WEBVTT

00:00:15.041 --> 00:00:17.709
(soft music)

00:00:17.709 --> 00:00:24.417
♪

00:00:43.417 --> 00:00:44.375
So I took the train up

00:00:44.375 --> 00:00:46.917
and I landed
at Princeton Junction.

00:00:46.917 --> 00:00:48.250
And it was
a beautiful spring day

00:00:48.250 --> 00:00:51.959
and there were lots and lots
of Princeton undergraduates

00:00:51.959 --> 00:00:57.083
sunbathing on this nice,
expansive green lawn, smiling.

00:00:57.083 --> 00:00:58.333
And I looked at them
and I thought,

00:00:58.333 --> 00:01:02.625
\"There\'s something really
strange about this picture.\"

00:01:02.625 --> 00:01:03.458
Sort of unnerving.

00:01:03.458 --> 00:01:06.750
It was, \"Has there been
an alien visitation

00:01:06.750 --> 00:01:08.250
and are these pod people?\"

00:01:08.250 --> 00:01:11.375
They were all beautiful
and, you know,

00:01:11.375 --> 00:01:12.875
really healthy and so on.

00:01:12.875 --> 00:01:13.875
But what really struck me

00:01:13.875 --> 00:01:19.083
was that they all had
very straight teeth

00:01:19.083 --> 00:01:20.542
and straightened teeth

00:01:20.542 --> 00:01:23.125
that it looked
like everybody

00:01:23.125 --> 00:01:25.250
had been
to an orthodontist.

00:01:25.250 --> 00:01:27.792
And, of course, I had
had orthodontia as a child

00:01:27.792 --> 00:01:30.375
because my father had
had very crooked teeth

00:01:30.375 --> 00:01:32.166
and I inherited
very crooked teeth

00:01:32.166 --> 00:01:34.417
and I had exactly the same
orthodontist he did.

00:01:34.417 --> 00:01:37.041
And he showed me
my father\'s plastic models

00:01:37.041 --> 00:01:39.542
of his teeth
from my father\'s childhood

00:01:39.542 --> 00:01:40.959
and matched them
against mine

00:01:40.959 --> 00:01:42.417
and they were
exactly the same.

00:01:42.417 --> 00:01:43.792
And then he\'d put on braces

00:01:43.792 --> 00:01:45.000
and so on and so on.

00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:46.291
So there I was

00:01:46.291 --> 00:01:48.083
lecturing to these
Princeton undergraduates

00:01:48.083 --> 00:01:52.500
with all of us having
these extraordinary teeth.

00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:55.458
And I got interested
in the history

00:01:55.458 --> 00:01:57.625
of the profession
of orthodontia.

00:01:57.625 --> 00:02:00.458
And the question
that drove it was,

00:02:00.458 --> 00:02:01.542
\"How did the orthodontist,\"

00:02:01.542 --> 00:02:03.083
if you\'re fixing
an underbite

00:02:03.083 --> 00:02:04.542
or an overbite
or whatever,

00:02:04.542 --> 00:02:07.834
\"how does the orthodontist
know when to stop?\"

00:02:07.834 --> 00:02:11.041
What counts
as a correct bite?

00:02:11.041 --> 00:02:14.792
Because that\'s an historically
very molten matter,

00:02:14.792 --> 00:02:16.417
it depends on how
you use your teeth.

00:02:16.417 --> 00:02:19.458
People who use their teeth
to process leather

00:02:19.458 --> 00:02:22.959
or chew a different kind
of food or many other things,

00:02:22.959 --> 00:02:26.125
they\'re gonna have
very different shaped jaw.

00:02:26.125 --> 00:02:28.458
And then there are also
the genetic screw-ups

00:02:28.458 --> 00:02:29.500
like my father\'s
and mine

00:02:29.500 --> 00:02:31.375
with teeth
all over the place,

00:02:31.375 --> 00:02:34.792
you know,
getting fixed.

00:02:34.792 --> 00:02:36.375
So, um,

00:02:36.375 --> 00:02:39.500
I found this wonderful
physical anthropologist

00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:41.875
named Loring Brace
who had written a paper

00:02:41.875 --> 00:02:43.917
about the history
of orthodontia

00:02:43.917 --> 00:02:46.999
and, you know, a group
of dental specialists

00:02:46.999 --> 00:02:49.500
that consolidate
into their own profession

00:02:49.500 --> 00:02:50.875
in the late 19th century,

00:02:50.875 --> 00:02:52.500
which is exactly
the period

00:02:52.500 --> 00:02:53.999
when a lot of
the differentiation

00:02:53.999 --> 00:02:55.000
of medicine
is happening

00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.500
into separate bodies
of specialists, so on.

00:02:59.500 --> 00:03:00.625
This was very familiar.

00:03:00.625 --> 00:03:01.875
Remember, I was an historian

00:03:01.875 --> 00:03:03.166
of biology in those days.

00:03:03.166 --> 00:03:05.625
But what Loring Brace
was also interested in

00:03:05.625 --> 00:03:09.625
was how the orthodontists
knew when to stop

00:03:09.625 --> 00:03:11.542
if they\'re correcting a bite.

00:03:11.542 --> 00:03:13.625
And what he argued, um,

00:03:13.625 --> 00:03:15.834
was that in the, uh,

00:03:15.834 --> 00:03:18.458
evolutionary bioanthropology

00:03:18.458 --> 00:03:19.667
of the late 19th century

00:03:19.667 --> 00:03:22.417
and well into
the late 20th century,

00:03:22.417 --> 00:03:26.959
the sort of progression
from the big jawed, uh,

00:03:26.959 --> 00:03:31.625
pre-Homo sapiens and then
on through the races of man,

00:03:31.625 --> 00:03:36.041
the fundamentally racist
racialized picture, uh,

00:03:36.041 --> 00:03:39.375
that the, uh,
orthodontia organized itself

00:03:39.375 --> 00:03:42.875
around the correct
facial angle, right?

00:03:42.875 --> 00:03:45.542
Straight out
of racial anthropology

00:03:45.542 --> 00:03:46.542
of the 19th century.

