WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.930 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.930 --> 00:00:04.680 align:middle line:84% --to start our series this fall with Richard Katrovas. 00:00:04.680 --> 00:00:07.380 align:middle line:84% He's the author of four books of poetry-- 00:00:07.380 --> 00:00:11.940 align:middle line:84% Green Dragons, Snug Harbor, The Public Mirror, 00:00:11.940 --> 00:00:14.250 align:middle line:90% and The Book of Complaints. 00:00:14.250 --> 00:00:17.550 align:middle line:84% He has a new book that will be coming out 00:00:17.550 --> 00:00:20.310 align:middle line:84% from Carnegie Mellon within the year, 00:00:20.310 --> 00:00:26.850 align:middle line:84% or in about a year, which I believe is called Dithyrambs. 00:00:26.850 --> 00:00:30.750 align:middle line:84% Richard went as a Fulbright fellow to Yugoslavia 00:00:30.750 --> 00:00:36.870 align:middle line:84% a few years ago, and through convoluted circumstances 00:00:36.870 --> 00:00:38.340 align:middle line:90% became-- 00:00:38.340 --> 00:00:39.960 align:middle line:84% he'll probably tell you about it-- 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:44.340 align:middle line:84% became what he calls "a tourist of a gentle revolution" 00:00:44.340 --> 00:00:47.160 align:middle line:90% in what was then Czechoslovakia. 00:00:47.160 --> 00:00:49.590 align:middle line:84% Those were experiences which shape a good portion 00:00:49.590 --> 00:00:51.390 align:middle line:90% of his last book. 00:00:51.390 --> 00:00:54.090 align:middle line:84% The Book of Complaints is one of those books in which a poet 00:00:54.090 --> 00:00:56.250 align:middle line:90% reinvents himself artistically. 00:00:56.250 --> 00:01:00.240 align:middle line:84% I don't mean that it's a book of subjective individualism. 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:04.620 align:middle line:84% Rather, he's taken the gritty tensions and formal elegance 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:09.870 align:middle line:84% of his earlier work and turned them into more public concerns-- 00:01:09.870 --> 00:01:13.620 align:middle line:84% revolution in Central Europe, the passionate troubles-- 00:01:13.620 --> 00:01:16.680 align:middle line:84% collectively speaking-- between men and women, 00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:19.860 align:middle line:90% and between men and men. 00:01:19.860 --> 00:01:21.480 align:middle line:84% Someone in my class yesterday, when 00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:25.080 align:middle line:84% we were talking about this book and its emotional intensity, 00:01:25.080 --> 00:01:25.632 align:middle line:90% says-- 00:01:25.632 --> 00:01:27.840 align:middle line:84% this is kind of a workshop thing people say, right?-- 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:30.720 align:middle line:90% how does he get away with this? 00:01:30.720 --> 00:01:33.810 align:middle line:90% As if the poet was a thief. 00:01:33.810 --> 00:01:37.590 align:middle line:84% And I think a poet is a thief, if he or she robs us 00:01:37.590 --> 00:01:40.440 align:middle line:84% of the guardedness that keeps us living 00:01:40.440 --> 00:01:44.210 align:middle line:84% at a distance from our own experience. 00:01:44.210 --> 00:01:47.090 align:middle line:90% Katrovas commits such a crime-- 00:01:47.090 --> 00:01:51.290 align:middle line:84% and gets away with it, because of his masterful prosody. 00:01:51.290 --> 00:01:54.770 align:middle line:84% His blank verse is both street smart and elegant. 00:01:54.770 --> 00:01:58.460 align:middle line:84% And most impressively, in his new form, the dithyramb, 00:01:58.460 --> 00:02:01.670 align:middle line:84% he takes a form from classical Greek theater 00:02:01.670 --> 00:02:03.710 align:middle line:90% and makes it stunningly new. 00:02:03.710 --> 00:02:06.228 align:middle line:90% Please welcome Richard Katrovas. 00:02:06.228 --> 00:02:09.574 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:09.574 --> 00:02:13.880 align:middle line:90% 00:02:13.880 --> 00:02:15.330 align:middle line:90% Thank you for having me. 00:02:15.330 --> 00:02:16.470 align:middle line:90% I'm very happy to be here. 00:02:16.470 --> 00:02:19.460 align:middle line:84% This is one of the more respected venues 00:02:19.460 --> 00:02:21.930 align:middle line:84% in all of America, and I'm honored to be here. 00:02:21.930 --> 00:02:22.430 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:02:22.430 --> 00:02:25.200 align:middle line:90% 00:02:25.200 --> 00:02:27.620 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read for about 43 and 1/2 minutes, 00:02:27.620 --> 00:02:32.255 align:middle line:84% and then I'm going to open it up to Q & A. And I mean that. 00:02:32.255 --> 00:02:35.840 align:middle line:84% I'm going to be reading about a particular historical event, 00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:40.690 align:middle line:84% and you may have questions, you may have comments, 00:02:40.690 --> 00:02:43.310 align:middle line:90% and I welcome discourse. 00:02:43.310 --> 00:02:47.600 align:middle line:84% I'll begin with "The Bridge of Intellectuals." 00:02:47.600 --> 00:02:51.590 align:middle line:84% There is indeed a bridge in Prague 00:02:51.590 --> 00:02:56.420 align:middle line:84% that was built by intellectuals and poets, 00:02:56.420 --> 00:03:00.260 align:middle line:90% and this poem speaks to that. 00:03:00.260 --> 00:03:04.040 align:middle line:84% They were forced, of course, to build it. 00:03:04.040 --> 00:03:07.970 align:middle line:84% The reference in the first line of the poem to Crane is, 00:03:07.970 --> 00:03:11.860 align:middle line:84% of course, Hart Crane, who wrote the great poem "The Bridge." 00:03:11.860 --> 00:03:14.530 align:middle line:84% The elegant coup in '48 was indeed an elegant coup. 00:03:14.530 --> 00:03:20.040 align:middle line:84% Nobody died, and it was when the Communists took over. 00:03:20.040 --> 00:03:24.690 align:middle line:84% "If Crane had been a Czech and deigned to live till 53, 00:03:24.690 --> 00:03:27.880 align:middle line:84% he might have more than praised the bridge. 00:03:27.880 --> 00:03:32.050 align:middle line:84% For in that year of Stalin's death, artists and intellectuals 00:03:32.050 --> 00:03:33.280 align:middle line:90% of Prague-- 00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:36.760 align:middle line:84% but only those the party had to fix after an elegant coup 00:03:36.760 --> 00:03:38.290 align:middle line:90% in '48-- 00:03:38.290 --> 00:03:42.200 align:middle line:84% finished their bridge across the Vltava. 00:03:42.200 --> 00:03:44.990 align:middle line:84% Each morning, did they bring their lunch in bags? 00:03:44.990 --> 00:03:47.120 align:middle line:84% Did they bitch and curse and clown around 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:48.890 align:middle line:90% behind the foremen's backs? 00:03:48.890 --> 00:03:50.720 align:middle line:90% Were there foremen? 00:03:50.720 --> 00:03:55.280 align:middle line:84% Or did each man, or their women, pull his weight un-prodded 00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:58.660 align:middle line:90% by the ethos of his class? 00:03:58.660 --> 00:04:00.850 align:middle line:84% Of 11 bridges down the spine of Prague, 00:04:00.850 --> 00:04:04.450 align:middle line:84% it stands the shabbiest and least necessary. 00:04:04.450 --> 00:04:07.300 align:middle line:84% From the road leaving town, one sees the tufts of grass 00:04:07.300 --> 00:04:09.850 align:middle line:84% and weeds muscling through the rusted transoms 00:04:09.850 --> 00:04:13.420 align:middle line:84% that trains, some say, must rarely cross, 00:04:13.420 --> 00:04:17.079 align:middle line:84% and notes the webbed faults in the dark concrete of columns 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:19.029 align:middle line:84% lifting from the water like wet khaki 00:04:19.029 --> 00:04:21.870 align:middle line:90% pant-legs of old fisherman. 00:04:21.870 --> 00:04:24.210 align:middle line:84% To those whose ambitions for bourgeois fame 00:04:24.210 --> 00:04:26.460 align:middle line:84% got them torn from their tasks to labor 00:04:26.460 --> 00:04:30.810 align:middle line:84% here, is their ironic consolation that, as work is 00:04:30.810 --> 00:04:37.630 align:middle line:84% a matter of identity, so many praised workers remain unnamed? 00:04:37.630 --> 00:04:41.350 align:middle line:84% Anonymous bones of generations lie the snaking length 00:04:41.350 --> 00:04:43.990 align:middle line:90% of China's ancient shyness. 00:04:43.990 --> 00:04:46.270 align:middle line:84% Unknown apprentices applied the strokes 00:04:46.270 --> 00:04:50.320 align:middle line:84% that smeared celestial radiance onto cheeks of lesser angels 00:04:50.320 --> 00:04:52.180 align:middle line:90% in the masterworks. 00:04:52.180 --> 00:04:54.550 align:middle line:84% Such petty, silly little men who snapped 00:04:54.550 --> 00:04:57.430 align:middle line:84% the blossom of a generation from its living vine 00:04:57.430 --> 00:04:59.770 align:middle line:84% have watched their own bridge crumble. 00:04:59.770 --> 00:05:02.830 align:middle line:84% And even as this bad joke stands unused, 00:05:02.830 --> 00:05:06.910 align:middle line:84% dilapidated on the edge of town, perhaps its rehabilitated 00:05:06.910 --> 00:05:10.630 align:middle line:84% builders-- most dead by now, though some no doubt at work, 00:05:10.630 --> 00:05:14.530 align:middle line:84% scattered throughout Prague in little flats, alone-- 00:05:14.530 --> 00:05:17.080 align:middle line:84% feel vindicated in their bitterness, 00:05:17.080 --> 00:05:20.680 align:middle line:84% if bitterness survives absurdity. 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:24.670 align:middle line:84% I'd like to know that once or twice a year, an old man, 00:05:24.670 --> 00:05:27.460 align:middle line:84% whose hands are soft from idle thought, 00:05:27.460 --> 00:05:32.410 align:middle line:84% comes by tram or car to gaze a while and simply marvel that 00:05:32.410 --> 00:05:33.595 align:middle line:90% the thing still stands." 00:05:33.595 --> 00:05:37.630 align:middle line:90% 00:05:37.630 --> 00:05:38.230 align:middle line:90% "St. Vitus." 00:05:38.230 --> 00:05:41.620 align:middle line:90% 00:05:41.620 --> 00:05:45.760 align:middle line:84% "In the great Gothic cathedral of Prague, designed, of course, 00:05:45.760 --> 00:05:48.370 align:middle line:84% to scare shit out of peasants and so 00:05:48.370 --> 00:05:53.200 align:middle line:84% parlay a huge and abstract doom into incontrovertible power, 00:05:53.200 --> 00:05:58.250 align:middle line:84% I strolled, nine months after the gentle purge. 00:05:58.250 --> 00:06:01.100 align:middle line:84% A god who dices with the universe surely 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:05.210 align:middle line:84% will not care for such drab splendor, but there it stands-- 00:06:05.210 --> 00:06:10.390 align:middle line:84% dank, crusted with relics, neither museum nor sanctuary. 00:06:10.390 --> 00:06:13.120 align:middle line:84% The Holy Roman Empire once murmured there, 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:16.660 align:middle line:84% and Charles IV is kept in the huge cellar. 00:06:16.660 --> 00:06:18.670 align:middle line:84% I bought a ticket and slumped down the steps 00:06:18.670 --> 00:06:23.000 align:middle line:84% with the other tourists, mostly Germans. 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:26.150 align:middle line:84% Raised in a nation obsessed with beginnings. 00:06:26.150 --> 00:06:29.090 align:middle line:84% I could not stipulate resolution as the measure 00:06:29.090 --> 00:06:31.460 align:middle line:90% of gross identity. 00:06:31.460 --> 00:06:35.840 align:middle line:84% In the foundation of St. Vitus, large, dirty walls of granite 00:06:35.840 --> 00:06:38.450 align:middle line:84% shoulder death, and I imagined kids 00:06:38.450 --> 00:06:42.860 align:middle line:84% through the centuries screwing in the hollow pockets of rock-- 00:06:42.860 --> 00:06:47.300 align:middle line:84% sneaking down, wicked, sweet, full of guilt, 00:06:47.300 --> 00:06:51.410 align:middle line:84% yet drawn inexorably to the cool places near the crypts of kings 00:06:51.410 --> 00:06:55.490 align:middle line:84% and bishops, as though passion justifies what passion hastens." 00:06:55.490 --> 00:06:59.620 align:middle line:90% 00:06:59.620 --> 00:07:03.105 align:middle line:84% This is called "An Apology," but it's just an anecdote. 