WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.560 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:05.450 align:middle line:84% I mentioned my cat there that makes 00:00:05.450 --> 00:00:13.700 align:middle line:84% me want to go to the new poems, the book in progress, 00:00:13.700 --> 00:00:16.129 align:middle line:90% in which there is-- 00:00:16.129 --> 00:00:17.100 align:middle line:90% it's a poem. 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:23.270 align:middle line:84% It's really three poems titled "Conversations with Max." 00:00:23.270 --> 00:00:24.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:24.860 --> 00:00:28.280 align:middle line:90% "Conversations with Max." 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:28.780 align:middle line:90% "Water." 00:00:28.780 --> 00:00:31.370 align:middle line:90% 00:00:31.370 --> 00:00:32.490 align:middle line:90% "Water." 00:00:32.490 --> 00:00:36.050 align:middle line:84% More to affirm again an ancient contract 00:00:36.050 --> 00:00:40.440 align:middle line:84% Than out of thirst, with your percussive tongue 00:00:40.440 --> 00:00:43.740 align:middle line:84% You lap a trickle of water in the bathroom sink 00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:47.420 align:middle line:84% I rinse for you when I'm done shaving. 00:00:47.420 --> 00:00:49.100 align:middle line:90% That's life-- 00:00:49.100 --> 00:00:52.760 align:middle line:84% I have had more of it than your allotment. 00:00:52.760 --> 00:00:57.260 align:middle line:84% Man has invented death, says Yeats. 00:00:57.260 --> 00:00:58.320 align:middle line:90% "Nor dread 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:02.140 align:middle line:84% Nor hope attend to dying animal," I chant-- 00:01:02.140 --> 00:01:06.280 align:middle line:84% Not to mock you or him, but the more to honor 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:10.310 align:middle line:84% Your kind and mine and all our predecessors, 00:01:10.310 --> 00:01:13.660 align:middle line:84% Many of both dead that I have known. 00:01:13.660 --> 00:01:14.830 align:middle line:90% Have humans 00:01:14.830 --> 00:01:19.450 align:middle line:84% Invented righteousness too, what we were at it?-- 00:01:19.450 --> 00:01:22.930 align:middle line:84% I'm not embarrassed to ask a cat. 00:01:22.930 --> 00:01:24.220 align:middle line:90% The dreadful 00:01:24.220 --> 00:01:27.880 align:middle line:84% Wars of theocracy shame every invention, 00:01:27.880 --> 00:01:31.710 align:middle line:84% Right down to these harmless pipes that I control. 00:01:31.710 --> 00:01:34.840 align:middle line:90% 00:01:34.840 --> 00:01:36.640 align:middle line:90% "Chair." 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:40.630 align:middle line:84% I say to you, "Our meeting together in this 00:01:40.630 --> 00:01:43.100 align:middle line:90% Big chair is more than a habit. 00:01:43.100 --> 00:01:45.880 align:middle line:90% It's a custom." 00:01:45.880 --> 00:01:49.570 align:middle line:84% In your cat way you understand my vocal 00:01:49.570 --> 00:01:52.450 align:middle line:90% Meaning as theatrical noise. 00:01:52.450 --> 00:01:54.070 align:middle line:90% And so it is-- 00:01:54.070 --> 00:01:57.410 align:middle line:84% Me acting out my nature as a talker 00:01:57.410 --> 00:02:00.480 align:middle line:84% As you with your elegant predator's oblique 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:04.120 align:middle line:84% Path to the chair with forays left and right 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:08.009 align:middle line:84% Act out your nature as an athletic hunter. 00:02:08.009 --> 00:02:12.240 align:middle line:84% I wonder, do you scorn my straight-line route 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:16.260 align:middle line:84% Here to the chair as artless, the desperate hurry 00:02:16.260 --> 00:02:18.380 align:middle line:90% Of quarry? 00:02:18.380 --> 00:02:18.880 align:middle line:90% No. 00:02:18.880 --> 00:02:20.340 align:middle line:90% I don't think you imagine 00:02:20.340 --> 00:02:23.370 align:middle line:84% You're simply hunting any more than I 00:02:23.370 --> 00:02:26.790 align:middle line:84% Imagine we're simply having a chat, as we 00:02:26.790 --> 00:02:32.880 align:middle line:84% Enact in mime a sociable time together. 00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:36.510 align:middle line:90% Finally, "Paper." 00:02:36.510 --> 00:02:40.693 align:middle line:84% I tell you, "Move over so I can read the paper." 00:02:40.693 --> 00:02:43.620 align:middle line:90% 00:02:43.620 --> 00:02:47.250 align:middle line:84% Reading my voice and muscles, you make some room 00:02:47.250 --> 00:02:51.480 align:middle line:84% To share my lap with the screen of dread I still call 00:02:51.480 --> 00:02:53.910 align:middle line:90% The paper. 00:02:53.910 --> 00:02:57.900 align:middle line:84% "Worse all over the world," I tell you. 00:02:57.900 --> 00:03:01.050 align:middle line:84% It even looks like paper, cleverly aping 00:03:01.050 --> 00:03:06.480 align:middle line:84% The Times or Globe with fonts of horror I scan. 00:03:06.480 --> 00:03:10.950 align:middle line:84% "The morning fish-wrap" Herb Caen called his column. 00:03:10.950 --> 00:03:14.970 align:middle line:84% The pulp-mills weren't very good for fish, 00:03:14.970 --> 00:03:20.110 align:middle line:84% But the screen you move aside for is toxic, too. 00:03:20.110 --> 00:03:24.840 align:middle line:84% And mammals like us do like the feel of paper. 00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:29.670 align:middle line:84% They say we primates evolve this code of grunts 00:03:29.670 --> 00:03:31.920 align:middle line:90% For hunting in packs. 00:03:31.920 --> 00:03:34.200 align:middle line:90% And we scratched out alphabets 00:03:34.200 --> 00:03:40.290 align:middle line:84% For keeping accounts of trade in slaves or olives, 00:03:40.290 --> 00:03:45.630 align:middle line:84% Profits and losses of the lost, solitary hunter. 00:03:45.630 --> 00:03:48.330 align:middle line:90% 00:03:48.330 --> 00:03:51.380 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:51.380 --> 00:03:58.000 align:middle line:90%