00:03:46.542 --> 00:03:50.458
And the correct bite
was derived from a population

00:03:50.458 --> 00:03:53.166
that has never lived
on planet Earth

00:03:53.166 --> 00:03:54.333
except in sculpture.

00:03:54.333 --> 00:03:56.834
The correct facial angle
is the facial angle

00:03:56.834 --> 00:03:59.625
of the statues
of the Greek gods.

00:03:59.625 --> 00:04:01.083
(laughs)

00:04:01.083 --> 00:04:03.959
(birdsong)

00:04:11.166 --> 00:04:13.834
(ambient music)

00:04:13.834 --> 00:04:23.041
♪

00:04:26.458 --> 00:04:29.458
(shimmering sound)

00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:35.083
(nocturnal nature sounds)

00:04:50.834 --> 00:04:53.917
(soft, eerie music)

00:04:53.917 --> 00:05:03.709
♪

00:05:03.709 --> 00:05:06.542
(birdsong)

00:05:13.667 --> 00:05:16.667
(triangle chiming)

00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:21.542
(chime)

00:05:24.999 --> 00:05:27.917
(soft snoring)

00:05:32.083 --> 00:05:33.625
(chime)

00:05:38.458 --> 00:05:41.375
(soft snoring)

00:05:46.500 --> 00:05:49.125
(soft music)

00:05:49.125 --> 00:05:56.625
♪

00:05:56.625 --> 00:05:58.125
(chime)

00:06:01.750 --> 00:06:04.667
(dog panting)

00:06:04.999 --> 00:06:07.333
I grew up in a family
where storytelling

00:06:07.333 --> 00:06:09.667
was part of the air
we breathed

00:06:09.667 --> 00:06:11.875
and a big part
of what happened

00:06:11.875 --> 00:06:12.750
around the dinner table.

00:06:12.750 --> 00:06:17.208
It was a family that loved words
and loved language,

00:06:17.208 --> 00:06:18.375
not an intellectual family,

00:06:18.375 --> 00:06:21.458
not a family
of scholars at all,

00:06:21.458 --> 00:06:23.667
but a family
full of laughter

00:06:23.667 --> 00:06:28.291
and full of the vitality
of sharing stories,

00:06:28.291 --> 00:06:30.417
especially at dinner time.

00:06:30.417 --> 00:06:32.709
And there was
an anchor to that,

00:06:32.709 --> 00:06:35.125
and the anchor
really was my father,

00:06:35.125 --> 00:06:36.000
who was a sports writer.

00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:37.834
He worked
for theDenver Post

00:06:37.834 --> 00:06:39.208
for more than 50 years

00:06:39.208 --> 00:06:41.667
in the sports department
writing game stories

00:06:41.667 --> 00:06:45.083
for baseball, basketball,
football, hockey,

00:06:45.083 --> 00:06:49.500
covered the Kentucky Derby
sometimes, so forth.

00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:52.792
And Dad loved to write
the game stories.

00:06:52.792 --> 00:06:54.834
He didn\'t want to be
one of the columnists,

00:06:54.834 --> 00:06:57.291
he didn\'t want to do
the muckraking,

00:06:57.291 --> 00:07:01.375
to dig up the dirt on
corporate, big time sports.

00:07:01.375 --> 00:07:04.583
He wanted to write about
the drama of the game.

00:07:04.583 --> 00:07:07.333
And I think that\'s something
that he brought with him

00:07:07.333 --> 00:07:10.750
into his adult life
from childhood.

00:07:10.750 --> 00:07:13.291
My father
contracted tuberculosis

00:07:13.291 --> 00:07:15.000
as a very young child,

00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:17.333
and it was tuberculosis
in his bones,

00:07:17.333 --> 00:07:18.291
not in his lungs,

00:07:18.291 --> 00:07:20.667
and particularly
in the bones of his hips

00:07:20.667 --> 00:07:23.999
and his upper legs
and his knees.

00:07:23.999 --> 00:07:26.583
It was very serious
and it kept him

00:07:26.583 --> 00:07:29.792
in a full-length body cast
from, you know,

00:07:29.792 --> 00:07:33.542
just at his chest level
down to his knees

00:07:33.542 --> 00:07:34.917
for three years,

00:07:34.917 --> 00:07:37.625
immobilized
and in significant pain.

00:07:37.625 --> 00:07:39.750
There was
no real good treatment

00:07:39.750 --> 00:07:42.542
for tuberculosis
in those days.

00:07:42.542 --> 00:07:44.875
And he was blessed with,
you know,

00:07:44.875 --> 00:07:48.333
parents and friends
and a neighborhood full of kids

00:07:48.333 --> 00:07:52.375
and folks who made
his life very full.

00:07:52.375 --> 00:07:54.458
And my dad was not
an intellectual,

00:07:54.458 --> 00:07:56.458
neither was my mother or...

00:07:56.458 --> 00:07:59.417
The family
had a love of words

00:07:59.417 --> 00:08:00.500
and a love of stories,

00:08:00.500 --> 00:08:03.834
but not in a--
they weren\'t critics,

00:08:03.834 --> 00:08:04.875
they weren\'t, um,

00:08:04.875 --> 00:08:06.291
they weren\'t
particularly political.

00:08:06.291 --> 00:08:07.667
And so far as
they were political,

00:08:07.667 --> 00:08:10.166
I try to forget
what they thought.

00:08:10.166 --> 00:08:11.000
Uh...

00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:12.417
(laughs)

00:08:12.709 --> 00:08:14.875
Sort of an embarrassing part
of one\'s childhood,

00:08:14.875 --> 00:08:16.083
you know, I mean,
on the one hand

00:08:16.083 --> 00:08:18.000
there was Cardinal Spellman
and the, you know,

00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:22.291
the (unintelligible)
Catholic scene of the 1950s

00:08:22.291 --> 00:08:23.917
in Irish Catholic Denver.

00:08:23.917 --> 00:08:28.875
Uh, yeah, I try to forget
the political scene, basically.

00:08:28.875 --> 00:08:32.291
But the love of story
I don\'t forget.