00:07:03.105 --> 00:07:05.840 align:middle line:90% 00:07:05.840 --> 00:07:08.450 align:middle line:84% "I was so surprised to see a Black face. 00:07:08.450 --> 00:07:10.940 align:middle line:90% I smiled and nodded as I passed. 00:07:10.940 --> 00:07:14.300 align:middle line:84% But you took this as salutation, and wheeled around 00:07:14.300 --> 00:07:15.830 align:middle line:90% and stopped me. 00:07:15.830 --> 00:07:17.150 align:middle line:90% Where was I going? 00:07:17.150 --> 00:07:18.320 align:middle line:90% When would I return? 00:07:18.320 --> 00:07:19.613 align:middle line:90% What was I doing in Prague? 00:07:19.613 --> 00:07:20.780 align:middle line:90% Did I live in that building? 00:07:20.780 --> 00:07:22.970 align:middle line:84% How did I get a flat in the heart of town? 00:07:22.970 --> 00:07:24.440 align:middle line:90% What kind of writer was I? 00:07:24.440 --> 00:07:27.110 align:middle line:84% Did I speak Czech, or French, or German? 00:07:27.110 --> 00:07:30.110 align:middle line:84% You were little and wiry and well-dressed. 00:07:30.110 --> 00:07:32.540 align:middle line:84% You were a student from West Africa. 00:07:32.540 --> 00:07:35.630 align:middle line:84% All I'd wanted to do was buy some beers from that funky Gypsy 00:07:35.630 --> 00:07:37.460 align:middle line:90% joint around the block. 00:07:37.460 --> 00:07:39.347 align:middle line:84% You said you'd wait for me on the corner, 00:07:39.347 --> 00:07:41.180 align:middle line:84% and I could not believe you were still there 00:07:41.180 --> 00:07:44.570 align:middle line:84% when I returned with bottles filling my arms. 00:07:44.570 --> 00:07:46.220 align:middle line:90% You asked if I wanted company-- 00:07:46.220 --> 00:07:48.890 align:middle line:84% which, at home, may have signaled you were gay. 00:07:48.890 --> 00:07:50.473 align:middle line:84% But I'm certain that you were not gay, 00:07:50.473 --> 00:07:52.640 align:middle line:84% that you were just a cheerful, lonely fellow looking 00:07:52.640 --> 00:07:55.070 align:middle line:84% to practice one of your several languages, 00:07:55.070 --> 00:07:57.050 align:middle line:84% seeking perspectives on Prague and all 00:07:57.050 --> 00:07:59.000 align:middle line:90% of its marvelous convolutions. 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:01.430 align:middle line:84% Wasn't it wonderful what was happening? 00:08:01.430 --> 00:08:04.010 align:middle line:84% Had I gone each day to Wenceslas Square? 00:08:04.010 --> 00:08:05.960 align:middle line:84% Did I believe they could ever change back? 00:08:05.960 --> 00:08:08.390 align:middle line:84% Was I familiar with Havel's dramas? 00:08:08.390 --> 00:08:10.760 align:middle line:84% I could barely hold on to all those beers. 00:08:10.760 --> 00:08:12.800 align:middle line:84% I was in a hurry, and you annoyed me. 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:15.020 align:middle line:90% I was sorry, but I had to go in. 00:08:15.020 --> 00:08:16.490 align:middle line:90% No, I did not need company. 00:08:16.490 --> 00:08:18.530 align:middle line:90% A friend was awaiting my return. 00:08:18.530 --> 00:08:20.300 align:middle line:84% She and I would eat dinner, then go out. 00:08:20.300 --> 00:08:22.400 align:middle line:90% I was sorry, very sorry. 00:08:22.400 --> 00:08:25.490 align:middle line:84% I wished you well, and you said maybe another day you'd return, 00:08:25.490 --> 00:08:26.720 align:middle line:90% and we could talk. 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:29.510 align:middle line:84% But all I wanted was to get away from your unrelenting 00:08:29.510 --> 00:08:33.720 align:middle line:84% friendliness, your intolerable goodness and sincerity, 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:36.240 align:middle line:90% your huge, toothsome smile. 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.000 align:middle line:84% But in the foyer, I was troubled by your voice, 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:41.909 align:middle line:84% so put the bottles down, almost shattering one, 00:08:41.909 --> 00:08:43.559 align:middle line:90% and ran back out. 00:08:43.559 --> 00:08:46.740 align:middle line:84% But the street was empty, and the sky was wringing out 00:08:46.740 --> 00:08:49.110 align:middle line:84% the last few drops of sunlight, and where 00:08:49.110 --> 00:08:51.630 align:middle line:84% there had been shadows, an even sheen from street lamps 00:08:51.630 --> 00:08:53.590 align:middle line:90% now prevailed. 00:08:53.590 --> 00:08:55.630 align:middle line:84% It is not that you were too good for me, 00:08:55.630 --> 00:08:58.720 align:middle line:84% or that a god wears one mask for you and one for me, 00:08:58.720 --> 00:09:01.330 align:middle line:84% but that excess of sweetness seems, 00:09:01.330 --> 00:09:04.390 align:middle line:84% even in the fading mists of hopeful change, 00:09:04.390 --> 00:09:06.400 align:middle line:84% a mortal mystery in such a world as ours." 00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:16.288 align:middle line:90% 00:09:16.288 --> 00:09:21.080 align:middle line:84% During this remarkable event referred to as the Velvet 00:09:21.080 --> 00:09:28.450 align:middle line:84% Revolution, one of the things I recall quite vividly seeing 00:09:28.450 --> 00:09:31.780 align:middle line:84% was young mothers with their young children, 00:09:31.780 --> 00:09:35.350 align:middle line:84% with their infants in trams, getting into the act-- 00:09:35.350 --> 00:09:40.090 align:middle line:84% indeed, putting slogans and placards on the trams 00:09:40.090 --> 00:09:44.080 align:middle line:84% and forming their own little protest 00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:45.880 align:middle line:90% rally in Old Town Square. 00:09:45.880 --> 00:09:48.550 align:middle line:90% And this poem responds to that. 00:09:48.550 --> 00:09:54.160 align:middle line:84% Jan Hus, of course, was the Czech 00:09:54.160 --> 00:09:57.700 align:middle line:84% who is best known for having been burned at the stake. 00:09:57.700 --> 00:09:59.380 align:middle line:84% Another one, of course, is Jan Palach, 00:09:59.380 --> 00:10:03.190 align:middle line:84% who set himself on fire in protest of the '68 invasion, 00:10:03.190 --> 00:10:04.225 align:middle line:90% the Soviet invasion. 00:10:04.225 --> 00:10:07.210 align:middle line:90% 00:10:07.210 --> 00:10:10.680 align:middle line:84% The rest should be self-explanatory. 00:10:10.680 --> 00:10:14.400 align:middle line:84% "In Old Town Square, stoic Jan Hus and his mangle of acolytes 00:10:14.400 --> 00:10:18.930 align:middle line:84% pose art nouveau, blackstone emblem of Czech resolve. 00:10:18.930 --> 00:10:22.170 align:middle line:84% But no Bohemian I had met took seriously the image-- 00:10:22.170 --> 00:10:26.490 align:middle line:84% indeed, Palach notwithstanding, no noble conflagration 00:10:26.490 --> 00:10:30.620 align:middle line:84% for these sighing people, no action without irony. 00:10:30.620 --> 00:10:34.790 align:middle line:84% Citizen of a loud country, nation of manic hope and shrill 00:10:34.790 --> 00:10:38.270 align:middle line:84% despair, I envy Czechs their Svejk, 00:10:38.270 --> 00:10:41.810 align:middle line:84% their implicit affirmation of all that is un-heroic. 00:10:41.810 --> 00:10:45.200 align:middle line:84% Laughing beasts, a Nazi governor had called them. 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:47.840 align:middle line:90% I thought them wholly sane. 00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:52.610 align:middle line:84% But the cost of such sanity seemed trivial, dull, quotidian. 00:10:52.610 --> 00:10:55.580 align:middle line:84% 'Light laughter on the face, heavy sorrow in the heart,' one 00:10:55.580 --> 00:10:58.430 align:middle line:84% poet said, though by pervasive irony, 00:10:58.430 --> 00:11:00.650 align:middle line:90% the equation often got reversed. 00:11:00.650 --> 00:11:02.630 align:middle line:84% So on that day, the mothers of Prague 00:11:02.630 --> 00:11:05.060 align:middle line:84% circled Hus with their infants' trams. 00:11:05.060 --> 00:11:08.480 align:middle line:84% The scrawled bright signs of protest and the elemental colors 00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:12.020 align:middle line:84% of the canvas trams and mothers' coats appeared for all the world 00:11:12.020 --> 00:11:13.295 align:middle line:90% like gentle flames." 00:11:13.295 --> 00:11:16.880 align:middle line:90% 00:11:16.880 --> 00:11:19.010 align:middle line:84% I've been warned to drink a lot of water here. 00:11:19.010 --> 00:11:24.550 align:middle line:90% 00:11:24.550 --> 00:11:28.290 align:middle line:84% Many of you will recall that the slogan, if you will, 00:11:28.290 --> 00:11:33.680 align:middle line:84% of the Prague Spring was "socialism with a human face--" 00:11:33.680 --> 00:11:36.920 align:middle line:84% if not coined, certainly popularized by Dubček, 00:11:36.920 --> 00:11:39.110 align:middle line:90% the president at the time. 00:11:39.110 --> 00:11:43.030 align:middle line:84% This is called "Socialism With a Human Face." 00:11:43.030 --> 00:11:45.010 align:middle line:84% "Several times those dizzying weeks, 00:11:45.010 --> 00:11:47.530 align:middle line:84% I wondered aloud if socialism with a human face 00:11:47.530 --> 00:11:50.350 align:middle line:84% was not still more than the sentiment of Dubček's wounded 00:11:50.350 --> 00:11:51.730 align:middle line:90% generation. 00:11:51.730 --> 00:11:55.120 align:middle line:84% One young Czech laughed, 'socialism doesn't work. 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:57.870 align:middle line:90% Our lives are proof.' 00:11:57.870 --> 00:12:00.840 align:middle line:84% How could I-- fed Adorno and Marcuse, where 00:12:00.840 --> 00:12:02.790 align:middle line:84% a fair mind and a sunny disposition 00:12:02.790 --> 00:12:05.010 align:middle line:84% may buy the good life unto death, 00:12:05.010 --> 00:12:07.560 align:middle line:84% preach socialism to the best minds, where 00:12:07.560 --> 00:12:12.190 align:middle line:84% Lenin had had the final word on sex in lyric poetry? 00:12:12.190 --> 00:12:15.250 align:middle line:84% They wanted markets, sleek markets, and membership 00:12:15.250 --> 00:12:16.840 align:middle line:90% in Europe's club. 00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:19.420 align:middle line:84% They harkened back to Masaryk's first republic 00:12:19.420 --> 00:12:22.270 align:middle line:84% when, before the confiscations, Bohemia 00:12:22.270 --> 00:12:25.160 align:middle line:90% was prosperous and proud. 00:12:25.160 --> 00:12:27.410 align:middle line:84% The days after Martin Smid got martyred, 00:12:27.410 --> 00:12:29.750 align:middle line:84% only to reappear beaten but alive, 00:12:29.750 --> 00:12:33.310 align:middle line:84% no one knew the tanks and troops would not roll in. 00:12:33.310 --> 00:12:35.990 align:middle line:84% Obcanske Forum, Havel as its heart, 00:12:35.990 --> 00:12:41.400 align:middle line:84% was coalescing in the chants of the disenfranchised masses. 00:12:41.400 --> 00:12:43.980 align:middle line:84% In the streets after rallies, a calm mulling 00:12:43.980 --> 00:12:46.290 align:middle line:84% persisted into night, and the square 00:12:46.290 --> 00:12:48.900 align:middle line:84% flickered where students kept their vigil. 00:12:48.900 --> 00:12:52.080 align:middle line:84% I watched them gathered close, wrapped in blankets, 00:12:52.080 --> 00:12:54.750 align:middle line:84% sipping hot drinks brought by friends, 00:12:54.750 --> 00:12:58.140 align:middle line:84% their faces sweetened by 10,000 candles, 00:12:58.140 --> 00:13:01.365 align:middle line:84% and considered that their lives will never be so pure again." 00:13:01.365 --> 00:13:07.992 align:middle line:90% 00:13:07.992 --> 00:13:12.970 align:middle line:84% One of the first major visits that President Havel had after 00:13:12.970 --> 00:13:14.212 align:middle line:90% becoming president-- 00:13:14.212 --> 00:13:16.420 align:middle line:84% let's recall that he had been a prisoner of the state 00:13:16.420 --> 00:13:18.670 align:middle line:84% just seven or eight months earlier-- 00:13:18.670 --> 00:13:21.560 align:middle line:90% was from Frank Zappa. 00:13:21.560 --> 00:13:24.590 align:middle line:84% Now, Frank Zappa, indeed, was received as 00:13:24.590 --> 00:13:26.180 align:middle line:90% though he were a head of state. 