the branch of an apple tree. 00:09:46.940 --> 00:09:50.330 align:middle line:84% An old one, 25 feet tall with two live quarters sprouting 00:09:50.330 --> 00:09:53.090 align:middle line:84% north and south, two dead ones east and west. 00:09:53.090 --> 00:09:55.730 align:middle line:84% It was not symbolism, only matter. 00:09:55.730 --> 00:09:59.750 align:middle line:84% If you don't believe me, you can feel the ridge of healing flesh 00:09:59.750 --> 00:10:01.580 align:middle line:90% on my head under the fur here. 00:10:01.580 --> 00:10:04.320 align:middle line:90% It's as real as history. 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:08.040 align:middle line:84% Panda-- cutting the grass is a fairly trivial instance 00:10:08.040 --> 00:10:10.710 align:middle line:84% upon which to balance the nonconcentric circles 00:10:10.710 --> 00:10:11.550 align:middle line:90% of history. 00:10:11.550 --> 00:10:14.340 align:middle line:84% Go in, I would have said, have a little lemonade, 00:10:14.340 --> 00:10:16.770 align:middle line:84% and read Whitman or the Misty poets. 00:10:16.770 --> 00:10:21.160 align:middle line:84% Particulars only exist by being collective. 00:10:21.160 --> 00:10:24.790 align:middle line:84% Koala-- so audience-- fuzzy little me in the case 00:10:24.790 --> 00:10:25.780 align:middle line:90% of your remarks-- 00:10:25.780 --> 00:10:27.520 align:middle line:90% becomes crucial. 00:10:27.520 --> 00:10:30.070 align:middle line:84% Panda-- when you're a nation, being cute 00:10:30.070 --> 00:10:31.120 align:middle line:90% is not enough anymore. 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:34.810 align:middle line:84% No, an audience is a serious, collective enterprise. 00:10:34.810 --> 00:10:37.840 align:middle line:84% The ironic single writer in a cage, 00:10:37.840 --> 00:10:40.750 align:middle line:84% treasonous or loyal or mad, riven 00:10:40.750 --> 00:10:43.240 align:middle line:90% by pathos, unfamiliar tears. 00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:46.780 align:middle line:84% It doesn't really matter much to the words or the world. 00:10:46.780 --> 00:10:50.200 align:middle line:84% Once the hypnosis of the singular is snapped, that is. 00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:52.810 align:middle line:84% Before, one can think that anything 00:10:52.810 --> 00:10:55.220 align:middle line:90% might happen on the page. 00:10:55.220 --> 00:10:59.270 align:middle line:84% Koala-- I'm willing to bob for very small favors, balls 00:10:59.270 --> 00:11:02.870 align:middle line:84% of hard, candied poetry swimming almost ethically 00:11:02.870 --> 00:11:05.510 align:middle line:84% in the sweat of irony's personal furnace 00:11:05.510 --> 00:11:09.020 align:middle line:84% around which individuals are gathered into gendered masses 00:11:09.020 --> 00:11:13.370 align:middle line:84% in lieu of lives for all lived under the changeable blue fields 00:11:13.370 --> 00:11:17.990 align:middle line:84% of utopia otherwise known as international justice. 00:11:17.990 --> 00:11:20.610 align:middle line:90% Panda-- international justice. 00:11:20.610 --> 00:11:23.720 align:middle line:84% I think we might as well change the subject, don't you? 00:11:23.720 --> 00:11:25.520 align:middle line:90% Koala-- fine. 00:11:25.520 --> 00:11:29.180 align:middle line:84% Which do you hate more, symbolic poetry or poetry 00:11:29.180 --> 00:11:30.830 align:middle line:90% that's all language? 00:11:30.830 --> 00:11:32.930 align:middle line:90% Panda-- easy. 00:11:32.930 --> 00:11:34.910 align:middle line:90% Poetry that's symbolic. 00:11:34.910 --> 00:11:38.420 align:middle line:84% Koala-- but what about poetry that's all language? 00:11:38.420 --> 00:11:40.460 align:middle line:84% Panda-- poetry that's all language 00:11:40.460 --> 00:11:42.290 align:middle line:84% makes me cry when I'm asleep and can't 00:11:42.290 --> 00:11:43.850 align:middle line:84% hear the tears hitting the pillow, 00:11:43.850 --> 00:11:45.830 align:middle line:90% I mean the top of the page. 00:11:45.830 --> 00:11:48.470 align:middle line:90% Koala-- I actually hit my head. 00:11:48.470 --> 00:11:49.760 align:middle line:90% That means something. 