00:08:32.291 --> 00:08:34.458
And I think that,
you know,

00:08:34.458 --> 00:08:39.959
my father was a tremendously
positive presence.

00:08:39.959 --> 00:08:42.834
He--his sense
of storytelling

00:08:42.834 --> 00:08:49.375
was a kind of making
live for an audience

00:08:49.375 --> 00:08:50.500
what made something vital.

00:08:50.500 --> 00:08:55.917
I also think I inherited
a strong love of storytelling

00:08:55.917 --> 00:08:57.458
from growing up Catholic.

00:08:57.458 --> 00:08:59.959
There\'s no way
you grow up Catholic

00:08:59.959 --> 00:09:02.625
as the serious little girl
I was.

00:09:02.625 --> 00:09:07.291
You know, with a profound
immersion in the liturgy

00:09:07.291 --> 00:09:09.208
and the colors
and the symbols

00:09:09.208 --> 00:09:11.500
and the rituals
and the incense

00:09:11.500 --> 00:09:14.834
and the dressing up
and the--the, you know,

00:09:14.834 --> 00:09:16.542
I wanted to lead
a children\'s crusade

00:09:16.542 --> 00:09:18.625
to the Holy Land,
for Christ\'s sake,

00:09:18.625 --> 00:09:20.125
I mean, this is really bad.

00:09:20.125 --> 00:09:20.917
You know, I mean,

00:09:20.917 --> 00:09:23.041
you think about today\'s world

00:09:23.041 --> 00:09:24.500
to remember that, you know,

00:09:24.500 --> 00:09:25.291
as a seven-year-old girl

00:09:25.291 --> 00:09:28.500
I wanted to lead
a crusade as, uh...

00:09:28.500 --> 00:09:30.625
Well, less said
the better, you know?

00:09:30.625 --> 00:09:34.583
Except that it also
helps me remember

00:09:34.583 --> 00:09:37.917
how deeply rooted, um, the--

00:09:37.917 --> 00:09:40.709
how deeply rooted
Christian culture is

00:09:40.709 --> 00:09:41.999
in this thing
we call the West

00:09:41.999 --> 00:09:44.917
and how profoundly
Islamophobic it is.

00:09:44.917 --> 00:09:47.333
And that in some way,
uh, you know,

00:09:47.333 --> 00:09:50.709
I inherited that
without even knowing

00:09:50.709 --> 00:09:52.041
that I was
inheriting that.

00:09:52.041 --> 00:09:54.208
What I thought
I was inheriting

00:09:54.208 --> 00:09:55.750
was the drama
of a little girl

00:09:55.750 --> 00:09:59.083
leading other children
into battle for truth

00:09:59.083 --> 00:10:01.291
or some other weird fantasy.

00:10:01.291 --> 00:10:02.208
No wonder
I liked Fellini

00:10:02.208 --> 00:10:06.458
when I started going
to real movies, you know?

00:10:06.458 --> 00:10:07.333
(laughs)

00:10:07.333 --> 00:10:10.000
(nocturnal nature sounds)

00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:12.667
(mystical music)

00:10:12.667 --> 00:10:22.917
♪

00:10:33.667 --> 00:10:37.291
I think I want to say
that it doesn\'t look maybe,

00:10:37.291 --> 00:10:39.125
at first glance,

00:10:39.125 --> 00:10:42.208
that this beautiful
Navajo basket,

00:10:42.208 --> 00:10:44.041
which of course
I have no right to own,

00:10:44.041 --> 00:10:45.667
one of the reasons
I held it up here

00:10:45.667 --> 00:10:47.417
is \'cause
it\'s also embarrassing.

00:10:47.417 --> 00:10:51.709
How is it that
a daughter of conquest

00:10:51.709 --> 00:10:54.291
owns this object?

00:10:54.291 --> 00:10:57.875
Uh, I sort of leave that
there as a question.

00:10:57.875 --> 00:11:02.000
There\'s no way
that we can touch

00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:04.333
without inheriting
the whole thing.

00:11:04.333 --> 00:11:09.375
It\'s not that I feel guilty
with holding this basket,

00:11:09.375 --> 00:11:14.709
but the basket
is also this eruption

00:11:14.709 --> 00:11:17.542
of the whole story

00:11:17.542 --> 00:11:20.625
of dispossession

00:11:20.625 --> 00:11:23.500
and of dependent sovereignty

00:11:23.500 --> 00:11:25.875
of Native American peoples,

00:11:25.875 --> 00:11:28.250
of, uh, it--of the--

00:11:28.250 --> 00:11:34.083
the pricing apparatus for
selling amazing Navajo rugs

00:11:34.083 --> 00:11:37.667
as if it were raw wool
for decades

00:11:37.667 --> 00:11:40.125
that kept Navajo
weaving families

00:11:40.125 --> 00:11:44.083
in bondage
to the trading--

00:11:44.083 --> 00:11:45.250
to the trading stores

00:11:45.250 --> 00:11:48.000
in exchange for flour
and sugar and, you know...

00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:53.375
I can\'t not know who I am
in the American West.

00:11:53.375 --> 00:11:56.291
Um, I also can\'t know
who I am--

00:11:56.291 --> 00:11:58.667
I can\'t forget who I am
in the American West

00:11:58.667 --> 00:12:03.041
when I hear on the soundtrack
my now old dog,

00:12:03.041 --> 00:12:05.709
my dog with whom
I played agility,

00:12:05.709 --> 00:12:07.875
an Australian Shepherd,
a herding dog,

00:12:07.875 --> 00:12:11.500
a dog who herded sheep
on the conquest ranches

00:12:11.500 --> 00:12:12.834
of the American West,

00:12:12.834 --> 00:12:15.875
that her heritage
and my heritage

00:12:15.875 --> 00:12:18.500
are both white in this--

00:12:18.500 --> 00:12:22.208
not as a color but--
uh, exactly,

00:12:22.208 --> 00:12:24.667
but as an apparatus.

00:12:24.667 --> 00:12:26.166
And what she\'s doing now

00:12:26.166 --> 00:12:28.291
is canine
cognitive dysfunction.

