WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.565 align:middle line:90% "The Size of Spokane." 00:00:01.565 --> 00:00:04.220 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.220 --> 00:00:10.922 align:middle line:84% I just read this in Phoenix and told the story 00:00:10.922 --> 00:00:12.380 align:middle line:84% about my husband, which is, I mean, 00:00:12.380 --> 00:00:14.990 align:middle line:84% I realize now I'm trotting him out all the time. 00:00:14.990 --> 00:00:16.129 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry. 00:00:16.129 --> 00:00:17.220 align:middle line:90% But I'm very proud of him. 00:00:17.220 --> 00:00:19.678 align:middle line:84% He's the only man in America who took his wife's last name. 00:00:19.678 --> 00:00:23.060 align:middle line:84% So he deserves a few ceremonial gestures 00:00:23.060 --> 00:00:24.920 align:middle line:84% among the ceremonial gestures or some 00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:28.670 align:middle line:84% that he maybe won't look fondly on, 00:00:28.670 --> 00:00:30.920 align:middle line:90% but they're all affectionate. 00:00:30.920 --> 00:00:32.622 align:middle line:84% When he first arrived from Bulgaria 00:00:32.622 --> 00:00:34.580 align:middle line:84% seven or eight years ago, his first researchers 00:00:34.580 --> 00:00:37.580 align:middle line:90% were televisionistic. 00:00:37.580 --> 00:00:41.030 align:middle line:84% The first thing you do is to watch all 93 channels 00:00:41.030 --> 00:00:43.685 align:middle line:90% 26 hours a day. 00:00:43.685 --> 00:00:45.560 align:middle line:84% First, he watched all the Christian channels. 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:47.102 align:middle line:84% That was unbelievable to him that you 00:00:47.102 --> 00:00:49.160 align:middle line:84% could have a number of Christian channels on TV. 00:00:49.160 --> 00:00:51.650 align:middle line:84% I mean, you come from Bulgaria, you do not believe that. 00:00:51.650 --> 00:00:54.140 align:middle line:90% Then, all the CNNs. 00:00:54.140 --> 00:00:57.170 align:middle line:84% His mother got into the A&P and she never 00:00:57.170 --> 00:00:59.345 align:middle line:90% got past the pickle section. 00:00:59.345 --> 00:01:00.643 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:01:00.643 --> 00:01:02.060 align:middle line:84% It was the first section and there 00:01:02.060 --> 00:01:05.910 align:middle line:84% were 113 kinds of pickles, many of which were exactly the same, 00:01:05.910 --> 00:01:07.160 align:middle line:90% but all had different writing. 00:01:07.160 --> 00:01:08.710 align:middle line:90% You have to read everything. 00:01:08.710 --> 00:01:13.130 align:middle line:84% It made me realize how much we just process immediately, 00:01:13.130 --> 00:01:14.330 align:middle line:90% bypass. 00:01:14.330 --> 00:01:16.820 align:middle line:90% But she had to read everything. 00:01:16.820 --> 00:01:21.170 align:middle line:84% And she never could get to the bad hot dog 00:01:21.170 --> 00:01:23.810 align:middle line:90% rolls, which were next. 00:01:23.810 --> 00:01:26.000 align:middle line:84% Anyway, he's watching TV all the time. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.190 align:middle line:84% And I, who already know what's on there, 00:01:28.190 --> 00:01:30.950 align:middle line:84% I'm doing the other stuff, like cleaning the toilet 00:01:30.950 --> 00:01:31.910 align:middle line:90% and making the meals. 00:01:31.910 --> 00:01:33.770 align:middle line:84% And every now and then I hear him 00:01:33.770 --> 00:01:36.200 align:middle line:84% in the next room talking back to the television. 00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:38.840 align:middle line:84% So I crept up to the room once to hear what he was saying. 00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:41.090 align:middle line:84% I came to the door of the living room and I leaned in. 00:01:41.090 --> 00:01:44.840 align:middle line:84% And what he was saying was, I hate the Michelin Baby. 