WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.690 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.690 --> 00:00:02.687 align:middle line:90% This is called The Blue Flame. 00:00:02.687 --> 00:00:05.960 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.960 --> 00:00:08.990 align:middle line:84% Another day forcing me into place. 00:00:08.990 --> 00:00:12.110 align:middle line:84% The sun stunning, the courtyard at noon some circle 00:00:12.110 --> 00:00:14.690 align:middle line:90% of hell I don't mind at all. 00:00:14.690 --> 00:00:17.480 align:middle line:84% Neighbors off to school, to work, 00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:21.920 align:middle line:84% even the dark women who already have hung on a rope wet whites, 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:25.820 align:middle line:90% magentas, and aquamarines. 00:00:25.820 --> 00:00:28.910 align:middle line:90% No resolutions to speak of. 00:00:28.910 --> 00:00:32.600 align:middle line:84% No release come easy like a break in the weather. 00:00:32.600 --> 00:00:34.940 align:middle line:90% But no ugly fights either. 00:00:34.940 --> 00:00:39.560 align:middle line:84% No shrieking recriminations to bring the police. 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:42.590 align:middle line:84% Cobwebs on the cactus, on the agave 00:00:42.590 --> 00:00:45.260 align:middle line:90% and its secret intoxication. 00:00:45.260 --> 00:00:50.390 align:middle line:84% And the endless yarn of the mouse in deep decomposition. 00:00:50.390 --> 00:00:53.660 align:middle line:84% Hour after hour, a potent stillness 00:00:53.660 --> 00:00:58.790 align:middle line:84% upon which nothing that is not essential can intrude, 00:00:58.790 --> 00:01:03.920 align:middle line:84% like that drive through the Sonora in murderous mid-summer. 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:07.310 align:middle line:84% The pickup, nicknamed "the blue flame." 00:01:07.310 --> 00:01:11.600 align:middle line:84% No AC, just a steady combustion through heat 00:01:11.600 --> 00:01:15.620 align:middle line:84% that suggested you sit still, breathe slowly, and keep 00:01:15.620 --> 00:01:18.260 align:middle line:90% your mouth shut. 00:01:18.260 --> 00:01:23.480 align:middle line:84% Monumental space impervious to human foolishness where even 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:26.630 align:middle line:84% the utility towers, massive as they were, 00:01:26.630 --> 00:01:31.280 align:middle line:84% looked like little Hopi dancers frozen in place. 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:36.320 align:middle line:84% No telling how far I had to go or how hard it would be, 00:01:36.320 --> 00:01:40.220 align:middle line:84% but terrain that austere reinforced the belief 00:01:40.220 --> 00:01:43.310 align:middle line:90% I was here for the duration. 00:01:43.310 --> 00:01:44.610 align:middle line:90% It's hard to say that word. 00:01:44.610 --> 00:01:47.720 align:middle line:90% I was here for the duration. 00:01:47.720 --> 00:01:49.700 align:middle line:84% Not always easy though, telling the ghost 00:01:49.700 --> 00:01:51.470 align:middle line:90% towns from the live ones. 00:01:51.470 --> 00:01:54.140 align:middle line:84% It took only seconds to pass through and often no 00:01:54.140 --> 00:01:55.640 align:middle line:90% one in sight. 00:01:55.640 --> 00:01:59.240 align:middle line:84% At most, a cowboy hat at a gas pump. 00:01:59.240 --> 00:02:05.420 align:middle line:84% And once, a Navajo girl in black braids dragging on a long string 00:02:05.420 --> 00:02:08.600 align:middle line:90% a dusty pair of tennis shoes. 00:02:08.600 --> 00:02:11.210 align:middle line:84% Then the highway again, a strict line 00:02:11.210 --> 00:02:14.090 align:middle line:84% forward through a billion years in which 00:02:14.090 --> 00:02:17.480 align:middle line:84% life answered to no one but itself, 00:02:17.480 --> 00:02:23.180 align:middle line:84% in which no man or a woman ruined the Earth for each other, 00:02:23.180 --> 00:02:27.230 align:middle line:84% no water for miles, nothing to cultivate the power lines that 00:02:27.230 --> 00:02:33.080 align:middle line:84% are far removed and then set back from the interstate 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:35.630 align:middle line:90% at the foot of a butte: 00:02:35.630 --> 00:02:40.730 align:middle line:84% a small house, turquoise, astonishing as a mirage 00:02:40.730 --> 00:02:43.550 align:middle line:90% that won't disappear. 00:02:43.550 --> 00:02:47.390 align:middle line:84% The sheer fact was somebody lived here, 00:02:47.390 --> 00:02:52.160 align:middle line:84% somebody who managed every day not to die. 00:02:52.160 --> 00:02:58.305 align:middle line:84% Mile after mile, I wondered how and who and never once asked 00:02:58.305 --> 00:02:58.805 align:middle line:90% why. 00:02:58.805 --> 00:03:05.970 align:middle line:90% 00:03:05.970 --> 00:03:07.020 align:middle line:90% Any questions? 00:03:07.020 --> 00:03:09.900 align:middle line:90% 00:03:09.900 --> 00:03:16.062 align:middle line:90% You're very quiet, which is OK. 00:03:16.062 --> 00:03:16.770 align:middle line:90% You can be quiet. 00:03:16.770 --> 00:03:22.870 align:middle line:90% 00:03:22.870 --> 00:03:26.890 align:middle line:84% Little story about the weather that I 00:03:26.890 --> 00:03:28.210 align:middle line:90% remember from David Mamet. 00:03:28.210 --> 00:03:31.120 align:middle line:84% It was a beautiful, just a gorgeous day, 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:34.600 align:middle line:90% and he was on an elevator. 00:03:34.600 --> 00:03:39.260 align:middle line:84% And an old woman came on to the elevator, 00:03:39.260 --> 00:03:43.720 align:middle line:84% and there was the traditional awkward silence. 00:03:43.720 --> 00:03:49.930 align:middle line:84% And all of a sudden, she says to him, lovely weather, aren't we? 00:03:49.930 --> 00:03:57.770 align:middle line:90% 00:03:57.770 --> 00:03:58.620 align:middle line:90% I'm willing to wait. 00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:00.920 align:middle line:90% It's OK. 00:04:00.920 --> 00:04:05.290 align:middle line:84% Talk about being at one with nature, you are the weather.