00:12:28.291 --> 00:12:30.125
She\'s a little bit senile.

00:12:30.125 --> 00:12:34.250
And she starts barking in
a little bit of confusion

00:12:34.250 --> 00:12:35.125
in the late afternoon.

00:12:35.125 --> 00:12:40.750
She doesn\'t exactly quite know
what to do with herself.

00:12:40.750 --> 00:12:44.458
And what I hear
is my old friend

00:12:44.458 --> 00:12:47.125
a little bit confused.

00:12:47.125 --> 00:12:50.291
And the barking,
like the basket,

00:12:50.291 --> 00:12:54.375
reminds me
of the detail,

00:12:54.375 --> 00:12:56.625
the intimacy
of inheritance

00:12:56.625 --> 00:13:00.291
that\'s the inheritance of
big things and little things.

00:13:00.291 --> 00:13:03.959
The different life spans
of a woman and a dog,

00:13:03.959 --> 00:13:07.458
that we both flamed together
for 10 years.

00:13:07.458 --> 00:13:11.917
And that she\'s old
in a way I\'m not yet.

00:13:11.917 --> 00:13:16.792
And my obligation
is to accompany my friend, uh,

00:13:16.792 --> 00:13:20.667
to--to the kind of
companion species

00:13:20.667 --> 00:13:23.208
as accompanying
with each other

00:13:23.208 --> 00:13:24.999
through now this time,

00:13:24.999 --> 00:13:27.208
which includes
mental confusion

00:13:27.208 --> 00:13:29.709
a little bit
for my dog.

00:13:29.709 --> 00:13:32.959
So since she\'s right here

00:13:32.959 --> 00:13:35.041
and looking for
a little bit of comfort,

00:13:35.041 --> 00:13:38.834
it lets me go back to that
other part of storytelling

00:13:38.834 --> 00:13:40.458
so that--let me put it, uh,

00:13:40.458 --> 00:13:41.709
let me say something else.

00:13:41.709 --> 00:13:47.709
It has been considered improper
to be interrupted.

00:13:47.709 --> 00:13:49.709
(laughs)

00:13:49.709 --> 00:13:50.709
You.

00:13:50.709 --> 00:13:53.125
(laughs)

00:13:53.125 --> 00:13:54.041
Cayenne, hey,

00:13:54.041 --> 00:13:56.500
I think I\'m gonna ask Rusten
to come get you.

00:13:56.500 --> 00:13:58.583
I am, I\'m gonna
ask Rusten to come--

00:13:58.583 --> 00:14:00.792
yeah, I think we--
I think she needs Rusten.

00:14:00.792 --> 00:14:04.875
So I\'m gonna ask my buddy
to come get her.

00:14:11.458 --> 00:14:12.999
Rusten?

00:14:15.417 --> 00:14:16.959
Rusten?

00:14:17.750 --> 00:14:20.291
She doesn\'t--
she doesn\'t--

00:14:20.291 --> 00:14:23.875
she doesn\'t know
what\'s going on here.

00:14:29.750 --> 00:14:32.834
(wind chimes ringing)

00:14:50.959 --> 00:14:54.083
(nocturnal nature sounds)

00:15:37.750 --> 00:15:40.583
(barking)

00:15:50.750 --> 00:15:53.583
(barking)

00:16:03.917 --> 00:16:05.667
Right here.

00:16:06.875 --> 00:16:08.959
Cayenne, huddle.

00:16:20.834 --> 00:16:23.667
(barking)

00:16:29.999 --> 00:16:32.834
(barking)

00:16:33.083 --> 00:16:36.166
Over, over, over, left!

00:16:36.166 --> 00:16:36.917
Huddle.

00:16:36.917 --> 00:16:38.834
Go, go, go.

00:16:40.083 --> 00:16:42.291
(cheering, applause)

00:16:42.291 --> 00:16:45.125
(barking)

00:16:49.709 --> 00:16:50.667
Cayenne.

00:16:50.667 --> 00:16:51.166
Over.

00:16:51.166 --> 00:16:54.875
Cayenne, Cayenne,
Cayenne, Cayenne.

00:16:54.875 --> 00:16:56.417
Left!

00:16:57.959 --> 00:16:59.250
Cayenne.

00:17:00.250 --> 00:17:00.959
Over.

00:17:00.959 --> 00:17:04.667
Left, right.

00:17:04.667 --> 00:17:06.333
Over, left.

00:17:06.333 --> 00:17:07.875
Huddle.

00:17:09.667 --> 00:17:11.208
Left.

00:17:13.667 --> 00:17:16.750
Go, go, go, go, go,
go, go, go, go.

00:17:16.750 --> 00:17:18.250
(cheering, applause)

00:17:18.250 --> 00:17:20.917
(soft music)

00:17:20.917 --> 00:17:31.125
♪

00:18:34.625 --> 00:18:36.041
(Cayenne barks)

00:18:36.041 --> 00:18:45.542
♪

00:18:45.542 --> 00:18:48.417
(nature sounds)

00:18:56.959 --> 00:18:58.166
(gorillas snorting)

00:18:58.166 --> 00:19:00.834
(dramatic music)

00:19:00.834 --> 00:19:02.542
♪

00:19:02.542 --> 00:19:06.792
(Tarzan style yell)

00:19:09.166 --> 00:19:19.417
♪

00:19:21.125 --> 00:19:24.000
Are you an animal
or a person?

00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.208
I\'m animal-gorilla.

00:19:26.208 --> 00:19:27.166
The words we just heard

00:19:27.166 --> 00:19:29.166
were spoken by
the gorilla Koko

00:19:29.166 --> 00:19:30.875
to the human being
Penny Patterson.

00:19:30.875 --> 00:19:33.166
Let\'s look at those words
from the point of view

00:19:33.166 --> 00:19:35.875
of the way a world looks
to a culture critic.

00:19:35.875 --> 00:19:39.750
And let\'s take culture apart
like these balls of yarn.

00:19:39.750 --> 00:19:42.166
First I\'d like to explain
the principle that I use

00:19:42.166 --> 00:19:45.083
in looking at the production
of modern culture.