00:11:49.760 --> 00:11:50.690 align:middle line:90% It was hot. 00:11:50.690 --> 00:11:54.320 align:middle line:84% I was one body for the duration, cutting the leaves of grass, 00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:57.350 align:middle line:84% and I saw myself walking on air, on cloud 00:11:57.350 --> 00:12:01.400 align:middle line:84% stilts of biological perpetuity and sweat of the word. 00:12:01.400 --> 00:12:02.780 align:middle line:90% I was not a nation. 00:12:02.780 --> 00:12:04.100 align:middle line:90% I was not a species. 00:12:04.100 --> 00:12:06.320 align:middle line:84% I was a speaker, fully alive, just 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:09.920 align:middle line:84% because I like the sound of that, the noisome hiss of this 00:12:09.920 --> 00:12:12.710 align:middle line:84% making a made world under me undergo 00:12:12.710 --> 00:12:14.690 align:middle line:84% twisting birth and destruction just 00:12:14.690 --> 00:12:17.300 align:middle line:84% to keep me saying what I was going to say anyway. 00:12:17.300 --> 00:12:18.590 align:middle line:90% Or anything else. 00:12:18.590 --> 00:12:21.590 align:middle line:84% Or nothing so what black hole blank. 00:12:21.590 --> 00:12:24.410 align:middle line:84% An apple, an unoriginal rhetorical sin a day 00:12:24.410 --> 00:12:28.070 align:middle line:84% goes astray into the many minds of the many, many others who 00:12:28.070 --> 00:12:32.510 align:middle line:84% don't think this, and neither do I, neither we nor me. 00:12:32.510 --> 00:12:33.950 align:middle line:90% Am I allowed to say this? 00:12:33.950 --> 00:12:34.640 align:middle line:90% No. 00:12:34.640 --> 00:12:35.690 align:middle line:90% I say it. 00:12:35.690 --> 00:12:39.110 align:middle line:84% Thanks to the body beyond species, beyond genre, 00:12:39.110 --> 00:12:41.460 align:middle line:84% thanks to the dictionaries, the strikers, 00:12:41.460 --> 00:12:44.750 align:middle line:84% the Haymarket lexicographers, the Tiananmen Square 00:12:44.750 --> 00:12:47.600 align:middle line:90% grammarians, I say it out loud. 00:12:47.600 --> 00:12:48.440 align:middle line:90% Where was I? 00:12:48.440 --> 00:12:49.700 align:middle line:90% Where are we? 00:12:49.700 --> 00:12:53.570 align:middle line:84% Don't you love the intrusion of speech where no speech can be, 00:12:53.570 --> 00:12:56.930 align:middle line:84% life where sounds are the slippery start to never finish 00:12:56.930 --> 00:12:59.240 align:middle line:90% but get there already anyway? 00:12:59.240 --> 00:13:02.360 align:middle line:84% Panda-- did you show that to your trainer 00:13:02.360 --> 00:13:04.670 align:middle line:84% before you turned it loose on me? 00:13:04.670 --> 00:13:06.290 align:middle line:90% Koala-- my teacher? 00:13:06.290 --> 00:13:08.750 align:middle line:84% Panda-- I'm assuming your teacher 00:13:08.750 --> 00:13:12.320 align:middle line:84% was your trainer before he was your teacher. 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:13.550 align:middle line:90% 18th shot. 00:13:13.550 --> 00:13:15.860 align:middle line:84% I can't remember the movie anymore. 00:13:15.860 --> 00:13:18.590 align:middle line:84% Art means throwing scraps of code 00:13:18.590 --> 00:13:21.170 align:middle line:84% to the bodies as appetite supplements. 00:13:21.170 --> 00:13:26.150 align:middle line:84% The screen is softwired so the bars disappear. 00:13:26.150 --> 00:13:31.250 align:middle line:84% After the primal shot, I can see eyes painted open 00:13:31.250 --> 00:13:33.890 align:middle line:84% on the death mask of that lovely arrangement I used 00:13:33.890 --> 00:13:37.910 align:middle line:84% to call the world, America, my life, the page, 00:13:37.910 --> 00:13:40.760 align:middle line:84% the academy of the future, which, as it turns out, 00:13:40.760 --> 00:13:42.350 align:middle line:90% is in the past. 00:13:42.350 --> 00:13:43.610 align:middle line:90% They even move. 00:13:43.610 --> 00:13:44.600 align:middle line:90% They're mine. 00:13:44.600 --> 00:13:45.830 align:middle line:90% That was home. 00:13:45.830 --> 00:13:49.670 align:middle line:84% It's plain that there was time and that it took place, 00:13:49.670 --> 00:13:52.280 align:middle line:84% but its quick pleasures are now words in a language 00:13:52.280 --> 00:13:54.590 align:middle line:90% with only scattered survivors. 