00:13:26.180 --> 00:13:28.820 align:middle line:84% It was in all the papers, on television, 00:13:28.820 --> 00:13:30.990 align:middle line:90% and it was quite amazing. 00:13:30.990 --> 00:13:34.460 align:middle line:84% And this happened about the same time 00:13:34.460 --> 00:13:37.700 align:middle line:84% that I found out that one of the first things 00:13:37.700 --> 00:13:41.330 align:middle line:84% that Havel wanted to do when he became president was redesign 00:13:41.330 --> 00:13:44.180 align:middle line:90% the uniform of his color guard. 00:13:44.180 --> 00:13:45.620 align:middle line:84% So these two things came together, 00:13:45.620 --> 00:13:48.200 align:middle line:84% and this poem is a response to that. 00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:50.760 align:middle line:90% 00:13:50.760 --> 00:13:53.340 align:middle line:84% For Frank Zappa aficionados, you'll 00:13:53.340 --> 00:13:58.260 align:middle line:84% hear a couple of not so subtle allusions. 00:13:58.260 --> 00:14:00.600 align:middle line:84% "One may imagine him saying to Zappa, 00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:04.350 align:middle line:84% 'I've been a fan since 'Weasels Rip my Flesh.' 00:14:04.350 --> 00:14:07.050 align:middle line:84% Yet to know he loves his beer and music 00:14:07.050 --> 00:14:09.690 align:middle line:84% or that years ago, he soldered a crazy Pirandello 00:14:09.690 --> 00:14:12.360 align:middle line:84% to his own Bohemian heart, does not 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:15.150 align:middle line:84% prepare the credulous outsider for Havel, 00:14:15.150 --> 00:14:18.110 align:middle line:90% designer of chic uniforms. 00:14:18.110 --> 00:14:19.820 align:middle line:84% Less than one year out of prison, 00:14:19.820 --> 00:14:22.920 align:middle line:84% newly ascended to the bloodless seat of power, 00:14:22.920 --> 00:14:25.490 align:middle line:84% it seems he looked upon his color guard and was, 00:14:25.490 --> 00:14:28.850 align:middle line:84% if not offended, deeply bothered by the cut and colors 00:14:28.850 --> 00:14:33.170 align:middle line:84% of what they wore, and so sat down with pen and drafting paper 00:14:33.170 --> 00:14:35.240 align:middle line:84% and sketched out how the uniform should 00:14:35.240 --> 00:14:40.280 align:middle line:84% drape the smart, svelte soldier and in what hues of blue. 00:14:40.280 --> 00:14:42.770 align:middle line:84% Bohemians, Moravians, and Slovaks 00:14:42.770 --> 00:14:46.200 align:middle line:84% have rarely marshaled martial acumen. 00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:48.000 align:middle line:84% To see them marching on the castle 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:50.610 align:middle line:84% grounds, ceremoniously grave, one 00:14:50.610 --> 00:14:53.670 align:middle line:84% might affirm, though, the prerogative of small nations 00:14:53.670 --> 00:14:57.480 align:middle line:84% to strut absurdly through the rituals of masculine identity 00:14:57.480 --> 00:14:59.370 align:middle line:90% and pride. 00:14:59.370 --> 00:15:01.770 align:middle line:84% There is a quiet courage of irony 00:15:01.770 --> 00:15:03.960 align:middle line:84% which visits the great lovers in a world 00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:08.460 align:middle line:84% antithetical to their dreams of peace, and no matter his crimes, 00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:13.650 align:middle line:84% every prisoner must know his world by walls and uniforms. 00:15:13.650 --> 00:15:15.900 align:middle line:84% It's not unlikely a troop of sea scouts 00:15:15.900 --> 00:15:18.150 align:middle line:84% from Bangor, Maine or Fresno, California 00:15:18.150 --> 00:15:20.730 align:middle line:84% would whip the Czechoslovak color guard. 00:15:20.730 --> 00:15:24.240 align:middle line:84% Yet what mother of invention would not squeal to see her boy 00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:26.048 align:middle line:90% decked out by a president?" 00:15:26.048 --> 00:15:30.630 align:middle line:90% 00:15:30.630 --> 00:15:34.380 align:middle line:84% Stepan was the party boss of Prague 00:15:34.380 --> 00:15:38.700 align:middle line:84% who indeed ordered the attack on the kids, the students, who 00:15:38.700 --> 00:15:39.960 align:middle line:90% were peacefully demonstrating. 00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:44.610 align:middle line:84% And that event led to what we call the Velvet Revolution. 00:15:44.610 --> 00:15:46.920 align:middle line:84% It's important to note, I referred to an earlier poem 00:15:46.920 --> 00:15:54.560 align:middle line:84% to a student, to a Martin Smid, who was a wonderfully, typically 00:15:54.560 --> 00:15:58.370 align:middle line:84% Czech, ironic martyr in that it was thought that he 00:15:58.370 --> 00:16:02.150 align:middle line:90% was killed during that attack. 00:16:02.150 --> 00:16:05.990 align:middle line:84% And it so enraged the people, the general public, 00:16:05.990 --> 00:16:07.520 align:middle line:84% that they got behind the students 00:16:07.520 --> 00:16:12.140 align:middle line:84% and marched with them to Wenceslas Square the next day, 00:16:12.140 --> 00:16:15.710 align:middle line:84% and the whole thing got started that way. 00:16:15.710 --> 00:16:18.720 align:middle line:84% As it turned out, he just got beaten up. 00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:23.720 align:middle line:84% The next day, the authorities showed two Martin Smids on TV-- 00:16:23.720 --> 00:16:27.080 align:middle line:84% one in color, who said, I am Martin Smid, I'm a math student, 00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:30.920 align:middle line:84% and I'm not dead, and another one in black and white 00:16:30.920 --> 00:16:34.340 align:middle line:84% who was really messed up, who said, I am Martin Smid, 00:16:34.340 --> 00:16:36.890 align:middle line:90% and I am not dead either. 00:16:36.890 --> 00:16:37.940 align:middle line:90% But it was too late. 00:16:37.940 --> 00:16:38.610 align:middle line:90% It was too late. 00:16:38.610 --> 00:16:39.620 align:middle line:90% It had already started. 00:16:39.620 --> 00:16:44.000 align:middle line:84% And so he was a wonderful instrument of a revolution. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:47.050 align:middle line:90% 00:16:47.050 --> 00:16:50.620 align:middle line:90% "Stepan From a Balcony." 00:16:50.620 --> 00:16:55.510 align:middle line:84% "As clerkish Nazis got plugged into ruins of post-war Germany, 00:16:55.510 --> 00:16:58.330 align:middle line:84% so a club of thugs and thieves who 00:16:58.330 --> 00:17:02.080 align:middle line:84% fancied the state their exclusive enterprise must grease 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:06.390 align:middle line:84% the wheels that turn the wheels of daily life in Czechoslovakia. 00:17:06.390 --> 00:17:10.710 align:middle line:84% Still vexing the people, these petty functionaries stamp 00:17:10.710 --> 00:17:12.960 align:middle line:84% the forms that move the forms from cubicle 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:17.250 align:middle line:84% to cubicle in a great false economy of winks and bribes. 00:17:17.250 --> 00:17:20.730 align:middle line:84% And when their eyes get dreamy, and when they sigh and stare, 00:17:20.730 --> 00:17:23.609 align:middle line:84% one may imagine they drift beyond the fictions of lesser 00:17:23.609 --> 00:17:27.480 align:middle line:84% ideologies, becoming generic angels full of wishes and good 00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:30.900 align:middle line:84% intentions, so gentle in their reveries they are almost 00:17:30.900 --> 00:17:35.160 align:middle line:84% innocent, almost pitiably silly for their self-consumption 00:17:35.160 --> 00:17:37.380 align:middle line:84% and the glossy essence of their dreams-- 00:17:37.380 --> 00:17:40.350 align:middle line:84% indeed, almost American, and therefore 00:17:40.350 --> 00:17:46.340 align:middle line:84% lovable, and therefore dangerous beyond their functions. 00:17:46.340 --> 00:17:50.330 align:middle line:84% From a balcony, Stepan ranted over a shrieking PA to the crowd 00:17:50.330 --> 00:17:53.720 align:middle line:84% of pissed-off faces that he, party boss of Prague, 00:17:53.720 --> 00:17:57.260 align:middle line:84% would not be cowed by 15-year-old children. 00:17:57.260 --> 00:18:01.040 align:middle line:84% 'We are not children,' the crowd chanted back to him. 00:18:01.040 --> 00:18:03.650 align:middle line:84% And stocky, dog-faced Stepan stuttered 00:18:03.650 --> 00:18:06.200 align:middle line:84% to take back his boast, 'of course I don't mean you. 00:18:06.200 --> 00:18:07.520 align:middle line:90% I mean those students.' 00:18:07.520 --> 00:18:09.140 align:middle line:90% But the crowd wouldn't stop. 00:18:09.140 --> 00:18:11.420 align:middle line:84% The chant swelled from the narrow street, 00:18:11.420 --> 00:18:14.370 align:middle line:84% and swarmed over the elegant arc of the city. 00:18:14.370 --> 00:18:20.330 align:middle line:90% 'We are not children.'" 00:18:20.330 --> 00:18:21.800 align:middle line:90% This is for Ludvik Vaculik. 00:18:21.800 --> 00:18:23.420 align:middle line:90% It's called "Vaculik's Garden." 00:18:23.420 --> 00:18:24.755 align:middle line:90% A wonderful, wonderful writer. 00:18:24.755 --> 00:18:27.400 align:middle line:90% 00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:30.190 align:middle line:84% A great deal of his work is available in English. 00:18:30.190 --> 00:18:32.410 align:middle line:84% The work of his which I was first aware of 00:18:32.410 --> 00:18:35.380 align:middle line:84% was called A Cup of Coffee with My Interrogator. 00:18:35.380 --> 00:18:40.600 align:middle line:84% And I had the honor of doing the first interview with him 00:18:40.600 --> 00:18:44.650 align:middle line:84% after the Velvet Revolution, and it was published 00:18:44.650 --> 00:18:47.560 align:middle line:90% in New England Review. 00:18:47.560 --> 00:18:51.840 align:middle line:84% And this is Vaculik's garden, where the interview occurred. 00:18:51.840 --> 00:18:54.360 align:middle line:84% "Throughout his garden, things edible and not 00:18:54.360 --> 00:18:57.180 align:middle line:84% flourish mingled in benign disorder. 00:18:57.180 --> 00:19:00.930 align:middle line:84% Full-blown blushing roses nod among trees that bring forth 00:19:00.930 --> 00:19:04.860 align:middle line:84% fruit or blooms, and everywhere within the barbed-wired beige 00:19:04.860 --> 00:19:07.110 align:middle line:84% walls, there is bounty beyond order-- 00:19:07.110 --> 00:19:12.090 align:middle line:84% such profusion of growth, by design without design, 00:19:12.090 --> 00:19:15.570 align:middle line:84% randomly touched and tended by Ludvik Vaculik. 00:19:15.570 --> 00:19:17.850 align:middle line:84% His feuilletons so vexed authorities, 00:19:17.850 --> 00:19:19.590 align:middle line:84% for 20 years they bugged his life 00:19:19.590 --> 00:19:23.880 align:middle line:84% and hauled him in repeatedly, leveled the same tired charges, 00:19:23.880 --> 00:19:26.850 align:middle line:84% posed the same petty questions, until it 00:19:26.850 --> 00:19:30.570 align:middle line:84% became a quaint occasion for coffee with his interrogators-- 00:19:30.570 --> 00:19:33.900 align:middle line:84% a peripheral recurring obligation to set one weary 00:19:33.900 --> 00:19:36.330 align:middle line:90% smile against another. 00:19:36.330 --> 00:19:38.610 align:middle line:84% Others have testified to brutalities 00:19:38.610 --> 00:19:40.950 align:middle line:84% which, by virtue simply of having happened, 00:19:40.950 --> 00:19:43.830 align:middle line:84% changed all comely concepts of humanity 00:19:43.830 --> 00:19:47.670 align:middle line:84% to so much fuming compost of the heart. 00:19:47.670 --> 00:19:50.980 align:middle line:84% In the garden of Ludvik Vaculik, life riots against 00:19:50.980 --> 00:19:54.130 align:middle line:84% the strictures of garden, and the endless enterprise 00:19:54.130 --> 00:19:57.460 align:middle line:84% of gardening is a humbling to whatever it requires." 00:19:57.460 --> 00:20:00.780 align:middle line:90% 00:20:00.780 --> 00:20:03.620 align:middle line:90% This is called "Weekend." 00:20:03.620 --> 00:20:05.510 align:middle line:84% "A broad zone from southern Poland 00:20:05.510 --> 00:20:10.570 align:middle line:84% through central south Moravia is dying of chemical blight, 00:20:10.570 --> 00:20:14.110 align:middle line:84% and no randy hope of revolutions nor common markets 00:20:14.110 --> 00:20:17.460 align:middle line:84% will make it once more lush and vital. 