00:19:45.083 --> 00:19:46.709
Seems to me
the cultural critic

00:19:46.709 --> 00:19:49.208
is faced by a world
that looks very much

00:19:49.208 --> 00:19:51.000
like tangled balls
of yarn,

00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:54.166
and that one way to approach
the situation

00:19:54.166 --> 00:19:55.291
is to pull on a thread

00:19:55.291 --> 00:19:58.208
and begin to untangle
the ball of meanings

00:19:58.208 --> 00:20:02.542
and begin to trace through
one thread and then another

00:20:02.542 --> 00:20:05.000
what gets to count
as nature,

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:06.417
for whom and when,

00:20:06.417 --> 00:20:09.500
and how much it costs
to produce nature

00:20:09.500 --> 00:20:11.583
at a particular moment
in history

00:20:11.583 --> 00:20:13.500
for a particular group
of people.

00:20:13.500 --> 00:20:16.875
Another way to imagine
the same situation

00:20:16.875 --> 00:20:18.125
is to take a layer cake,

00:20:18.125 --> 00:20:19.583
Pepperidge Farm layer cake,

00:20:19.583 --> 00:20:20.333
formerly boycotted

00:20:20.333 --> 00:20:24.792
because of the Nestlé
bottle-feeding scandal,

00:20:24.792 --> 00:20:28.417
You take a layer cake
and cut into history

00:20:28.417 --> 00:20:30.166
as if it were a layer cake

00:20:30.166 --> 00:20:35.041
and begin to unpack
the layers of meanings.

00:20:36.333 --> 00:20:37.999
Okay.

00:20:40.917 --> 00:20:43.959
Unpack the layers
of meanings

00:20:43.959 --> 00:20:46.750
of all of the pleasures

00:20:46.750 --> 00:20:48.667
and all of the problems

00:20:48.667 --> 00:20:51.166
that these layers
of meanings produce

00:20:51.166 --> 00:20:53.875
for the historian
in a culture space.

00:20:53.875 --> 00:20:54.458
(laughs)

00:20:54.458 --> 00:20:55.959
So let\'s go back

00:20:55.959 --> 00:20:57.583
to Penny Patterson and Koko

00:20:57.583 --> 00:20:59.917
and the problem
of the talking gorillas...

00:20:59.917 --> 00:21:02.208
That part upset my father.

00:21:02.208 --> 00:21:03.041
...in the first world

00:21:03.041 --> 00:21:06.583
in this mythic time called
the late 20th century.

00:21:06.583 --> 00:21:09.458
And let\'s do it
by looking at some covers

00:21:09.458 --> 00:21:11.542
of theNational Geographic
Magazine

00:21:11.542 --> 00:21:14.917
that presented Koko
to an American public

00:21:14.917 --> 00:21:16.125
in the 1970s.

00:21:16.125 --> 00:21:19.709
The first cover of aNational
GeographicMagazinewe see

00:21:19.709 --> 00:21:23.166
is Koko the gorilla
taking a picture of herself

00:21:23.166 --> 00:21:25.875
in the mirror
with a Japanese camera.

00:21:25.875 --> 00:21:29.500
And what we see is the gorilla
with the attribute

00:21:29.500 --> 00:21:32.208
of self-reflection,
self-vision,

00:21:32.208 --> 00:21:34.083
the gorilla with
a Japanese tourist--

00:21:34.083 --> 00:21:38.208
a Japanese tourist camera
sees herself in the mirror

00:21:38.208 --> 00:21:39.375
and takes her own picture.

00:21:39.375 --> 00:21:41.625
She\'s in charge
of her own image,

00:21:41.625 --> 00:21:44.125
she represents
universal man.

00:21:44.125 --> 00:21:47.917
The next picture we see in the
National Geographic Magazine

00:21:47.917 --> 00:21:51.917
is Koko the gorilla
with a kitten in her arms.

00:21:51.917 --> 00:21:53.999
Koko herself with a pet.

00:21:53.999 --> 00:21:56.458
Koko, again,
is universal man

00:21:56.458 --> 00:21:58.792
who names the animals.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:03.166
(indistinct conversation)

00:22:08.333 --> 00:22:12.000
So I am literally
physically surrounded

00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:13.417
by, you know,

00:22:13.417 --> 00:22:15.375
two not huge,
but, you know,

00:22:15.375 --> 00:22:19.041
up to the ceiling down
to the floor bookshelves

00:22:19.041 --> 00:22:20.542
full of science fiction books

00:22:20.542 --> 00:22:22.458
that Rusten
and I have read

00:22:22.458 --> 00:22:24.125
and collected
over the years

00:22:24.125 --> 00:22:25.083
out of our pleasures.

00:22:25.083 --> 00:22:27.542
It\'s a very idiosyncratic,

00:22:27.542 --> 00:22:30.625
it isn\'t any effort to,
you know,

00:22:30.625 --> 00:22:32.208
take up the history
of science fiction

00:22:32.208 --> 00:22:33.166
or anything
of the kind,

00:22:33.166 --> 00:22:35.750
but they\'re books
that we have read and loved

00:22:35.750 --> 00:22:38.000
and that our friends
have read and loved.

00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:41.375
Um, and I think,
you know, for me,

00:22:41.375 --> 00:22:44.542
a classic writer
like Robert Heinlein,

00:22:44.542 --> 00:22:47.208
you know,The Moon
is a Harsh Mistress,

00:22:47.208 --> 00:22:50.083
is something I read very late
in the process.

00:22:50.083 --> 00:22:54.083
I didn\'t know Heinlein
as a teenager or in any--

00:22:54.083 --> 00:22:56.083
didn\'t do any
science fiction reading

00:22:56.083 --> 00:22:56.792
as a teenager,

00:22:56.792 --> 00:22:58.375
and my good friend
and former student,

00:22:58.375 --> 00:23:00.500
Katie King,
who\'s always loved Heinlein

00:23:00.500 --> 00:23:02.834
and who really knew
science fiction,

00:23:02.834 --> 00:23:05.375
both as a kid and later, um,

00:23:05.375 --> 00:23:06.000
teaches me.