00:13:54.590 --> 00:13:58.670 align:middle line:84% A single word means nothing or a line without a world. 00:13:58.670 --> 00:14:01.580 align:middle line:84% The present is full of survivors sentences 00:14:01.580 --> 00:14:03.860 align:middle line:84% with disoriented conviction and memory 00:14:03.860 --> 00:14:07.430 align:middle line:84% too deep for instrumental speech, swimming sinkingly 00:14:07.430 --> 00:14:11.960 align:middle line:84% toward pre-owned futures hosed down the hyperspace of capital 00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:15.080 align:middle line:84% where freedom spells the rampant logos turning 00:14:15.080 --> 00:14:19.310 align:middle line:84% attractively bemused typefaces and bodies toward the traffic. 00:14:19.310 --> 00:14:21.230 align:middle line:90% Or language it for yourself. 00:14:21.230 --> 00:14:22.880 align:middle line:90% Make your own recipes. 00:14:22.880 --> 00:14:25.280 align:middle line:84% Ironize, experiment, write wrong, 00:14:25.280 --> 00:14:27.140 align:middle line:84% but don't forget the old pleasures-- 00:14:27.140 --> 00:14:29.600 align:middle line:90% skies, turkeys, playgrounds. 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:31.280 align:middle line:90% We know you know. 00:14:31.280 --> 00:14:35.750 align:middle line:84% Meanwhile, one drives, an open lane a paycheck of sorts, 00:14:35.750 --> 00:14:38.690 align:middle line:84% leading to the biography glimpsed in the gas station john 00:14:38.690 --> 00:14:39.950 align:middle line:90% mirror. 00:14:39.950 --> 00:14:43.970 align:middle line:84% Until the war is over, there's nothing to eat but information, 00:14:43.970 --> 00:14:48.620 align:middle line:84% and the new mixes with the old down through all the details. 00:14:48.620 --> 00:14:51.250 align:middle line:90% Taste. 00:14:51.250 --> 00:14:53.440 align:middle line:90% 19th shot. 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:55.180 align:middle line:90% Who folded my clothes? 00:14:55.180 --> 00:14:56.170 align:middle line:90% You did. 00:14:56.170 --> 00:14:57.520 align:middle line:90% I did. 00:14:57.520 --> 00:14:59.230 align:middle line:90% Who watered my tears? 00:14:59.230 --> 00:15:00.040 align:middle line:90% You did. 00:15:00.040 --> 00:15:01.240 align:middle line:90% I did. 00:15:01.240 --> 00:15:03.640 align:middle line:84% Who batted an eye each word I woke? 00:15:03.640 --> 00:15:04.720 align:middle line:90% You did. 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:05.950 align:middle line:90% I did. 00:15:05.950 --> 00:15:08.200 align:middle line:84% Who waited for me to sleep, so I could wake one 00:15:08.200 --> 00:15:09.820 align:middle line:90% step further inside the world? 00:15:09.820 --> 00:15:10.960 align:middle line:90% You did. 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:12.870 align:middle line:90% I did. 00:15:12.870 --> 00:15:16.350 align:middle line:84% Koala-- to survive, you have to be willing to do anything. 00:15:16.350 --> 00:15:20.430 align:middle line:84% Anthologies, that's where the money really is or might be, 00:15:20.430 --> 00:15:24.390 align:middle line:84% at least so I imagine from my fuzzy animal distance. 00:15:24.390 --> 00:15:26.010 align:middle line:90% Reprint the material. 00:15:26.010 --> 00:15:27.900 align:middle line:90% Dominate the gene pool. 00:15:27.900 --> 00:15:32.700 align:middle line:84% Rise like Godzilla and make them read you for fucking ever. 00:15:32.700 --> 00:15:35.490 align:middle line:84% Panda-- if you use language like that, 00:15:35.490 --> 00:15:38.490 align:middle line:84% you'll have a hard time even making it into the La Brea Tar 00:15:38.490 --> 00:15:39.990 align:middle line:90% Pits. 00:15:39.990 --> 00:15:41.310 align:middle line:90% 20th shot. 00:15:41.310 --> 00:15:45.030 align:middle line:84% To be free and to be Frank Sinatra, the pinnacle artist, 00:15:45.030 --> 00:15:47.550 align:middle line:84% but to be pictured as Homo ordinarius, 00:15:47.550 --> 00:15:51.750 align:middle line:84% keeping the public world private by visible quotidian heroism-- 00:15:51.750 --> 00:15:56.040 align:middle line:84% that's the lesson scorching the director's desire in every shot. 00:15:56.040 --> 00:16:01.070 align:middle line:84% If you feel like arguing with the movies, then step outside. 