00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:19.800 align:middle line:84% Eight months after the people's triumph, 00:20:19.800 --> 00:20:23.410 align:middle line:84% I'd returned to see my child be born. 00:20:23.410 --> 00:20:26.590 align:middle line:84% Swollen to her eighth month, my child's strong mother hiked with 00:20:26.590 --> 00:20:30.760 align:middle line:84% me five K's to the Polish border, all the while quizzing: 00:20:30.760 --> 00:20:33.250 align:middle line:90% strom...kyticka...zeleny... 00:20:33.250 --> 00:20:36.010 align:middle line:84% Our child, she insisted, will speak Czech, 00:20:36.010 --> 00:20:38.320 align:middle line:90% will have a Czech identity. 00:20:38.320 --> 00:20:40.270 align:middle line:84% She paused often to pluck berries, 00:20:40.270 --> 00:20:41.950 align:middle line:84% and spoke with humor of her parents, 00:20:41.950 --> 00:20:44.110 align:middle line:84% divorced for years, still hunting mushrooms 00:20:44.110 --> 00:20:47.920 align:middle line:84% in the same frail woods outside Prague, quoting, 00:20:47.920 --> 00:20:50.270 align:middle line:84% 'they live the same lives, do the same things. 00:20:50.270 --> 00:20:53.350 align:middle line:90% One wonders why they separated.' 00:20:53.350 --> 00:20:56.140 align:middle line:84% Blight is a matter of degree, of course, 00:20:56.140 --> 00:20:59.380 align:middle line:84% and that ancient forest of her country was still attractive. 00:20:59.380 --> 00:21:02.200 align:middle line:84% Indeed, the sick rains that so thinned it out, 00:21:02.200 --> 00:21:05.110 align:middle line:84% it appeared more lovely for all the delicate angles of fallen 00:21:05.110 --> 00:21:09.010 align:middle line:84% trunks, and for patches of clearing where stunted shrubs 00:21:09.010 --> 00:21:10.105 align:middle line:90% carpeted to the ground." 00:21:10.105 --> 00:21:15.830 align:middle line:90% 00:21:15.830 --> 00:21:19.640 align:middle line:84% My brother-in-law and two of his friends-- 00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:21.050 align:middle line:90% they were 25 at the time-- 00:21:21.050 --> 00:21:26.060 align:middle line:84% just maybe six weeks after the Velvet Revolution, 00:21:26.060 --> 00:21:28.460 align:middle line:84% decided it'd be really swell if they'd get the Rolling 00:21:28.460 --> 00:21:31.970 align:middle line:90% Stones to come to Prague. 00:21:31.970 --> 00:21:34.477 align:middle line:84% And so they made a few phone calls, 00:21:34.477 --> 00:21:36.560 align:middle line:84% they got through to the Rolling Stones management, 00:21:36.560 --> 00:21:39.680 align:middle line:90% and indeed, they set it up. 00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:41.030 align:middle line:90% They did it. 00:21:41.030 --> 00:21:44.600 align:middle line:84% They told somebody in Havel's government 00:21:44.600 --> 00:21:47.090 align:middle line:84% that they had this contact, and they gave him 00:21:47.090 --> 00:21:49.310 align:middle line:84% they gave them an office a few doors down from Havel 00:21:49.310 --> 00:21:51.230 align:middle line:90% in the castle. 00:21:51.230 --> 00:21:53.240 align:middle line:84% You have to understand, there were no laws. 00:21:53.240 --> 00:21:55.250 align:middle line:84% There was no there was no infrastructure 00:21:55.250 --> 00:21:57.770 align:middle line:84% by which something like this could truly be managed. 00:21:57.770 --> 00:22:01.610 align:middle line:84% And yet, like American cowboys, they 00:22:01.610 --> 00:22:04.850 align:middle line:84% galloped off and, because of their youth and persistence 00:22:04.850 --> 00:22:09.890 align:middle line:84% and just divine ignorance, were able to make this happen. 00:22:09.890 --> 00:22:14.570 align:middle line:84% And indeed, 300,000 people saw the Rolling Stones in Prague 00:22:14.570 --> 00:22:18.520 align:middle line:84% just a few months after the Velvet Revolution. 00:22:18.520 --> 00:22:20.040 align:middle line:90% And I was there. 00:22:20.040 --> 00:22:25.400 align:middle line:84% And this is called "The Stones, Prague, August 8, 1990." 00:22:25.400 --> 00:22:28.530 align:middle line:90% No, August 18, it was. 00:22:28.530 --> 00:22:31.680 align:middle line:84% "On the tram with a smattering of others who'd left early, 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:35.370 align:middle line:84% I heard the pyrotechnics signaling finale, 00:22:35.370 --> 00:22:40.400 align:middle line:84% and thought the urban jungle set to have been the one true star, 00:22:40.400 --> 00:22:44.060 align:middle line:84% then wondered if middle age, now fluttering at my back, 00:22:44.060 --> 00:22:46.610 align:middle line:84% would mean for me the need of such a gaudy stage 00:22:46.610 --> 00:22:49.070 align:middle line:90% on which to strut and preen. 00:22:49.070 --> 00:22:51.290 align:middle line:90% Probably. 00:22:51.290 --> 00:22:54.380 align:middle line:84% But of course, I'd settle for a considerably smaller one-- 00:22:54.380 --> 00:22:58.560 align:middle line:90% or, bitterly, no stage at all. 00:22:58.560 --> 00:23:01.610 align:middle line:84% They'd been brilliant and boring, the audience huge 00:23:01.610 --> 00:23:04.460 align:middle line:84% and uncomfortable in an all-night fuzzy drizzle, 00:23:04.460 --> 00:23:07.300 align:middle line:90% yet it was a smashing success. 00:23:07.300 --> 00:23:10.960 align:middle line:84% From the packed field of Strahov, the communists' largest 00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:13.630 align:middle line:84% stadium in the world, Havel was seen 00:23:13.630 --> 00:23:18.100 align:middle line:84% dancing behind bulletproof plastic in the bleachers. 00:23:18.100 --> 00:23:22.090 align:middle line:84% And everyone marveled at the logistical complexity-- how 00:23:22.090 --> 00:23:24.460 align:middle line:84% hundreds had been required to erect that set, 00:23:24.460 --> 00:23:26.560 align:middle line:90% and hundreds more for security. 00:23:26.560 --> 00:23:30.310 align:middle line:84% Everyone, of course, knew the songs by heart, and though a bit 00:23:30.310 --> 00:23:34.030 align:middle line:84% sniffly in the chilly rain, executed his or her part 00:23:34.030 --> 00:23:38.220 align:middle line:84% in this new ritual of commerce and joy. 00:23:38.220 --> 00:23:41.490 align:middle line:84% We creaked a mile or more along the spangled Vltava 00:23:41.490 --> 00:23:44.130 align:middle line:84% before I noticed the gorgeous girl across the aisle 00:23:44.130 --> 00:23:46.170 align:middle line:90% was chattering in English. 00:23:46.170 --> 00:23:49.080 align:middle line:84% Maybe 16, her clothes and jewelry 00:23:49.080 --> 00:23:52.620 align:middle line:90% were conspicuously fashionable. 00:23:52.620 --> 00:23:54.510 align:middle line:84% She jangled and glittered as she spoke 00:23:54.510 --> 00:23:56.760 align:middle line:84% to a rumpled Czech girl of seeing Poison 00:23:56.760 --> 00:24:00.010 align:middle line:90% in 'Frisco and The Cure in LA. 00:24:00.010 --> 00:24:02.590 align:middle line:84% She was stunning in profile, and I 00:24:02.590 --> 00:24:05.140 align:middle line:84% shuddered at the childish sentences spilling 00:24:05.140 --> 00:24:09.760 align:middle line:84% from her woman's body, the self-referential effervescence 00:24:09.760 --> 00:24:12.850 align:middle line:84% implicit in her speech, and the sexual power she 00:24:12.850 --> 00:24:14.770 align:middle line:84% possessed but will not comprehend 00:24:14.770 --> 00:24:17.410 align:middle line:90% until it explodes in her face. 00:24:17.410 --> 00:24:20.320 align:middle line:84% I observed it first with a twinge of desire, 00:24:20.320 --> 00:24:22.420 align:middle line:90% then sentimental tenderness. 00:24:22.420 --> 00:24:25.870 align:middle line:84% But then, as the tram hushed nearer to Charles Bridge, 00:24:25.870 --> 00:24:28.780 align:middle line:84% sparkling two stops away through hulking shadows 00:24:28.780 --> 00:24:34.640 align:middle line:84% of saints and kings, I looked on with mild disgust. 00:24:34.640 --> 00:24:38.030 align:middle line:84% For I recalled how seven months earlier the students of Prague 00:24:38.030 --> 00:24:42.590 align:middle line:84% had reclaimed their lives, and I recalled their humility and wit 00:24:42.590 --> 00:24:46.130 align:middle line:84% as they faced that miraculous withering of power. 00:24:46.130 --> 00:24:49.460 align:middle line:84% I recalled as well how gently they controlled the crowds, 00:24:49.460 --> 00:24:52.310 align:middle line:84% then cleaned the broad boulevards in the winter morning 00:24:52.310 --> 00:24:54.800 align:middle line:84% dark after the rallies, and how subtly 00:24:54.800 --> 00:24:56.960 align:middle line:84% tender they were towards one another, 00:24:56.960 --> 00:24:58.730 align:middle line:84% even as the moment they empowered 00:24:58.730 --> 00:25:01.010 align:middle line:90% seemed ripe for histrionics. 00:25:01.010 --> 00:25:02.060 align:middle line:90% They marched. 00:25:02.060 --> 00:25:03.050 align:middle line:90% They chanted. 00:25:03.050 --> 00:25:06.200 align:middle line:84% They laughed, they took back everything worth having. 00:25:06.200 --> 00:25:09.590 align:middle line:84% Yet a vague conception of this girl's life in some measure 00:25:09.590 --> 00:25:12.370 align:middle line:90% defined what so many wanted. 00:25:12.370 --> 00:25:16.090 align:middle line:84% She spoke too fast for her Czech acquaintance, who nonetheless 00:25:16.090 --> 00:25:18.910 align:middle line:84% strained to follow the litany of groups and the cities 00:25:18.910 --> 00:25:19.960 align:middle line:90% they'd enchanted-- 00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:25.060 align:middle line:84% Bon Jovi in Phoenix, INXS in San Diego, New Kids in Vegas. 00:25:25.060 --> 00:25:27.670 align:middle line:84% And even as I noticed the huge Rolling Stones banner 00:25:27.670 --> 00:25:30.970 align:middle line:84% now visible from the windows, floodlighted and stretched 00:25:30.970 --> 00:25:33.610 align:middle line:84% across the marble base where Stalin's statue once 00:25:33.610 --> 00:25:36.430 align:middle line:84% loomed on a hill above the city, and remembered 00:25:36.430 --> 00:25:38.260 align:middle line:84% how the spirit of this ancient place 00:25:38.260 --> 00:25:40.030 align:middle line:84% had been chastened by its young-- 00:25:40.030 --> 00:25:42.100 align:middle line:84% whose dreams are no less corrupted than those 00:25:42.100 --> 00:25:44.020 align:middle line:90% of our own American beauties-- 00:25:44.020 --> 00:25:46.480 align:middle line:84% even as I wallowed a moment in nostalgia, 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:50.020 align:middle line:84% fully aware that eternal forms blink on and off at intervals 00:25:50.020 --> 00:25:53.110 align:middle line:84% determined by the same codes clicking and snapping in all 00:25:53.110 --> 00:25:57.490 align:middle line:84% human loins, I knew that even as the music swells, envelops, 00:25:57.490 --> 00:26:01.120 align:middle line:84% thrives, here and now, rock and roll is dead." 00:26:01.120 --> 00:26:08.070 align:middle line:90% 00:26:08.070 --> 00:26:13.440 align:middle line:84% This is for my baby, who's four years old and is brilliant. 00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:19.620 align:middle line:84% And this is her when she was two in the Jewish cemetery 00:26:19.620 --> 00:26:22.103 align:middle line:90% in Prague. 00:26:22.103 --> 00:26:23.520 align:middle line:84% And this is something which she'll 00:26:23.520 --> 00:26:27.320 align:middle line:84% hate me for when she's older, because it will embarrass her, 00:26:27.320 --> 00:26:28.580 align:middle line:90% but that's my job. 00:26:28.580 --> 00:26:30.470 align:middle line:90% I'm her father. 00:26:30.470 --> 00:26:33.606 align:middle line:84% "A Brief History of Your Conception." 00:26:33.606 --> 00:26:36.354 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:26:36.354 --> 00:26:37.730 align:middle line:90% 00:26:37.730 --> 00:26:41.060 align:middle line:84% I recall the commercial for Radio Free Czechoslovakia 00:26:41.060 --> 00:26:42.560 align:middle line:90% when I was 10. 