00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:09.417
And I was really introduced
to science fiction

00:23:09.417 --> 00:23:10.333
through my friends,

00:23:10.333 --> 00:23:11.959
which is kind of true
for all my ideas.

00:23:11.959 --> 00:23:14.834
I feel like everything
I think I was introduced to

00:23:14.834 --> 00:23:17.125
by networks of friends.

00:23:17.125 --> 00:23:19.250
But the science fiction writers,

00:23:19.250 --> 00:23:22.250
the books that really mattered,

00:23:22.250 --> 00:23:23.583
and still matter,

00:23:23.583 --> 00:23:26.125
are books by Joanna Russ,

00:23:26.125 --> 00:23:27.667
Picnic on Paradise,

00:23:27.667 --> 00:23:31.625
The Female Manespecially.

00:23:31.625 --> 00:23:34.250
An older generation
of writers,

00:23:34.250 --> 00:23:35.250
Naomi Mitchison,

00:23:35.250 --> 00:23:37.834
Memoirs of a Space Woman.

00:23:37.834 --> 00:23:40.542
These are feminist
science fiction writers,

00:23:40.542 --> 00:23:44.792
feminist theorists of two
quite different generations,

00:23:44.792 --> 00:23:49.250
both of whom are read
by women\'s liberation people

00:23:49.250 --> 00:23:50.041
of the \'70s.

00:23:50.041 --> 00:23:54.917
And these books
make a huge impact on us.

00:23:54.917 --> 00:23:57.875
Joanna Russ also did
this amazing book called

00:23:57.875 --> 00:24:00.875
How to Suppress
Women\'s Writing.

00:24:00.875 --> 00:24:02.333
And the cover, you know,

00:24:02.333 --> 00:24:03.291
\"She didn\'t write it,

00:24:03.291 --> 00:24:05.250
but it\'s clear
that she did the deed.

00:24:05.250 --> 00:24:06.875
She wrote it,
but she shouldn\'t have.

00:24:06.875 --> 00:24:08.542
She wrote it, but look
what she wrote about it.

00:24:08.542 --> 00:24:10.458
She wrote it, but she
only wrote one of it.

00:24:10.458 --> 00:24:12.834
She wrote it, but she
really isn\'t an artist

00:24:12.834 --> 00:24:13.834
and it isn\'t really art.

00:24:13.834 --> 00:24:15.333
She wrote it,
but she had help.

00:24:15.333 --> 00:24:17.709
She wrote it,
but she\'s an anomaly.

00:24:17.709 --> 00:24:19.375
She wrote it, but...\"

00:24:19.375 --> 00:24:24.125
The way that women\'s writing
was always sort of, uh,

00:24:24.125 --> 00:24:24.999
explained away.

00:24:24.999 --> 00:24:25.709
She wrote it, but...

00:24:25.709 --> 00:24:27.542
it\'s not really
first class literature.

00:24:27.542 --> 00:24:31.291
She wrote it,
but it\'s all very derivative.

00:24:31.291 --> 00:24:32.458
You know, she wrote it,

00:24:32.458 --> 00:24:33.709
but it must have come

00:24:33.709 --> 00:24:35.291
from Nietzsche and Deleuze.

00:24:35.291 --> 00:24:37.458
You know,
she wrote it, but...

00:24:37.458 --> 00:24:38.667
I began writing here,

00:24:38.667 --> 00:24:40.875
right here
in this physical place

00:24:40.875 --> 00:24:43.875
while Rusten and Jay
and Bob and Nick and I

00:24:43.875 --> 00:24:47.500
were still building
the house around it.

00:24:47.500 --> 00:24:48.375
And we had electricity

00:24:48.375 --> 00:24:51.375
and I had an old
Hewlett-Packard-86 machine

00:24:51.375 --> 00:24:53.291
and an old
daisy wheel printer,

00:24:53.291 --> 00:24:54.500
clunk-clunk, I mean,
really huge.

00:24:54.500 --> 00:24:58.917
We--offloading it to the dump
later was a problem.

00:24:58.917 --> 00:25:00.250
You know?

00:25:00.250 --> 00:25:02.375
I was working,

00:25:02.375 --> 00:25:03.458
helping with the construction,

00:25:03.458 --> 00:25:06.375
building the gardens,
building the house,

00:25:06.375 --> 00:25:09.875
and writing at the same time.

00:25:09.875 --> 00:25:11.999
And, um,

00:25:11.999 --> 00:25:12.625
in the summers,

00:25:12.625 --> 00:25:14.625
because I was teaching
in the rest of the year

00:25:14.625 --> 00:25:19.542
and I\'m not capable
of writing sustained work

00:25:19.542 --> 00:25:20.500
when I\'m also teaching

00:25:20.500 --> 00:25:21.999
because teaching
is all-consuming,

00:25:21.999 --> 00:25:23.417
it takes the best
you\'ve got,

00:25:23.417 --> 00:25:24.750
it takes everything
you\'ve got.

00:25:24.750 --> 00:25:26.792
And you might be able
to write something short,

00:25:26.792 --> 00:25:28.625
but I\'ve never been able
to write.

00:25:28.625 --> 00:25:31.834
And I stopped applying
for grants a long time ago

00:25:31.834 --> 00:25:34.542
because the process
was so alienating.

00:25:34.542 --> 00:25:36.291
And I made enough money
that I could fund

00:25:36.291 --> 00:25:40.291
an occasional period off,
you know, I had a salary.

00:25:40.291 --> 00:25:43.125
And, um, we would, um,
you know,

00:25:43.125 --> 00:25:44.500
so I felt like I--

00:25:44.500 --> 00:25:46.083
my research is not expensive,

00:25:46.083 --> 00:25:47.333
I don\'t need a laboratory.

00:25:47.333 --> 00:25:49.959
So I just stopped
writing grant proposals

00:25:49.959 --> 00:25:52.500
and wrote
during the summer

00:25:52.500 --> 00:25:54.750
and stole time.