00:16:01.070 --> 00:16:02.780 align:middle line:90% 21st shot. 00:16:02.780 --> 00:16:05.960 align:middle line:84% The Chinese mastermind has the one successful marriage 00:16:05.960 --> 00:16:07.220 align:middle line:90% in the movie. 00:16:07.220 --> 00:16:08.660 align:middle line:90% Of course, it's offscreen. 00:16:08.660 --> 00:16:10.040 align:middle line:90% You can't have everything. 00:16:10.040 --> 00:16:12.710 align:middle line:90% He's really a most happy fellow. 00:16:12.710 --> 00:16:17.090 align:middle line:84% He leaves the Russian doctor-spy's so-called clinic 00:16:17.090 --> 00:16:19.280 align:middle line:84% in New York after making it clear 00:16:19.280 --> 00:16:22.850 align:middle line:84% that Raymond has to murder his would-have-been father-in-law, 00:16:22.850 --> 00:16:24.980 align:middle line:84% the honest muckraking journalist, 00:16:24.980 --> 00:16:27.230 align:middle line:84% as well as the love of his life blonde. 00:16:27.230 --> 00:16:28.430 align:middle line:90% Don't fall asleep. 00:16:28.430 --> 00:16:29.570 align:middle line:90% This is plot. 00:16:29.570 --> 00:16:32.660 align:middle line:84% Everyone has to sacrifice, except for perhaps 00:16:32.660 --> 00:16:36.800 align:middle line:84% the mastermind, jauntily tugging his gloves tight, saying now 00:16:36.800 --> 00:16:39.530 align:middle line:84% he has to get off to Macy's for some Christmas shopping, 00:16:39.530 --> 00:16:42.710 align:middle line:84% smiles the happy social smile sans dissonance. 00:16:42.710 --> 00:16:45.260 align:middle line:84% The wife gave him a list yea long, shrugs, 00:16:45.260 --> 00:16:46.490 align:middle line:90% what are you going to do? 00:16:46.490 --> 00:16:48.650 align:middle line:84% He knows how to get in bed with capital 00:16:48.650 --> 00:16:51.140 align:middle line:84% and let it charm his pants off, having 00:16:51.140 --> 00:16:53.390 align:middle line:84% them, quote, "tight enough so everyone will want 00:16:53.390 --> 00:16:56.330 align:middle line:84% to go to bed with you," as Frank O'Hara writes, 00:16:56.330 --> 00:16:59.540 align:middle line:84% is a youthful gesture under the dappled shade of capital's 00:16:59.540 --> 00:17:01.310 align:middle line:90% frond-like pleasances. 00:17:01.310 --> 00:17:04.460 align:middle line:84% That's one thing, but to live as a large system of control 00:17:04.460 --> 00:17:06.230 align:middle line:90% is quite another. 00:17:06.230 --> 00:17:09.470 align:middle line:84% As the mastermind leaves, the Russian stares. 00:17:09.470 --> 00:17:11.250 align:middle line:90% He just doesn't get it. 00:17:11.250 --> 00:17:15.500 align:middle line:84% He believes in history, not Macy's, inextricable direction, 00:17:15.500 --> 00:17:18.740 align:middle line:84% totality, the concrete translucent materiality 00:17:18.740 --> 00:17:22.760 align:middle line:84% of class truth, one world, one history at the end. 00:17:22.760 --> 00:17:25.490 align:middle line:84% Meanwhile, one's provisional oneness 00:17:25.490 --> 00:17:29.840 align:middle line:84% stands with oblique conviction against the waterfall of happily 00:17:29.840 --> 00:17:31.430 align:middle line:90% pregnant wage slaves. 00:17:31.430 --> 00:17:36.600 align:middle line:84% That rainbow spray is as guilty as Sunday, those sunny lakes, 00:17:36.600 --> 00:17:39.860 align:middle line:84% those caves of ice, those miracles of rare device 00:17:39.860 --> 00:17:42.950 align:middle line:84% forced from the deep romantic chasm of bourgeois 00:17:42.950 --> 00:17:45.530 align:middle line:84% pastoral pornographic shopping, which 00:17:45.530 --> 00:17:47.810 align:middle line:84% that fucking crypto-individualist Chinese 00:17:47.810 --> 00:17:51.170 align:middle line:84% mastermind indulges with his credit flowing 00:17:51.170 --> 00:17:55.670 align:middle line:84% past the respectful cashier like vodka down a mule's throat 00:17:55.670 --> 00:17:56.870 align:middle line:90% or whatever. 