00:26:42.560 --> 00:26:46.010 align:middle line:84% Residing in public housing in Norfolk, Virginia, 00:26:46.010 --> 00:26:49.790 align:middle line:84% Checkosowhatchamacallit sounded like a terrible place to live. 00:26:49.790 --> 00:26:53.330 align:middle line:84% Worse even than public housing in Newport News. 00:26:53.330 --> 00:26:55.700 align:middle line:84% The world looked like a disease and being 00:26:55.700 --> 00:27:01.440 align:middle line:84% behind the Iron Curtain had to resemble being in an iron lung. 00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:04.080 align:middle line:84% When I was 15, I heard on Armed Forces Radio 00:27:04.080 --> 00:27:06.240 align:middle line:90% that Russia had invaded it. 00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:09.690 align:middle line:84% My stepfather was sweeping mines off the coast of Vietnam 00:27:09.690 --> 00:27:12.840 align:middle line:84% and I was a pain in the ass of Sasebo, Japan. 00:27:12.840 --> 00:27:17.510 align:middle line:84% Cherry blossoms littered my path to the bars downtown. 00:27:17.510 --> 00:27:19.490 align:middle line:84% The summer of '89, I met your mother. 00:27:19.490 --> 00:27:21.890 align:middle line:84% She was beautiful and funny and very bright. 00:27:21.890 --> 00:27:24.470 align:middle line:84% So I contrived to go to the country whose name looked 00:27:24.470 --> 00:27:29.030 align:middle line:84% like a disease to the city Russia had quieted that autumn. 00:27:29.030 --> 00:27:30.890 align:middle line:84% I stood in crowds at crowds of people 00:27:30.890 --> 00:27:34.580 align:middle line:84% taking themselves just seriously enough. 00:27:34.580 --> 00:27:37.940 align:middle line:84% There are no pure motives except unto death. 00:27:37.940 --> 00:27:39.920 align:middle line:84% My beckoning you forth from ignorance 00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:42.170 align:middle line:84% was that I may pardon myself, but you are 00:27:42.170 --> 00:27:44.330 align:middle line:90% more potent than forgiveness. 00:27:44.330 --> 00:27:46.700 align:middle line:84% The day preceding the night you were conceived, 00:27:46.700 --> 00:27:49.220 align:middle line:84% I passed through a gauntlet of saints, kings, and angels 00:27:49.220 --> 00:27:50.930 align:middle line:90% on Charles Bridge. 00:27:50.930 --> 00:27:54.030 align:middle line:84% Their stone eyes seemed curious or malicious. 00:27:54.030 --> 00:27:57.890 align:middle line:84% And their heroic postures but propaganda for Paradise. 00:27:57.890 --> 00:28:01.610 align:middle line:84% Tourist of a gentle revolution, I was as taken with the dashed 00:28:01.610 --> 00:28:03.800 align:middle line:84% off slogans taped to subway columns 00:28:03.800 --> 00:28:08.550 align:middle line:84% as with such permanent emblems of national identity. 00:28:08.550 --> 00:28:11.880 align:middle line:84% That night, between the sheets of energy and artifice, 00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:13.530 align:middle line:90% you were conceived. 00:28:13.530 --> 00:28:14.460 align:middle line:90% My darling. 00:28:14.460 --> 00:28:16.110 align:middle line:90% My tiny Bohemian. 00:28:16.110 --> 00:28:18.330 align:middle line:84% Someday we will toss gray Czech bread 00:28:18.330 --> 00:28:20.310 align:middle line:84% to the filthy swans of the Vtlava, 00:28:20.310 --> 00:28:23.040 align:middle line:84% and you will laugh at my bad Czech grammar. 00:28:23.040 --> 00:28:26.580 align:middle line:84% Or 1,000 sorrows will darken the sky with slow wings, 00:28:26.580 --> 00:28:29.220 align:middle line:84% and I will write your name in salt. Ema, 00:28:29.220 --> 00:28:30.660 align:middle line:90% the world is enormous. 00:28:30.660 --> 00:28:31.560 align:middle line:90% Pity it. 00:28:31.560 --> 00:28:33.787 align:middle line:90% And love accordingly. 00:28:33.787 --> 00:28:34.745 align:middle line:90% And I'll end with this. 00:28:34.745 --> 00:28:41.430 align:middle line:90% 00:28:41.430 --> 00:28:43.320 align:middle line:84% The Book of Complaints was indeed 00:28:43.320 --> 00:28:48.550 align:middle line:84% a book that appeared in pre-revolution establishments, 00:28:48.550 --> 00:28:53.010 align:middle line:84% restaurants, stores of all kinds. 00:28:53.010 --> 00:28:55.960 align:middle line:84% Anywhere where service was an issue. 00:28:55.960 --> 00:29:02.797 align:middle line:84% And the idea was that if you had a complaint, you would go 00:29:02.797 --> 00:29:04.630 align:middle line:84% and you would put your complaint in the book 00:29:04.630 --> 00:29:07.870 align:middle line:84% and of course everything would be taken care of. 00:29:07.870 --> 00:29:10.450 align:middle line:84% Well, it was a joke and everybody knew it. 00:29:10.450 --> 00:29:14.600 align:middle line:84% And I remember opening up one and I couldn't read it. 00:29:14.600 --> 00:29:17.320 align:middle line:84% But Dominika translated and it was just graffiti 00:29:17.320 --> 00:29:19.270 align:middle line:90% some kid had written in there. 00:29:19.270 --> 00:29:22.330 align:middle line:84% But I thought that the idea of a book of complaints of course, 00:29:22.330 --> 00:29:24.160 align:middle line:90% was rather compelling. 00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:26.860 align:middle line:84% And it becomes a metaphor in this title poem 00:29:26.860 --> 00:29:30.560 align:middle line:84% with which I shall end this ordeal. 00:29:30.560 --> 00:29:33.310 align:middle line:84% This is for Pavel Schrute, a wonderful poet 00:29:33.310 --> 00:29:40.370 align:middle line:84% who is good friends with Havel and just a wonderful man. 00:29:40.370 --> 00:29:42.470 align:middle line:84% I was told that most establishments kept 00:29:42.470 --> 00:29:45.620 align:middle line:84% a book of complaints for the sour stories of the poorly 00:29:45.620 --> 00:29:49.040 align:middle line:84% served, the principle being familiar to patrons here 00:29:49.040 --> 00:29:50.360 align:middle line:90% in the rich West. 00:29:50.360 --> 00:29:52.760 align:middle line:90% The customer is right always. 00:29:52.760 --> 00:29:54.620 align:middle line:84% And as such may stride like a God 00:29:54.620 --> 00:29:58.110 align:middle line:84% through a world of aisles, touching and choosing. 00:29:58.110 --> 00:30:01.730 align:middle line:84% But the customer was more precisely a mere citizen. 00:30:01.730 --> 00:30:04.760 align:middle line:84% A consuming unit suffering to shuffle through too many lines 00:30:04.760 --> 00:30:07.010 align:middle line:90% towards barely stocked shelves. 00:30:07.010 --> 00:30:08.960 align:middle line:84% And when she complained, it was to her shoes 00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:10.700 align:middle line:90% as she queued for fruit. 00:30:10.700 --> 00:30:13.520 align:middle line:84% Or to the wall by the kitchen sink as she emptied of cans 00:30:13.520 --> 00:30:16.550 align:middle line:84% the plastic bag she'd kept stashed in her purse. 00:30:16.550 --> 00:30:19.490 align:middle line:84% Then to the cold grade sky of sumptuous Prague 00:30:19.490 --> 00:30:21.890 align:middle line:84% as she stood at the window in autumn, 00:30:21.890 --> 00:30:25.490 align:middle line:84% a righteous restraint withering within her. 00:30:25.490 --> 00:30:30.110 align:middle line:84% I stood among them, dumb emissary of good intentions, 00:30:30.110 --> 00:30:33.620 align:middle line:84% and listened to their chants and studied their faces. 00:30:33.620 --> 00:30:37.160 align:middle line:84% The autumn sky would turn to ash each afternoon in Wenceslas 00:30:37.160 --> 00:30:39.380 align:middle line:84% Square as the bold crowd swelled, 00:30:39.380 --> 00:30:42.470 align:middle line:84% and the peeved old men in the castle got grimmer. 00:30:42.470 --> 00:30:44.120 align:middle line:90% Dominika, what is he saying now? 00:30:44.120 --> 00:30:46.160 align:middle line:90% I would ask again and again. 00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:49.250 align:middle line:84% My patient friend would pause to translate the blared complaints 00:30:49.250 --> 00:30:52.880 align:middle line:84% of that hour's representative, explaining nuance and brief 00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:54.080 align:middle line:90% history. 00:30:54.080 --> 00:30:56.660 align:middle line:84% "Richard, you just don't know what it's like to live under 00:30:56.660 --> 00:31:00.080 align:middle line:84% such liars," she said, applauding another sentiment 00:31:00.080 --> 00:31:00.920 align:middle line:90% of rage-- 00:31:00.920 --> 00:31:02.600 align:middle line:90% public sentiment of rage-- 00:31:02.600 --> 00:31:04.670 align:middle line:84% applauding her youth and socialism 00:31:04.670 --> 00:31:08.240 align:middle line:84% with a human face, at least the idea if not the practice. 00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:11.810 align:middle line:84% The night that Jakes shuffled from power, a fine rain 00:31:11.810 --> 00:31:13.820 align:middle line:84% drizzled and kids piled into cars 00:31:13.820 --> 00:31:16.820 align:middle line:84% and hammered horns and squished Czech flags 00:31:16.820 --> 00:31:20.090 align:middle line:84% and the faces on trams even of the old and that gold light 00:31:20.090 --> 00:31:21.860 align:middle line:90% shined with contentedness. 00:31:21.860 --> 00:31:25.910 align:middle line:84% The book of complaints seemed for a moment closed. 00:31:25.910 --> 00:31:27.920 align:middle line:90% But it is never finished. 00:31:27.920 --> 00:31:30.260 align:middle line:84% It lengthens after death as head skin 00:31:30.260 --> 00:31:32.980 align:middle line:90% shrinks and turns to leather. 00:31:32.980 --> 00:31:36.520 align:middle line:84% Dominika, dear one, beautiful and bright, 00:31:36.520 --> 00:31:38.860 align:middle line:84% everywhere sour heads, having spent youth, 00:31:38.860 --> 00:31:41.080 align:middle line:84% seeking a cure for fear of death, 00:31:41.080 --> 00:31:44.140 align:middle line:84% find in the death of passion a bitter solace. 00:31:44.140 --> 00:31:47.830 align:middle line:84% Benevolent, some would save the whole world by dint of dry will 00:31:47.830 --> 00:31:50.320 align:middle line:84% from the body's will, that half remembered 00:31:50.320 --> 00:31:52.030 align:middle line:84% dance of the fetus whose dazzling 00:31:52.030 --> 00:31:54.880 align:middle line:84% finish is each body's first wailing entry 00:31:54.880 --> 00:31:57.750 align:middle line:90% in the book of complaints. 00:31:57.750 --> 00:32:00.150 align:middle line:84% The privileging of mediocrity is a sin far 00:32:00.150 --> 00:32:01.440 align:middle line:90% worse than the fracture. 00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:05.820 align:middle line:84% It always inspires dull fathers pull long faces for the young 00:32:05.820 --> 00:32:07.200 align:middle line:90% who are not amused. 00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:09.390 align:middle line:84% Though learning to laugh with one's whole body 00:32:09.390 --> 00:32:12.920 align:middle line:84% is the first stage of a ritual killing. 00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:15.290 align:middle line:84% Where before people laughed bitterly 00:32:15.290 --> 00:32:18.890 align:middle line:84% into themselves or in small muted clutches sucking 00:32:18.890 --> 00:32:21.230 align:middle line:84% cigarettes and coughing rich beer, 00:32:21.230 --> 00:32:23.120 align:middle line:84% from mid-November to mid-December 00:32:23.120 --> 00:32:25.280 align:middle line:84% they laughed openly and infectiously. 00:32:25.280 --> 00:32:27.800 align:middle line:84% It is wonderful to hear such laughter. 00:32:27.800 --> 00:32:30.380 align:middle line:84% A revolution of laughter often it seemed. 00:32:30.380 --> 00:32:33.680 align:middle line:84% And Kafka squinting up from his own book of complaints 00:32:33.680 --> 00:32:36.410 align:middle line:84% in a cramped chamber in a gray heaven surely 00:32:36.410 --> 00:32:39.720 align:middle line:90% felt the bliss of vindication. 00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:43.620 align:middle line:84% When poor Martin Smid, the revolution's martyr for a day-- 00:32:43.620 --> 00:32:46.800 align:middle line:84% his purple, swollen face a flag of harm-- 00:32:46.800 --> 00:32:49.470 align:middle line:84% was thrust on TV to prove that he lived, 00:32:49.470 --> 00:32:52.200 align:middle line:84% that the Red Beret had not quite killed him, 00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:55.800 align:middle line:84% as though the thousands flocking his shrine of 10,000 candles 00:32:55.800 --> 00:32:58.870 align:middle line:84% might casually scatter at proof that he lived, 00:32:58.870 --> 00:33:02.280 align:middle line:84% fact withered beneath the putrid fictions of 21 years. 