00:25:54.750 --> 00:25:56.834
And wrote here.

00:25:56.834 --> 00:25:58.500
And I\'m surrounded by beauty.

00:25:58.500 --> 00:26:01.041
I\'m surrounded
by redwood trees,

00:26:01.041 --> 00:26:04.834
I\'m surrounded
by a beautiful creek,

00:26:04.834 --> 00:26:09.999
by friends and lovers
and family.

00:26:09.999 --> 00:26:11.709
And I\'m surrounded by books

00:26:11.709 --> 00:26:13.333
and I have a really fabulous--

00:26:13.333 --> 00:26:14.583
I mean, this one
is an old computer

00:26:14.583 --> 00:26:17.750
\'cause I\'m not doing my current
writing here, you know?

00:26:17.750 --> 00:26:20.834
But, you know, we had
a really pretty seriously

00:26:20.834 --> 00:26:24.583
working computer system
before we had a telephone.

00:26:24.583 --> 00:26:27.041
We set up our computers
before we paid attention

00:26:27.041 --> 00:26:29.667
to any of the other
electricity needs, you know,

00:26:29.667 --> 00:26:33.458
the--all, you know,
working digitally.

00:26:33.458 --> 00:26:37.250
Rusten and Nick
are both software designers

00:26:37.250 --> 00:26:39.667
working, you know,

00:26:39.667 --> 00:26:42.625
to do really neat
contract design work,

00:26:42.625 --> 00:26:45.417
software tool design for, um,

00:26:45.417 --> 00:26:47.583
various companies
and whatnot.

00:26:47.583 --> 00:26:50.792
The savvy about
working screen--

00:26:50.792 --> 00:26:54.375
about digital worlds was, um,

00:26:54.375 --> 00:26:56.542
part of my network
of friends.

00:26:56.542 --> 00:26:58.542
And this space, then,

00:26:58.542 --> 00:27:00.625
became a really good place
to write.

00:27:00.625 --> 00:27:05.625
And I wrote--I wrote
Primate Visionshere.

00:27:05.625 --> 00:27:09.333
I wrote most of
The Cyborg Manifestohere.

00:27:09.333 --> 00:27:11.542
It\'s not like--it didn\'t--

00:27:11.542 --> 00:27:12.999
its origins aren\'t here,

00:27:12.999 --> 00:27:13.792
the writing is here,

00:27:13.792 --> 00:27:16.250
the writing process was here,

00:27:16.250 --> 00:27:18.500
because it could be a rhythm

00:27:18.500 --> 00:27:22.041
between physical labor
and writing, um,

00:27:22.041 --> 00:27:25.041
and a whole lotta good food

00:27:25.041 --> 00:27:26.333
because we\'re all cooks

00:27:26.333 --> 00:27:27.792
and we invested in--

00:27:27.792 --> 00:27:28.625
And besides computers,

00:27:28.625 --> 00:27:31.834
we invested in
a really good cooktop

00:27:31.834 --> 00:27:34.166
and a really good
convection oven early on.

00:27:34.166 --> 00:27:37.333
And our refrigerator was
still up in the redwood trees

00:27:37.333 --> 00:27:38.750
covered by a piece of a plast--

00:27:38.750 --> 00:27:41.375
of, you know, plywood.

00:27:41.375 --> 00:27:44.041
(mellow music)

00:27:44.041 --> 00:27:54.291
♪

00:28:24.834 --> 00:28:27.625
(singing in Spanish)

00:28:27.625 --> 00:28:37.875
♪

00:29:15.999 --> 00:29:18.834
(birdsong)

00:29:33.125 --> 00:29:35.792
(soft music)

00:29:35.792 --> 00:29:41.875
♪

00:29:41.875 --> 00:29:43.166
This is to remind all of us

00:29:43.166 --> 00:29:46.333
of the specificity
of the subject.

00:29:46.333 --> 00:29:51.542
♪

00:29:51.542 --> 00:29:52.834
(laughs)

00:29:52.834 --> 00:29:57.458
♪

00:29:57.458 --> 00:29:58.959
Next slide.

00:29:59.375 --> 00:30:09.625
♪

00:30:16.917 --> 00:30:20.041
(nocturnal nature sounds)

00:30:47.500 --> 00:30:50.166
(bright music)

00:30:50.166 --> 00:30:52.250
♪

00:30:52.250 --> 00:30:54.208
(Rusten)
Welcome to California Bird Talk.

00:30:54.208 --> 00:30:55.083
I\'m Rusten Hogness.

00:30:55.083 --> 00:30:58.917
This year we\'ve been trying
to learn to hear birds better.

00:30:58.917 --> 00:31:02.458
Today we\'ll listen
to two very different songs

00:31:02.458 --> 00:31:03.834
of a song sparrow

00:31:03.834 --> 00:31:04.750
recorded by Chris Tenney

00:31:04.750 --> 00:31:06.875
in the Los Padres
National Forest.

00:31:06.875 --> 00:31:10.250
I\'ll play a couple
of variations of each song

00:31:10.250 --> 00:31:10.917
at normal speed,

00:31:10.917 --> 00:31:13.125
then slow down
one of the variations

00:31:13.125 --> 00:31:15.625
by eight times
to let us discriminate

00:31:15.625 --> 00:31:19.250
what bird ears can hear
at faster speeds.

00:31:19.250 --> 00:31:21.417
Here\'s the first song.

00:31:21.417 --> 00:31:24.291
(bird song)

00:31:30.041 --> 00:31:31.834
Now slowed down.

00:31:31.834 --> 00:31:34.875
(bird song slowed down)

00:31:51.875 --> 00:31:53.834
The second song.

00:31:53.834 --> 00:31:56.709
(bird song)

00:32:01.375 --> 00:32:02.500
Slowed.

00:32:02.500 --> 00:32:05.542
(bird song slowed down)

00:32:28.375 --> 00:32:32.083
It\'s a wonderful world
of sound out there.

00:32:32.083 --> 00:32:33.125
Enjoy it.

00:32:33.125 --> 00:32:34.834
For California Bird Talk,

00:32:34.834 --> 00:32:37.041
this is Rusten Hogness.

