[APPLAUSE]
Thank you for that introduction.
This is a "Letter to Bruce Wayne."
[LAUGHTER]
"A good place to hide a drop of water is a stream.
A good place to hide a stream is beneath an ocean.
A good place to hide a man is among thousands of other men.
Watch how they rush through the city
Like water through a ravine.
I've searched many famous cities for you.
There are three listings for Bruce Wayne
In Houston, two in Pittsburgh, one in Miami, one in LA.
In Tampa, Bruce Wayne is a retired chemistry teacher.
In Flagstaff, he drives a taxi in hopes
to procure a diamond for his soon-to-be fiance.
A good place to hide a star is a galaxy.
A good place to hide a galaxy is a universe.
Look at the night sky.
Justice used to be a cowl and cape.
The flicker of wings under an attenuated moon
And you, like a gargoyle, crouched
atop some stone edifice.
To conceal a universe, place it in a multiverse.
That hypothetical clash of alternate realities.
The dilemma of the word alternate
is how it implies a norm,
A progenitor stream from which the alternate diverges.
Which is the alternate?
Which is right here, right now?
There is no such thing as Gotham City,
But here is Gotham City.
And I've been so naive believing the truth of the old
mythologies,
How they promised a recognizable villain,
A clown with a ruby slashed mouth,
A lunatic's laugh.
In the universe where I exist, supervillains
look like anyone else.
Give them an old flannel to wear and a square jawline
to smile at the world,
and suddenly, they're hanging a noose in my middle school
bathroom.
They're shouting Get out of my country
from the window of a passing car.
They're pulling a pistol in a crowded bar room, or bus stop,
or the middle of the street.
They could be anyone.
They could be anywhere.
A good place to hide a sociopath is a full-length mirror.
A good place to hide that mirror is the heart of America.
In the battle of good versus evil,
I was so certain that good was going to win.
Now, I just hope something good will survive.
Get a job cutting hair, selling cars.
Make it home in time for dinner.
I suspect there's a parallel dimension
where, you, dear vigilante, long for this as well.
To have a normal life is victory enough.
To remain anonymous and not be spat upon on the subway.
In Boston, Bruce Wayne owns a pawn shop.
In Milwaukee, he plays pinochle and feeds stray cats.
In New Hampshire, he goes fly fishing on the Sugar River.
Reels in one brook trout after another.
When he removes the hook from a mouth,
He might place the fish into a cooler,
Or he might set it back into the stream.
The alternate or the original no longer
certain in which he stands.
[APPLAUSE]