00:33:02.280 --> 00:33:04.620 align:middle line:84% And though it no doubt hurt his face to laugh, 00:33:04.620 --> 00:33:07.740 align:middle line:84% one can only hope Smid saw the noble purpose of his death 00:33:07.740 --> 00:33:09.800 align:middle line:90% and smiled. 00:33:09.800 --> 00:33:11.840 align:middle line:84% From the Charles Bridge at night the castle 00:33:11.840 --> 00:33:15.140 align:middle line:84% shines in golden floodlights of ambiguous glory. 00:33:15.140 --> 00:33:17.720 align:middle line:84% Bohemians stroll the quiet dark, to my eyes 00:33:17.720 --> 00:33:20.480 align:middle line:90% passive, sighing, pliant. 00:33:20.480 --> 00:33:22.910 align:middle line:84% Yet I am humbled by the memory of a dour people 00:33:22.910 --> 00:33:25.730 align:middle line:84% opening their lives to the world and to themselves 00:33:25.730 --> 00:33:30.530 align:middle line:84% and chanting the essential truths inscribed there in blood. 00:33:30.530 --> 00:33:32.570 align:middle line:84% To the Old Town Square the tourists 00:33:32.570 --> 00:33:35.030 align:middle line:84% will flock and yawn up stiff necked and still 00:33:35.030 --> 00:33:39.020 align:middle line:84% beneath the Astronomical Clock, waiting for little carved saints 00:33:39.020 --> 00:33:41.420 align:middle line:84% and Jesus to spin in their slots, 00:33:41.420 --> 00:33:44.270 align:middle line:84% pirouetting robots chiming the hour. 00:33:44.270 --> 00:33:48.620 align:middle line:84% Each time I return, a tablet of Czech dissolving on my tongue, 00:33:48.620 --> 00:33:50.840 align:middle line:84% I'll stand in the Jewish cemetery 00:33:50.840 --> 00:33:54.350 align:middle line:84% among the shuffled, tilting, gray, smooth, weathered slabs-- 00:33:54.350 --> 00:33:57.380 align:middle line:84% Jews buried ten deep signified by mounds-- 00:33:57.380 --> 00:34:01.640 align:middle line:84% and think of Levi placing the clay pill on his golem's tongue. 00:34:01.640 --> 00:34:04.010 align:middle line:84% On most ragged slabs are pebbles. 00:34:04.010 --> 00:34:07.220 align:middle line:84% Each speck a token a prayer, a petrified flower 00:34:07.220 --> 00:34:08.929 align:middle line:90% for the laughing dead. 00:34:08.929 --> 00:34:11.719 align:middle line:84% The revelation at first seems simple. 00:34:11.719 --> 00:34:13.610 align:middle line:84% A state is only the page on which 00:34:13.610 --> 00:34:17.090 align:middle line:84% one inscribes her most bitter, consistent complaints, 00:34:17.090 --> 00:34:19.969 align:middle line:84% a page filled with ire scribbled in various hands, 00:34:19.969 --> 00:34:22.159 align:middle line:90% signed boldly or left anonymous. 00:34:22.159 --> 00:34:24.889 align:middle line:84% We are the mounting tallies of each our discontentedness, 00:34:24.889 --> 00:34:27.679 align:middle line:84% and desire, the uninscribable, gets 00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:30.739 align:middle line:84% confounded in the act of complaining. 00:34:30.739 --> 00:34:33.560 align:middle line:84% I regard a world that is beautiful and rank, 00:34:33.560 --> 00:34:36.139 align:middle line:84% and couch what I see in language that 00:34:36.139 --> 00:34:38.960 align:middle line:84% is palpable and rude, for nothing marked 00:34:38.960 --> 00:34:41.179 align:middle line:84% in the cool light of managerial regard 00:34:41.179 --> 00:34:44.389 align:middle line:84% survives its last bitter affront to the gaseous sky 00:34:44.389 --> 00:34:45.560 align:middle line:90% or sooty windows. 00:34:45.560 --> 00:34:47.900 align:middle line:84% And my heart's complaints I mean to survive 00:34:47.900 --> 00:34:49.940 align:middle line:84% unto the sweet eyes of those I have loved 00:34:49.940 --> 00:34:51.860 align:middle line:90% and would wish to love. 00:34:51.860 --> 00:34:54.500 align:middle line:84% Amid the almost funny tilting slabs-- 00:34:54.500 --> 00:34:57.800 align:middle line:84% that crammed packed ghetto of Prague's lost lovers 00:34:57.800 --> 00:35:00.590 align:middle line:84% tilting as a field of flowers is ruffled unevenly 00:35:00.590 --> 00:35:04.040 align:middle line:84% by a randy, swirling, dark autumnal breeze-- 00:35:04.040 --> 00:35:07.220 align:middle line:84% I will bitch a prayer for Levi's loveless automaton, 00:35:07.220 --> 00:35:10.250 align:middle line:84% and for each hovering soul among the muted, rain smoothed, 00:35:10.250 --> 00:35:13.220 align:middle line:84% pebble crowned slate headstones, and bitch prayers 00:35:13.220 --> 00:35:14.690 align:middle line:90% for the new life of Prague. 00:35:14.690 --> 00:35:17.900 align:middle line:84% Pristine page onto which real lives will be written, 00:35:17.900 --> 00:35:19.830 align:middle line:90% one complaint at a time. 00:35:19.830 --> 00:35:20.822 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:35:20.822 --> 00:35:25.250 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:35:25.250 --> 00:35:35.110 align:middle line:90% 00:35:35.110 --> 00:35:36.530 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:35:36.530 --> 00:35:38.530 align:middle line:84% Levi, I should have explained is of course 00:35:38.530 --> 00:35:43.120 align:middle line:84% the Rabbi Levi, who as legend has it, 00:35:43.120 --> 00:35:47.080 align:middle line:84% gave us the first robot: the golem, which as legend has 00:35:47.080 --> 00:35:50.170 align:middle line:84% it was activated by virtue of his putting 00:35:50.170 --> 00:35:52.540 align:middle line:84% by some accounts a parchment with prayers on it 00:35:52.540 --> 00:35:55.240 align:middle line:84% by others a tablet with a prayer on it in his mouth. 00:35:55.240 --> 00:36:00.880 align:middle line:84% Then the golem became kind of a protector of the Jewish ghetto. 00:36:00.880 --> 00:36:04.600 align:middle line:84% Any questions or comments or complaints? 00:36:04.600 --> 00:36:08.650 align:middle line:90% 00:36:08.650 --> 00:36:09.370 align:middle line:90% Please feel free. 00:36:09.370 --> 00:36:13.870 align:middle line:90% 00:36:13.870 --> 00:36:14.580 align:middle line:90% Yeah please. 00:36:14.580 --> 00:36:16.041 align:middle line:90% 00:36:16.041 --> 00:36:21.610 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] the young American girl [INAUDIBLE] 00:36:21.610 --> 00:36:22.110 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:36:22.110 --> 00:36:26.457 align:middle line:90% 00:36:26.457 --> 00:36:31.770 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:36:31.770 --> 00:36:35.190 align:middle line:84% Well, just a wonderful vivacious, 00:36:35.190 --> 00:36:42.450 align:middle line:84% American middle class, upper middle class girl full of life 00:36:42.450 --> 00:36:47.040 align:middle line:90% and as vacuous as a bag. 00:36:47.040 --> 00:36:53.490 align:middle line:84% And she was discoursing with this kid. 00:36:53.490 --> 00:36:56.970 align:middle line:84% This Czech girl who for one thing was bilingual. 00:36:56.970 --> 00:37:02.250 align:middle line:84% And who really saw this American girl as a model. 00:37:02.250 --> 00:37:04.020 align:middle line:90% It's something she aspires to. 00:37:04.020 --> 00:37:08.920 align:middle line:90% 00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:10.410 align:middle line:90% I love that about American girl. 00:37:10.410 --> 00:37:12.840 align:middle line:84% I have her in my class every semester. 00:37:12.840 --> 00:37:15.930 align:middle line:90% And she's wonderful. 00:37:15.930 --> 00:37:20.280 align:middle line:84% She's full of life and spirit but I like that Czech girl. 00:37:20.280 --> 00:37:22.890 align:middle line:84% I'd rather have a conversation with the Czech girl. 00:37:22.890 --> 00:37:24.210 align:middle line:90% That's all. 00:37:24.210 --> 00:37:41.230 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] how do you [INAUDIBLE]? 00:37:41.230 --> 00:37:44.460 align:middle line:84% Well, for one thing I don't condescend to her 00:37:44.460 --> 00:37:46.950 align:middle line:84% as I do as I'm talking about her now. 00:37:46.950 --> 00:37:50.490 align:middle line:84% And I show her the respect in the human being deserved. 00:37:50.490 --> 00:37:53.310 align:middle line:84% And also realize that sometimes she has as much to teach me, 00:37:53.310 --> 00:37:55.540 align:middle line:84% as I have to teach her in her own way. 00:37:55.540 --> 00:37:57.550 align:middle line:90% So I listen to it. 00:37:57.550 --> 00:37:59.850 align:middle line:84% And sometimes listening to her, I 00:37:59.850 --> 00:38:02.400 align:middle line:84% will learn what I need to say to her to make 00:38:02.400 --> 00:38:04.110 align:middle line:90% her a little less vacuous. 00:38:04.110 --> 00:38:08.910 align:middle line:84% But that's not to be cute my saying it. 00:38:08.910 --> 00:38:10.920 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:38:10.920 --> 00:38:12.090 align:middle line:90% Has shaped her. 00:38:12.090 --> 00:38:14.200 align:middle line:90% Just mass culture. 00:38:14.200 --> 00:38:16.180 align:middle line:84% This mass culture, the fact that she-- 00:38:16.180 --> 00:38:17.680 align:middle line:90% she worships it. 00:38:17.680 --> 00:38:22.090 align:middle line:84% She believes in it and she has an unshakable faith in. 00:38:22.090 --> 00:38:24.910 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:38:24.910 --> 00:38:26.282 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:38:26.282 --> 00:38:26.990 align:middle line:90% Yeah, [INAUDIBLE] 00:38:26.990 --> 00:38:42.700 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:38:42.700 --> 00:38:43.990 align:middle line:90% I'm not mad at anybody. 00:38:43.990 --> 00:38:46.310 align:middle line:90% It's not my place to-- 00:38:46.310 --> 00:38:47.953 align:middle line:90% I'm just your emissary. 00:38:47.953 --> 00:38:49.120 align:middle line:90% I'm just this dumb American. 00:38:49.120 --> 00:38:50.540 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:38:50.540 --> 00:38:51.040 align:middle line:90% Oh-- 00:38:51.040 --> 00:38:59.080 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:38:59.080 --> 00:39:00.730 align:middle line:84% Well, actually that's a good point. 00:39:00.730 --> 00:39:05.920 align:middle line:84% And this work takes me up to about 1992. 00:39:05.920 --> 00:39:11.020 align:middle line:90% Some time has passed, and it's-- 00:39:11.020 --> 00:39:14.230 align:middle line:84% Czecho and Prague in particular is just a remarkable place 00:39:14.230 --> 00:39:14.800 align:middle line:90% right now. 00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:17.110 align:middle line:84% It's a very vital and vibrant place 00:39:17.110 --> 00:39:18.700 align:middle line:84% and it's going through lots of changes 00:39:18.700 --> 00:39:26.300 align:middle line:84% and it's a very large remarkably vibrant American community. 00:39:26.300 --> 00:39:30.100 align:middle line:84% It's been called the Left Bank of the '90s. 00:39:30.100 --> 00:39:32.098 align:middle line:84% A lot of young writers, Generation X type 00:39:32.098 --> 00:39:33.640 align:middle line:84% writers who think they're going to be 00:39:33.640 --> 00:39:35.300 align:middle line:90% the next Hemingway or whatever. 00:39:35.300 --> 00:39:36.940 align:middle line:90% Maybe they will. 00:39:36.940 --> 00:39:41.140 align:middle line:84% But the Czechs are going through phases. 00:39:41.140 --> 00:39:44.080 align:middle line:84% They still love America and all about America represents. 00:39:44.080 --> 00:39:46.090 align:middle line:84% But they're also the best among them 00:39:46.090 --> 00:39:50.420 align:middle line:84% are beginning to feel colonized, as they are. 00:39:50.420 --> 00:39:53.160 align:middle line:90% 00:39:53.160 --> 00:39:56.550 align:middle line:84% I hope that wonderful Czech irony gets them 00:39:56.550 --> 00:40:00.480 align:middle line:84% through this phase of their national life. 00:40:00.480 --> 00:40:01.340 align:middle line:90% I really do. 00:40:01.340 --> 00:40:04.340 align:middle line:90% 00:40:04.340 --> 00:40:08.263 align:middle line:84% And that they have a love hate relationship with America. 00:40:08.263 --> 00:40:09.930 align:middle line:84% Because God knows there's a lot about us 00:40:09.930 --> 00:40:13.750 align:middle line:84% that they would do very well to avoid. 