WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.080 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:01.590 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:00:01.590 --> 00:00:03.210 align:middle line:90% I'm glad to be here. 00:00:03.210 --> 00:00:05.730 align:middle line:90% Did David really say that? 00:00:05.730 --> 00:00:07.200 align:middle line:90% No shit. 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:08.070 align:middle line:90% Buy him a drink. 00:00:08.070 --> 00:00:12.960 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:17.730 align:middle line:84% My husband's voice just comes to me in- from all the way 00:00:17.730 --> 00:00:18.600 align:middle line:90% back home. 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:19.500 align:middle line:90% Adjust your mic. 00:00:19.500 --> 00:00:22.650 align:middle line:84% Do I have to adjust my mic, or is it-- 00:00:22.650 --> 00:00:23.430 align:middle line:90% it's fine? 00:00:23.430 --> 00:00:24.510 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:24.510 --> 00:00:25.965 align:middle line:90% It's rather bulbous. 00:00:25.965 --> 00:00:30.120 align:middle line:90% 00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:31.620 align:middle line:90% Say no more. 00:00:31.620 --> 00:00:34.870 align:middle line:84% We'll save the dirty stuff for later. 00:00:34.870 --> 00:00:37.630 align:middle line:90% Nah, no we won't. 00:00:37.630 --> 00:00:41.820 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read tonight mainly from the second book, 00:00:41.820 --> 00:00:45.490 align:middle line:84% In the Badlands of Desire, and a new work. 00:00:45.490 --> 00:00:49.050 align:middle line:84% I might throw in an oldie from Body Betrayer somewhere 00:00:49.050 --> 00:00:50.340 align:middle line:90% along the line. 00:00:50.340 --> 00:00:52.290 align:middle line:84% There's no narrative to this reading. 00:00:52.290 --> 00:00:55.170 align:middle line:84% I'm not into narrative right now. 00:00:55.170 --> 00:01:02.340 align:middle line:84% I'm going to open with the first poem In the Badlands of Desire, 00:01:02.340 --> 00:01:05.700 align:middle line:84% right after this cool drink of water. 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:10.670 align:middle line:90% 00:01:10.670 --> 00:01:14.720 align:middle line:84% The epigraph for the book is taken from a poem 00:01:14.720 --> 00:01:16.220 align:middle line:90% by Yehuda Amichai. 00:01:16.220 --> 00:01:19.640 align:middle line:84% And the poem is called "The Pain of Being Far Away." 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:24.350 align:middle line:84% And the epigraph reads, "there are great longings, 00:01:24.350 --> 00:01:28.220 align:middle line:84% like someone who wakes up in a bed in which he didn't fall 00:01:28.220 --> 00:01:30.020 align:middle line:90% asleep." 00:01:30.020 --> 00:01:33.290 align:middle line:84% I liked finding that epigraph for the book, 00:01:33.290 --> 00:01:36.980 align:middle line:84% because The Badlands of Desire is really 00:01:36.980 --> 00:01:39.500 align:middle line:90% not a geographical location. 00:01:39.500 --> 00:01:44.960 align:middle line:84% It is a book in which many of the speakers 00:01:44.960 --> 00:01:47.000 align:middle line:90% suffer a sense of dislocation. 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:52.250 align:middle line:84% And that dislocation is temporal rather than geographical. 00:01:52.250 --> 00:01:56.480 align:middle line:84% So the Badlands is really a timescape more than a landscape. 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:00.540 align:middle line:90% 00:02:00.540 --> 00:02:09.680 align:middle line:84% The first poem in the book is called "The Possibilities." 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:13.610 align:middle line:84% "After a wife's death, a man may talk to his horse 00:02:13.610 --> 00:02:17.810 align:middle line:84% with a great tenderness, as if just this morning, 00:02:17.810 --> 00:02:21.110 align:middle line:84% he had tried on her pink slipper. 00:02:21.110 --> 00:02:26.210 align:middle line:84% And if he has no horse, he may crack his window a little wider 00:02:26.210 --> 00:02:29.540 align:middle line:84% when it lightly rains to confirm the roofs 00:02:29.540 --> 00:02:33.080 align:middle line:90% and trees are made of paper. 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:38.300 align:middle line:84% If there is no rain, he may make himself a meal at midnight. 00:02:38.300 --> 00:02:45.140 align:middle line:84% Sweet artichokes and Danish cheese, a glass of red wine. 00:02:45.140 --> 00:02:48.770 align:middle line:90% If there is no red, then white. 00:02:48.770 --> 00:02:53.150 align:middle line:84% He may suck the knife clean with his tongue. 00:02:53.150 --> 00:02:59.240 align:middle line:84% Later, lying awake, he may hear the wild lung of a motorcycle 00:02:59.240 --> 00:03:02.300 align:middle line:90% far off on a far road. 00:03:02.300 --> 00:03:07.130 align:middle line:84% If there is no motorcycle, a dog trying for any 00:03:07.130 --> 00:03:10.670 align:middle line:90% syllable in any known language. 00:03:10.670 --> 00:03:14.300 align:middle line:84% Something falling suddenly in the closet 00:03:14.300 --> 00:03:18.170 align:middle line:90% according to some law. 00:03:18.170 --> 00:03:22.130 align:middle line:84% Nearness in the dark is a kind of beauty. 00:03:22.130 --> 00:03:27.770 align:middle line:84% Though it is only the lampshade, a shoulder of a walnut chair. 00:03:27.770 --> 00:03:31.100 align:middle line:84% If there is no chair, then a shelf. 00:03:31.100 --> 00:03:34.880 align:middle line:84% A shelf of books with the devil's violet fedora 00:03:34.880 --> 00:03:37.280 align:middle line:90% tossed on top. 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:39.680 align:middle line:84% Or something exotic from the sea-- 00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:45.200 align:middle line:84% manta ray, like the pulse in the ball of his foot. 00:03:45.200 --> 00:03:49.910 align:middle line:84% A man may walk 10 steps behind his life. 00:03:49.910 --> 00:03:53.390 align:middle line:90% It may be sorrow or fear. 00:03:53.390 --> 00:03:58.340 align:middle line:84% He may see her back like two doves rushing up where a boy has 00:03:58.340 --> 00:04:01.370 align:middle line:90% flung a handful of pebbles. 00:04:01.370 --> 00:04:03.980 align:middle line:90% If no pebbles-- leaves. 00:04:03.980 --> 00:04:08.660 align:middle line:84% Where a masked prowler hunches, his belt of lock picks. 00:04:08.660 --> 00:04:14.810 align:middle line:84% His bag of velvet like the one from which memory snatches. 00:04:14.810 --> 00:04:17.570 align:middle line:90% These are the possibilities-- 00:04:17.570 --> 00:04:23.090 align:middle line:84% the immaculate, like miracles, which are nothing in themselves. 00:04:23.090 --> 00:04:28.220 align:middle line:84% But in this world, a sign of angels, ghosts, 00:04:28.220 --> 00:04:32.210 align:middle line:84% supernatural beings, who watch us. 00:04:32.210 --> 00:04:33.830 align:middle line:90% Who listen. 00:04:33.830 --> 00:04:39.110 align:middle line:84% Who sometimes helplessly let us stumble on their pyramids, 00:04:39.110 --> 00:04:43.460 align:middle line:84% their crude observatories, or let us, 00:04:43.460 --> 00:04:49.730 align:middle line:84% generation after generation, speak to the broken horse 00:04:49.730 --> 00:04:52.210 align:middle line:90% of the human heart."