00:17:56.870 --> 00:18:01.280 align:middle line:84% Thus, the Russian revolutionary bureaucrat murderer actor 00:18:01.280 --> 00:18:04.700 align:middle line:84% placed on the verbal screen by the all-too-human history 00:18:04.700 --> 00:18:06.410 align:middle line:90% of this shot. 00:18:06.410 --> 00:18:08.180 align:middle line:90% He never gets time off. 00:18:08.180 --> 00:18:11.090 align:middle line:90% His face is a burden. 00:18:11.090 --> 00:18:13.550 align:middle line:90% Closing shot. 00:18:13.550 --> 00:18:17.210 align:middle line:84% Raymond's gunsight targets Communist McCarthyite 00:18:17.210 --> 00:18:20.870 align:middle line:84% foster father's forehead, as said before, though 00:18:20.870 --> 00:18:22.670 align:middle line:90% in a novel continuum. 00:18:22.670 --> 00:18:26.690 align:middle line:84% The movie wants to reach the new world and, in the same gesture, 00:18:26.690 --> 00:18:28.190 align:middle line:90% to conclude. 00:18:28.190 --> 00:18:31.430 align:middle line:84% A narrative should hold you with concern, intimacy, but not 00:18:31.430 --> 00:18:34.730 align:middle line:84% too close because you'll be heading out one day, pegged, 00:18:34.730 --> 00:18:37.130 align:middle line:84% looking back for the recognizable trees, 00:18:37.130 --> 00:18:40.490 align:middle line:84% the known cars, glad animal movements traded 00:18:40.490 --> 00:18:43.460 align:middle line:90% in for manageable novelty. 00:18:43.460 --> 00:18:46.730 align:middle line:84% Is the nostalgia for creation or destruction 00:18:46.730 --> 00:18:48.440 align:middle line:84% or maybe for something continuous 00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:50.720 align:middle line:90% that hasn't happened yet? 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:52.940 align:middle line:84% Underneath the place names, flags 00:18:52.940 --> 00:18:55.880 align:middle line:84% of private longing fluttering against the vistas, 00:18:55.880 --> 00:19:00.050 align:middle line:84% molecular revolutionaries dream of taking all desires to court 00:19:00.050 --> 00:19:03.470 align:middle line:84% and setting them loose beneath the robes of judgment. 00:19:03.470 --> 00:19:08.660 align:middle line:84% To pull the gown from knowledge, to pull the eye from noon 00:19:08.660 --> 00:19:12.530 align:middle line:84% and not to see the catered wants of Tom, Dick, and Harry 00:19:12.530 --> 00:19:17.920 align:middle line:84% navigating the street, the mall, the clicker, and the dust. 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:21.190 align:middle line:84% And Jane, Ketisha, and those tender technocratic shoots 00:19:21.190 --> 00:19:23.890 align:middle line:90% and stumps, you and me? 00:19:23.890 --> 00:19:28.330 align:middle line:84% On screen, nations personify the pursuit of happiness, 00:19:28.330 --> 00:19:31.480 align:middle line:84% tearing families to shreds and the shreds 00:19:31.480 --> 00:19:35.350 align:middle line:84% to costumed certainties of loss and rage. 00:19:35.350 --> 00:19:37.720 align:middle line:90% Beyond the blinds, the end-- 00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:41.200 align:middle line:84% rain falling on cue, Frank Sinatra crying, Janet Leigh 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:45.520 align:middle line:84% wordless, the days regular as sprocket holes, 00:19:45.520 --> 00:19:49.150 align:middle line:84% while decades slide by with unevenly layered minds 00:19:49.150 --> 00:19:50.200 align:middle line:90% of their own. 00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:54.370 align:middle line:84% You, hypocrite viewer, with nothing but mirrors 00:19:54.370 --> 00:19:57.100 align:middle line:90% for pleasure, knowledge, luck. 00:19:57.100 --> 00:19:59.710 align:middle line:90% My hand in yours if you read me. 00:19:59.710 --> 00:20:03.700 align:middle line:84% Those deprogrammed people glimmering beyond the evening's 00:20:03.700 --> 00:20:06.940 align:middle line:84% blocky conspiracy theories, willing their present 00:20:06.940 --> 00:20:10.300 align:middle line:84% without shooting our past to a bloody parable-- 00:20:10.300 --> 00:20:14.670 align:middle line:84% have you found a way to call them yet?" 00:20:14.670 --> 00:20:15.570 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:20:15.570 --> 00:20:18.920 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:40.000 align:middle line:90%