00:40:13.750 --> 00:40:14.956 align:middle line:90% Yeah, [INAUDIBLE] 00:40:14.956 --> 00:40:17.140 align:middle line:90% Could you do another one? 00:40:17.140 --> 00:40:20.230 align:middle line:84% It's very kind of you, but I feel like I've already 00:40:20.230 --> 00:40:20.920 align:middle line:90% read too much. 00:40:20.920 --> 00:40:23.242 align:middle line:84% It's so sweet of you but I don't know 00:40:23.242 --> 00:40:25.450 align:middle line:84% anybody who can really listen to more than 50 minutes 00:40:25.450 --> 00:40:26.096 align:middle line:90% of [INAUDIBLE] 00:40:26.096 --> 00:40:27.790 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:40:27.790 --> 00:40:28.540 align:middle line:90% Thank you, though. 00:40:28.540 --> 00:40:29.950 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much [INAUDIBLE] 00:40:29.950 --> 00:40:32.930 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:40:32.930 --> 00:40:33.430 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:40:33.430 --> 00:40:34.843 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:40:34.843 --> 00:40:37.200 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:40:37.200 --> 00:40:38.025 align:middle line:90% 00:40:38.025 --> 00:40:40.060 align:middle line:84% Just that it was in that part of it, 00:40:40.060 --> 00:40:43.060 align:middle line:84% of course, that I don't know what you saw, but it does-- 00:40:43.060 --> 00:40:46.600 align:middle line:84% it's pretty-- no, it's an ecological disaster, 00:40:46.600 --> 00:40:48.610 align:middle line:84% a part of that area that-- through Poland 00:40:48.610 --> 00:40:50.170 align:middle line:90% as I described it. 00:40:50.170 --> 00:40:53.350 align:middle line:84% And it doesn't mean that it's not aesthetically pleasing. 00:40:53.350 --> 00:40:54.350 align:middle line:90% It is quite beautiful. 00:40:54.350 --> 00:40:57.370 align:middle line:84% It's just that you realize that the beauty of it 00:40:57.370 --> 00:40:59.680 align:middle line:90% is partly its death. 00:40:59.680 --> 00:41:07.150 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:41:07.150 --> 00:41:10.480 align:middle line:84% Well, I mean they're obviously repulsive course, 00:41:10.480 --> 00:41:14.080 align:middle line:84% but there are also some very important differences I'm not 00:41:14.080 --> 00:41:15.700 align:middle line:90% really qualified to talk about. 00:41:15.700 --> 00:41:18.850 align:middle line:84% I could talk off the top of my head about it. 00:41:18.850 --> 00:41:20.700 align:middle line:84% But there are folks who make it their 00:41:20.700 --> 00:41:22.930 align:middle line:84% it's to make this fine distinction, 00:41:22.930 --> 00:41:25.442 align:middle line:90% hopeful distinction. 00:41:25.442 --> 00:41:26.900 align:middle line:84% What little I know is that, a Czech 00:41:26.900 --> 00:41:28.540 align:middle line:90% from out of the co-composed. 00:41:28.540 --> 00:41:30.430 align:middle line:84% But they know there's a lady, there's 00:41:30.430 --> 00:41:31.750 align:middle line:90% the language is a very similar. 00:41:31.750 --> 00:41:35.230 align:middle line:84% And I can see Polish on the page and recognize 00:41:35.230 --> 00:41:40.900 align:middle line:84% they [INAUDIBLE] Oh, they're obviously historical, but 00:41:40.900 --> 00:41:41.710 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:41:41.710 --> 00:41:43.810 align:middle line:90% 00:41:43.810 --> 00:41:48.130 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:41:48.130 --> 00:41:50.320 align:middle line:84% They're doing very well over there. 00:41:50.320 --> 00:41:54.610 align:middle line:84% There's a genius by the name of Klaus who's the real power. 00:41:54.610 --> 00:41:57.250 align:middle line:84% Havel more and more is a figurehead, but a very important 00:41:57.250 --> 00:42:01.720 align:middle line:84% figurehead, especially in terms of how Czecho 00:42:01.720 --> 00:42:06.130 align:middle line:90% is being regarded from without. 00:42:06.130 --> 00:42:08.620 align:middle line:84% He's a moral leader and he's respected, very 00:42:08.620 --> 00:42:10.120 align:middle line:90% highly respected in the West. 00:42:10.120 --> 00:42:13.540 align:middle line:84% But really the genius that's kind of keeping it all going 00:42:13.540 --> 00:42:16.840 align:middle line:90% is Václav Klaus and-- 00:42:16.840 --> 00:42:19.510 align:middle line:90% 00:42:19.510 --> 00:42:20.250 align:middle line:90% that's-- yeah. 00:42:20.250 --> 00:42:31.450 align:middle line:90% 00:42:31.450 --> 00:42:34.110 align:middle line:84% The Czech writer, well, I'll make it without going 00:42:34.110 --> 00:42:38.010 align:middle line:84% to a written [INAUDIBLE] Let me give you kind of general 00:42:38.010 --> 00:42:38.800 align:middle line:90% question about-- 00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:42.980 align:middle line:90% 00:42:42.980 --> 00:42:49.580 align:middle line:84% Their [INAUDIBLE] was-- ours of between high culture 00:42:49.580 --> 00:42:50.870 align:middle line:90% and popular culture. 00:42:50.870 --> 00:42:53.900 align:middle line:84% Theirs was between official and unofficial. 00:42:53.900 --> 00:42:57.090 align:middle line:84% The unofficial, of course, by our way of seeing things 00:42:57.090 --> 00:42:59.090 align:middle line:84% had the moral high ground, and they are the ones 00:42:59.090 --> 00:43:00.950 align:middle line:90% who taken over, obviously. 00:43:00.950 --> 00:43:07.370 align:middle line:84% But they don't have the [INAUDIBLE] They are now we are, 00:43:07.370 --> 00:43:21.190 align:middle line:84% where [INAUDIBLE] comes out [INAUDIBLE] really focused 00:43:21.190 --> 00:43:23.390 align:middle line:90% on [INAUDIBLE] 00:43:23.390 --> 00:43:25.450 align:middle line:84% What's more interesting [INAUDIBLE] 00:43:25.450 --> 00:43:32.890 align:middle line:84% than fiction or poetry is the analysis of what's 00:43:32.890 --> 00:43:44.060 align:middle line:84% going on in the culture [INAUDIBLE] 00:43:44.060 --> 00:43:53.860 align:middle line:84% So talking [INAUDIBLE] There is that ironical hearkening back 00:43:53.860 --> 00:43:57.960 align:middle line:84% to the good old days [INAUDIBLE] But at the same time, 00:43:57.960 --> 00:44:02.200 align:middle line:84% I have not spoken to [INAUDIBLE] who's not absolutely overjoyed 00:44:02.200 --> 00:44:13.080 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:44:13.080 --> 00:44:15.364 align:middle line:84% I'm not that familiar with the revolution here. 00:44:15.364 --> 00:44:18.090 align:middle line:90% 00:44:18.090 --> 00:44:20.170 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] might think the-- 00:44:20.170 --> 00:44:23.440 align:middle line:84% he's cleaning up after their [INAUDIBLE] that would not 00:44:23.440 --> 00:44:23.940 align:middle line:90% happen-- 00:44:23.940 --> 00:44:24.480 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:44:24.480 --> 00:44:25.890 align:middle line:90% No, it wouldn't happen here. 00:44:25.890 --> 00:44:27.381 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:44:27.381 --> 00:44:29.720 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] was it a totally different thing? 00:44:29.720 --> 00:44:29.820 align:middle line:90% I mean, was there-- 00:44:29.820 --> 00:44:30.653 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:44:30.653 --> 00:44:32.970 align:middle line:90% Listen, yes, I think there was. 00:44:32.970 --> 00:44:35.580 align:middle line:84% I remember-- You have to understand or recall 00:44:35.580 --> 00:44:38.325 align:middle line:84% that Tiananmen Square had not been that long ago. 00:44:38.325 --> 00:44:40.200 align:middle line:84% And so that was very fresh in people's minds. 00:44:40.200 --> 00:44:42.050 align:middle line:90% And we weren't getting any news. 00:44:42.050 --> 00:44:43.800 align:middle line:84% We didn't know what the hell was going on. 00:44:43.800 --> 00:44:47.167 align:middle line:84% I was getting some news because I'd go by the embassy 00:44:47.167 --> 00:44:48.000 align:middle line:90% and I'd hear things. 00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:51.150 align:middle line:84% But basically, like we said, the second and third day 00:44:51.150 --> 00:44:54.480 align:middle line:84% in Wenceslas Square, people pretty much thought that it was 00:44:54.480 --> 00:44:55.380 align:middle line:90% a 50-50. 00:44:55.380 --> 00:44:58.050 align:middle line:84% And what has not come through very clearly 00:44:58.050 --> 00:45:00.300 align:middle line:84% in the Western analysis of all this 00:45:00.300 --> 00:45:03.450 align:middle line:84% is that there was a point at which the powers that be, 00:45:03.450 --> 00:45:06.930 align:middle line:84% Jakes and those guys, were very close to make-- 00:45:06.930 --> 00:45:09.120 align:middle line:84% to bringing in the tanks and having something 00:45:09.120 --> 00:45:10.950 align:middle line:90% like a Tiananmen Square happen. 00:45:10.950 --> 00:45:15.240 align:middle line:84% But I don't want to minimize the courage of the kids. 00:45:15.240 --> 00:45:17.250 align:middle line:84% it wasn't-- they had tremendous courage. 00:45:17.250 --> 00:45:23.520 align:middle line:84% And one of the most striking and memorable sights during one 00:45:23.520 --> 00:45:27.270 align:middle line:84% of the first days of the Velvet Revolution, 00:45:27.270 --> 00:45:29.910 align:middle line:84% Wenceslas Square when the gatherings were happening, 00:45:29.910 --> 00:45:32.722 align:middle line:84% hundreds of thousands of people, was a sign that-- at the time, 00:45:32.722 --> 00:45:34.680 align:middle line:84% I couldn't read and I probably couldn't read it 00:45:34.680 --> 00:45:36.210 align:middle line:90% very well now either. 00:45:36.210 --> 00:45:39.060 align:middle line:84% But Dominika translated it for me and it said, 00:45:39.060 --> 00:45:43.680 align:middle line:84% we who were students in '68 are proud of our children. 00:45:43.680 --> 00:45:46.890 align:middle line:84% And I think it's so important to understand that it really 00:45:46.890 --> 00:45:48.750 align:middle line:84% was something the students made happen. 00:45:48.750 --> 00:45:51.060 align:middle line:84% The children made it happen, much more-- 00:45:51.060 --> 00:45:54.210 align:middle line:84% it wasn't the dissidents of '68, wasn't even Havel. 00:45:54.210 --> 00:45:55.920 align:middle line:90% Havel was empowered by the kids. 00:45:55.920 --> 00:46:01.170 align:middle line:90% 00:46:01.170 --> 00:46:01.740 align:middle line:90% Anybody else? 00:46:01.740 --> 00:46:02.240 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:46:02.240 --> 00:46:40.880 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:46:40.880 --> 00:46:44.080 align:middle line:84% The moment his career began writing, even though in Polish 00:46:44.080 --> 00:46:47.110 align:middle line:90% to be translated into English. 00:46:47.110 --> 00:46:48.250 align:middle line:90% And I don't-- 00:46:48.250 --> 00:46:49.390 align:middle line:90% I'm not saying that's bad. 00:46:49.390 --> 00:46:52.420 align:middle line:84% I'm just saying it's very interesting. 00:46:52.420 --> 00:46:53.410 align:middle line:90% And there are-- 00:46:53.410 --> 00:46:56.530 align:middle line:84% Holub, for example, the Czech poet Holub, 00:46:56.530 --> 00:47:00.580 align:middle line:84% whom I know and very much respect in him why [INAUDIBLE], 00:47:00.580 --> 00:47:01.150 align:middle line:90% he too-- 00:47:01.150 --> 00:47:03.880 align:middle line:84% But what I like about Holub is he admits it. 00:47:03.880 --> 00:47:05.815 align:middle line:90% There's the point at which he-- 00:47:05.815 --> 00:47:09.760 align:middle line:84% fairly early on in his career, he was writing to be translated. 00:47:09.760 --> 00:47:13.220 align:middle line:84% Now, that's kind of a very complicated matter. 00:47:13.220 --> 00:47:15.370 align:middle line:90% But I think it has-- 00:47:15.370 --> 00:47:16.305 align:middle line:90% it's very interesting. 00:47:16.305 --> 00:47:18.430 align:middle line:84% I mean, I'm not addressing what you're bringing up. 00:47:18.430 --> 00:47:21.870 align:middle line:84% But when I think of Holub as a poet, that's what I think of. 00:47:21.870 --> 00:47:24.370 align:middle line:84% He writes in Polish, and it's been translated. 00:47:24.370 --> 00:47:26.020 align:middle line:90% So he assists in translating it. 00:47:26.020 --> 00:47:28.480 align:middle line:84% And he writes in Polish to be translated into English. 00:47:28.480 --> 00:47:40.340 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:47:40.340 --> 00:47:43.910 align:middle line:84% Absolutely, because I was very aware early on 00:47:43.910 --> 00:47:46.520 align:middle line:84% of being accused of appropriating. 00:47:46.520 --> 00:47:47.690 align:middle line:90% I just happened to be there. 