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:49.370 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:01:49.370 --> 00:01:50.810 align:middle line:90% I was so proud of him. 00:01:50.810 --> 00:01:55.210 align:middle line:90% 00:01:55.210 --> 00:01:58.280 align:middle line:84% So this has been a salutary influence for me, 00:01:58.280 --> 00:02:00.620 align:middle line:90% who I'm a sap from way back. 00:02:00.620 --> 00:02:03.860 align:middle line:90% This guy has no sentimentality. 00:02:03.860 --> 00:02:07.520 align:middle line:84% A lot of this poem owes its temperament to him. 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:10.889 align:middle line:90% "The Size of Spokane." 00:02:10.889 --> 00:02:12.810 align:middle line:90% "The baby isn't cute. 00:02:12.810 --> 00:02:16.320 align:middle line:84% In fact, he's a homely little pale and headlong stumbler. 00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:17.880 align:middle line:90% Still he's one of us-- 00:02:17.880 --> 00:02:23.400 align:middle line:84% the human being stuck on flight to 95, Chicago to Spokane. 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:26.370 align:middle line:84% And when he passes my seat twice at full tilt 00:02:26.370 --> 00:02:30.420 align:middle line:84% this then that direction, I look down from Lethal Weapon 3 00:02:30.420 --> 00:02:33.100 align:middle line:90% to see just why. 00:02:33.100 --> 00:02:36.940 align:middle line:84% He's running back and forth across a sunblazed circle 00:02:36.940 --> 00:02:38.410 align:middle line:90% on the carpet-- 00:02:38.410 --> 00:02:41.770 align:middle line:84% something brilliant, fallen from a porthole. 00:02:41.770 --> 00:02:45.370 align:middle line:84% So it's light amazing him, it's only light, 00:02:45.370 --> 00:02:48.400 align:middle line:84% despite some three and one half hundred people, propped 00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:49.720 align:middle line:90% in rows for him to wonder at. 00:02:49.720 --> 00:02:51.430 align:middle line:84% It's light he can't get over, light 00:02:51.430 --> 00:02:54.970 align:middle line:84% he can't investigate enough, however many zones he runs 00:02:54.970 --> 00:02:58.640 align:middle line:90% across it, flickering himself. 00:02:58.640 --> 00:03:00.890 align:middle line:84% The umpteenth time I see him coming, 00:03:00.890 --> 00:03:05.030 align:middle line:84% I've had just about enough, but then he notices me noticing 00:03:05.030 --> 00:03:06.050 align:middle line:90% and stops-- 00:03:06.050 --> 00:03:10.925 align:middle line:84% one fat hand on my arm to inspect the oddities of me. 00:03:10.925 --> 00:03:13.990 align:middle line:90% 00:03:13.990 --> 00:03:17.010 align:middle line:90% Some people cannot hear. 00:03:17.010 --> 00:03:19.510 align:middle line:90% Some people cannot walk. 00:03:19.510 --> 00:03:24.810 align:middle line:84% But everyone was sunstruck once, and set adrift. 00:03:24.810 --> 00:03:27.150 align:middle line:84% Have we forgotten how astonishing this is? 00:03:27.150 --> 00:03:30.480 align:middle line:90% Can nothing now amaze me? 00:03:30.480 --> 00:03:34.380 align:middle line:84% Have I practiced all my senses numb, so now instead 00:03:34.380 --> 00:03:37.260 align:middle line:90% of seeing I foresee? 00:03:37.260 --> 00:03:43.260 align:middle line:84% Each spectral port, each human eye is shot through with a hole, 00:03:43.260 --> 00:03:47.370 align:middle line:84% and everything we know goes in there, where it feeds a blaze. 00:03:47.370 --> 00:03:52.230 align:middle line:84% In a flash, the baby's old, Mel Gibson's hundredth comeback 00:03:52.230 --> 00:03:58.050 align:middle line:84% seems less clever, all his chases and embraces narrow down, 00:03:58.050 --> 00:03:59.940 align:middle line:90% while we fly on-- 00:03:59.940 --> 00:04:05.010 align:middle line:84% in our plane radiance of vehicle toward what cannot stay small 00:04:05.010 --> 00:04:07.710 align:middle line:90% forever." 00:04:07.710 --> 00:04:09.900 align:middle line:84% That's where circling back to the title helps, 00:04:09.900 --> 00:04:11.370 align:middle line:90% "The Size of Spokane." 00:04:11.370 --> 00:04:14.160 align:middle line:84% At least Spokane liked to think that that was what 00:04:14.160 --> 00:04:16.500 align:middle line:90% couldn't stay small forever. 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:17.000 align:middle line:90%