00:47:47.690 --> 00:47:50.000 align:middle line:84% I didn't go there to be in the midst of the fray. 00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:51.680 align:middle line:90% I just happened to be there. 00:47:51.680 --> 00:47:53.570 align:middle line:90% And I was just swept up by-- 00:47:53.570 --> 00:47:55.640 align:middle line:84% also in my personal relationship-- 00:47:55.640 --> 00:47:58.670 align:middle line:84% and was just-- just had this privilege, 00:47:58.670 --> 00:48:01.380 align:middle line:84% just had this tremendous gift given to me by virtue of-- 00:48:01.380 --> 00:48:03.080 align:middle line:90% it was chance. 00:48:03.080 --> 00:48:05.540 align:middle line:84% And I could have chosen not to write about it. 00:48:05.540 --> 00:48:10.100 align:middle line:84% But I kind of tried to figure out the best way to do it. 00:48:10.100 --> 00:48:12.730 align:middle line:84% And for me, I'm not that smart, so I 00:48:12.730 --> 00:48:14.230 align:middle line:90% thought I'll do it directly. 00:48:14.230 --> 00:48:16.520 align:middle line:84% I'm not going to be cute about this. 00:48:16.520 --> 00:48:21.130 align:middle line:84% I'll try to tell the truth and for better or worse. 00:48:21.130 --> 00:48:21.630 align:middle line:90% 00:48:21.630 --> 00:48:30.773 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:48:30.773 --> 00:48:32.940 align:middle line:84% Well, it comes from getting rolled over every couple 00:48:32.940 --> 00:48:33.950 align:middle line:90% of generations. 00:48:33.950 --> 00:48:36.350 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:48:36.350 --> 00:48:40.050 align:middle line:84% It comes from being a part of an empire for a long time 00:48:40.050 --> 00:48:43.460 align:middle line:84% and really only defining themselves as a nation-- 00:48:43.460 --> 00:48:45.980 align:middle line:84% I mean, it was in the 20th century. 00:48:45.980 --> 00:48:52.010 align:middle line:84% And there's no tradition of heroism, 00:48:52.010 --> 00:48:55.160 align:middle line:84% unless you go way back to the Bohemian kings. 00:48:55.160 --> 00:48:57.678 align:middle line:84% Otherwise, what you've got are these people who-- they 00:48:57.678 --> 00:48:58.970 align:middle line:90% get rolled over by the Germans. 00:48:58.970 --> 00:49:01.318 align:middle line:84% They get rolled over by the Russians. 00:49:01.318 --> 00:49:02.360 align:middle line:90% What are you going to do. 00:49:02.360 --> 00:49:05.810 align:middle line:84% You either learn to laugh or you die. 00:49:05.810 --> 00:49:10.130 align:middle line:84% And they lived, and they lived by virtue of their wicked irony 00:49:10.130 --> 00:49:14.570 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] irony about themselves. 00:49:14.570 --> 00:49:17.450 align:middle line:84% Indeed, a Nazi governor said of them, 00:49:17.450 --> 00:49:20.930 align:middle line:90% he called them laughing beasts. 00:49:20.930 --> 00:49:23.120 align:middle line:84% But this is not to say there have not been heroes. 00:49:23.120 --> 00:49:23.810 align:middle line:90% Of course, there were. 00:49:23.810 --> 00:49:25.520 align:middle line:84% During World War II, there were heroes. 00:49:25.520 --> 00:49:30.350 align:middle line:84% And there were-- and through the Russian invasion. 00:49:30.350 --> 00:49:37.790 align:middle line:84% It's just they've never had this more dramatic tradition, shall 00:49:37.790 --> 00:49:42.790 align:middle line:90% we say, of martial competence. 00:49:42.790 --> 00:49:45.700 align:middle line:84% And so when you're surrounded by folks who have that, 00:49:45.700 --> 00:49:47.140 align:middle line:90% I suppose you get ironical. 00:49:47.140 --> 00:49:52.570 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] Yes, ma'am. 00:49:52.570 --> 00:49:56.880 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:49:56.880 --> 00:49:58.848 align:middle line:84% I don't want to overgeneralize by the way-- 00:49:58.848 --> 00:49:59.640 align:middle line:90% You know how it is. 00:49:59.640 --> 00:50:01.380 align:middle line:84% It's much more complicated than that. 00:50:01.380 --> 00:50:04.140 align:middle line:84% I'm just beginning to hear from the younger [INAUDIBLE] 00:50:04.140 --> 00:50:05.430 align:middle line:90% intelligentsia. 00:50:05.430 --> 00:50:08.340 align:middle line:84% They're starting to say, well, maybe we're [INAUDIBLE] America. 00:50:08.340 --> 00:50:10.590 align:middle line:84% But at the same time, there seems 00:50:10.590 --> 00:50:16.569 align:middle line:84% to be a fairly pervasive love of things American. 00:50:16.569 --> 00:50:23.240 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:50:23.240 --> 00:50:26.870 align:middle line:84% Yeah, that's a good question actually. 00:50:26.870 --> 00:50:31.820 align:middle line:84% Those folks who were around '68, who went through that, fall in-- 00:50:31.820 --> 00:50:34.320 align:middle line:84% Well, it's maybe a lot more complicated than this. 00:50:34.320 --> 00:50:36.830 align:middle line:84% But you have those who kept the faith [INAUDIBLE] who 00:50:36.830 --> 00:50:40.580 align:middle line:84% were dissidents, who wouldn't allow themselves to live lives. 00:50:40.580 --> 00:50:43.820 align:middle line:84% Then you had the rest of the folks who are like us. 00:50:43.820 --> 00:50:48.912 align:middle line:84% That is to say, I don't think I would have had the courage. 00:50:48.912 --> 00:50:51.620 align:middle line:84% I don't know if I would have the courage to be a [? dissident. ?] 00:50:51.620 --> 00:50:55.610 align:middle line:84% If my child's life in on the line, the quality of her life 00:50:55.610 --> 00:50:56.123 align:middle line:90% anyway. 00:50:56.123 --> 00:50:57.290 align:middle line:90% I would have been a lot of-- 00:50:57.290 --> 00:51:00.980 align:middle line:84% I would've been in what has been called that gray area. 00:51:00.980 --> 00:51:02.940 align:middle line:84% The Czechs themselves talk about that gray area 00:51:02.940 --> 00:51:05.300 align:middle line:84% that so many good Czechs went through. 00:51:05.300 --> 00:51:07.340 align:middle line:84% They wouldn't join the Party, but nor would they 00:51:07.340 --> 00:51:12.380 align:middle line:84% do or say anything that would hurt their careers 00:51:12.380 --> 00:51:15.980 align:middle line:84% or the chances that their children to have a decent life 00:51:15.980 --> 00:51:21.302 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] Yes, ma'am. 00:51:21.302 --> 00:51:28.530 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:51:28.530 --> 00:51:31.620 align:middle line:84% Well, Klaus, I hate to say this, but Klaus 00:51:31.620 --> 00:51:37.090 align:middle line:84% is using some version of the old supply-side model. 00:51:37.090 --> 00:51:40.780 align:middle line:84% And it just happens for now to be working there. 00:51:40.780 --> 00:51:42.590 align:middle line:90% I'm not an economist, obviously. 00:51:42.590 --> 00:51:44.930 align:middle line:84% And I can't go into much more detail than that. 00:51:44.930 --> 00:51:46.430 align:middle line:90% But there-- 00:51:46.430 --> 00:51:50.510 align:middle line:84% One has to remember that the Czechs during the first Republic 00:51:50.510 --> 00:51:53.900 align:middle line:84% had at least one of the most vital economies in all 00:51:53.900 --> 00:51:55.140 align:middle line:90% of Europe. 00:51:55.140 --> 00:52:00.080 align:middle line:84% And so when the elegant coup happened in '47, 00:52:00.080 --> 00:52:02.450 align:middle line:84% it wasn't something which came from the grassroots. 00:52:02.450 --> 00:52:04.075 align:middle line:84% I mean, it wasn't something that people 00:52:04.075 --> 00:52:06.377 align:middle line:90% were necessarily dissatisfied. 00:52:06.377 --> 00:52:07.960 align:middle line:84% Those of you who are better historians 00:52:07.960 --> 00:52:09.280 align:middle line:84% than I am about that period might 00:52:09.280 --> 00:52:10.520 align:middle line:90% want to take issue with that. 00:52:10.520 --> 00:52:14.680 align:middle line:84% But my sense of it was they had a thriving bourgeoisie, 00:52:14.680 --> 00:52:17.647 align:middle line:84% and the people were not starving. 00:52:17.647 --> 00:52:20.230 align:middle line:84% So I mean, it's not like some peasant revolution or something. 00:52:20.230 --> 00:52:21.730 align:middle line:90% It was purely political. 00:52:21.730 --> 00:52:24.400 align:middle line:84% And it was in global political terms that it happened. 00:52:24.400 --> 00:52:27.400 align:middle line:90% 00:52:27.400 --> 00:52:29.101 align:middle line:90% Yes, ma'am. 00:52:29.101 --> 00:52:35.440 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:52:35.440 --> 00:52:36.340 align:middle line:90% Yeah, I am. 00:52:36.340 --> 00:52:38.740 align:middle line:84% I am, because out of respect for those 00:52:38.740 --> 00:52:42.970 align:middle line:84% who are Slovak, who have defined themselves as another nation. 00:52:42.970 --> 00:52:45.670 align:middle line:84% Within the Czech Republic you have, of course, 00:52:45.670 --> 00:52:49.452 align:middle line:84% Moravians and Bohemians who collectively 00:52:49.452 --> 00:52:50.410 align:middle line:90% call themselves Czechs. 00:52:50.410 --> 00:52:54.060 align:middle line:90% 00:52:54.060 --> 00:52:56.400 align:middle line:84% I don't want to make these folks out of the society 00:52:56.400 --> 00:52:59.158 align:middle line:90% be better than they really are. 00:52:59.158 --> 00:53:00.700 align:middle line:84% I mean, I'm appalled at, for example, 00:53:00.700 --> 00:53:03.920 align:middle line:90% the racism against Gypsies. 00:53:03.920 --> 00:53:07.970 align:middle line:84% I'm a little troubled that women's issues are not 00:53:07.970 --> 00:53:10.580 align:middle line:84% being advanced more vigorously than they are, though it's 00:53:10.580 --> 00:53:11.750 align:middle line:90% beginning to happen. 00:53:11.750 --> 00:53:14.810 align:middle line:84% I was telling a friend of mine earlier that part of that 00:53:14.810 --> 00:53:17.720 align:middle line:84% may have to do with the fact that the old party 00:53:17.720 --> 00:53:20.870 align:middle line:84% rhetoric certain respects sounded 00:53:20.870 --> 00:53:26.450 align:middle line:84% like a feminist rhetoric, at least to the ear, 00:53:26.450 --> 00:53:30.320 align:middle line:84% at least to the ear of someone who grew up in that system. 00:53:30.320 --> 00:53:33.050 align:middle line:84% But of course, what women explained to me, they said, 00:53:33.050 --> 00:53:37.370 align:middle line:84% look, my mother worked because all women work. 00:53:37.370 --> 00:53:39.947 align:middle line:84% And she was equal with my father in that respect. 00:53:39.947 --> 00:53:41.280 align:middle line:90% But she didn't get paid as well. 00:53:41.280 --> 00:53:43.530 align:middle line:84% And then she'd come home, and she took over the house. 00:53:43.530 --> 00:53:46.280 align:middle line:84% And so I don't want to do that, so I'm not going to work. 00:53:46.280 --> 00:53:47.790 align:middle line:84% I'm going to stat home, take care of the house. 00:53:47.790 --> 00:53:48.890 align:middle line:84% And so that looks as though she's 00:53:48.890 --> 00:53:50.870 align:middle line:84% buying into some sort of traditional model. 00:53:50.870 --> 00:53:53.450 align:middle line:84% But at least for the moment, it just means that-- 00:53:53.450 --> 00:53:55.580 align:middle line:84% really, it's kind of a statement of protest. 00:53:55.580 --> 00:53:59.250 align:middle line:90% 00:53:59.250 --> 00:54:03.080 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] terribly conflicted about this, but [INAUDIBLE] 00:54:03.080 --> 00:54:05.170 align:middle line:90% all I can do in this forum. 00:54:05.170 --> 00:54:06.350 align:middle line:90% Yes, ma'am. 00:54:06.350 --> 00:54:09.170 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:54:09.170 --> 00:54:14.070 align:middle line:84% I've got a book of short stories that [INAUDIBLE] Yeah, this 00:54:14.070 --> 00:54:31.903 align:middle line:84% is just one of the [INAUDIBLE] Anybody else? 00:54:31.903 --> 00:54:33.070 align:middle line:90% You guys have been terrific. 00:54:33.070 --> 00:54:34.445 align:middle line:84% And like I told you, I mean, this 00:54:34.445 --> 00:54:36.600 align:middle line:84% is one of the really wonderful things in America, 00:54:36.600 --> 00:54:38.370 align:middle line:84% and I'm very proud to be reading here. 00:54:38.370 --> 00:54:39.810 align:middle line:90% And have a good evening. 00:54:39.810 --> 00:54:43.760 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:54:43.760 --> 00:54:52.000 align:middle line:90%