00:32:37.041 --> 00:32:40.041
(layered birdsong)

00:33:00.667 --> 00:33:02.333
(Cayenne barks)

00:33:11.542 --> 00:33:12.458
(xylophone music)

00:33:12.458 --> 00:33:14.583
(Donna)
Cat\'s Cradle is not just

00:33:14.583 --> 00:33:16.208
a game of string figures,

00:33:16.208 --> 00:33:18.041
but it is a model
for thinking,

00:33:18.041 --> 00:33:19.875
a model for storytelling.

00:33:19.875 --> 00:33:23.417
It\'s a working practice
for me.

00:33:23.417 --> 00:33:28.041
And (unintelligible) Despret,

00:33:28.041 --> 00:33:29.333
Isabelle Stengers,

00:33:29.333 --> 00:33:31.917
and Bruno Latour and I

00:33:31.917 --> 00:33:34.959
played this game together, um,

00:33:34.959 --> 00:33:35.667
in many ways.

00:33:35.667 --> 00:33:37.041
It\'s because, I think,

00:33:37.041 --> 00:33:39.917
we have a kind of, um,

00:33:39.917 --> 00:33:41.959
love for each other\'s thinking

00:33:41.959 --> 00:33:44.750
and a deep kind of need

00:33:44.750 --> 00:33:49.166
for each other\'s relays
of these figures.

00:33:49.166 --> 00:33:51.041
How it is that
science fiction writing

00:33:51.041 --> 00:33:54.999
and science fiction writers
become not illustrations

00:33:54.999 --> 00:33:59.500
of arguments
or illustrations of thinking,

00:33:59.500 --> 00:34:01.375
but the thinking itself.

00:34:01.375 --> 00:34:05.041
How the science fiction

00:34:05.041 --> 00:34:08.083
goes through
a kind of metamorphosis,

00:34:08.083 --> 00:34:10.166
a kind of transmogrification,

00:34:10.166 --> 00:34:11.542
transmutation,

00:34:11.542 --> 00:34:13.458
and is the theoretical practice.

00:34:13.458 --> 00:34:17.417
And women have
repeatedly understood

00:34:17.417 --> 00:34:18.875
that not being disappeared

00:34:18.875 --> 00:34:24.750
by the powerful apparatus
of masculinist thinking,

00:34:24.750 --> 00:34:27.375
of masculinist practices
both in institutions

00:34:27.375 --> 00:34:31.500
and in--and at the level
of individual people,

00:34:31.500 --> 00:34:35.291
that our thinking
is disappeared fast.

00:34:35.291 --> 00:34:38.291
And I think one
of the feminist practices,

00:34:38.291 --> 00:34:39.875
by Le Guin, by Isabelle,

00:34:39.875 --> 00:34:41.000
by me Niven, by Vinciane,

00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:43.625
we\'re still trying to teach
Bruno to do this.

00:34:43.625 --> 00:34:45.542
He\'s getting
a little better.

00:34:45.542 --> 00:34:46.667
(laughs)

00:34:46.667 --> 00:34:47.250
No, but...

00:34:47.250 --> 00:34:48.999
You know, I\'m joking about it.

00:34:48.999 --> 00:34:51.959
But one
of the feminist practices

00:34:51.959 --> 00:34:54.583
is deliberately
and carefully,

00:34:54.583 --> 00:34:57.583
to be very precise about
the history of ideas

00:34:57.583 --> 00:35:02.041
and the particular creativity
and originality

00:35:02.041 --> 00:35:05.875
and importance
of other women\'s thinking.

00:35:05.875 --> 00:35:10.375
And I know myself,
from my own experience

00:35:10.375 --> 00:35:16.667
and from powerful women
I know, that, um,

00:35:16.667 --> 00:35:18.166
the speed with which
we disappear

00:35:18.166 --> 00:35:22.667
from the citation apparatuses
is breathtaking.

00:35:22.667 --> 00:35:23.125
(laughs)

00:35:23.125 --> 00:35:24.750
So later this week we\'ll talk

00:35:24.750 --> 00:35:25.959
aboutThe Camille Stories,

00:35:25.959 --> 00:35:27.709
stories that you
and I and Vinciane

00:35:27.709 --> 00:35:29.417
are trying
to tell together.

00:35:29.417 --> 00:35:32.250
And they\'re stories
of the children of compost,

00:35:32.250 --> 00:35:33.667
the children of the soil,

00:35:33.667 --> 00:35:34.792
of the underground,

00:35:34.792 --> 00:35:36.792
of the dark,
of the night,

00:35:36.792 --> 00:35:38.750
of incapacity,

00:35:38.750 --> 00:35:40.750
of non-action,

00:35:40.750 --> 00:35:42.917
of non-success.

00:35:42.917 --> 00:35:45.458
Not as a bad thing,

00:35:45.458 --> 00:35:51.999
but as that soil
within which human souls,

00:35:51.999 --> 00:35:55.250
and perhaps
not just human souls,

00:35:55.250 --> 00:35:56.542
are made.

00:35:56.542 --> 00:35:58.000
So the science fiction writers

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:01.000
who write about
these matters all the time,

00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:05.125
who tell their stories
in these worldings,

00:36:05.125 --> 00:36:06.917
are, in my view,

00:36:06.917 --> 00:36:08.250
in the strict sense,

00:36:08.250 --> 00:36:09.208
philosophical texts.

00:36:09.208 --> 00:36:11.542
So I don\'t feel like
I am importing them

00:36:11.542 --> 00:36:14.000
in order to do some
other kind of work,

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:18.458
much less using them to
illustrate one of my points.

00:36:18.458 --> 00:36:19.875
But the stories
that they tell,

00:36:19.875 --> 00:36:23.291
the storytellers are,
in my view,

00:36:23.291 --> 00:36:24.125
thinking.

00:36:24.125 --> 00:36:26.417
And thinking
is what we need to do,

00:36:26.417 --> 00:36:28.500
not the discipline
of philosophy

00:36:28.500 --> 00:36:30.500
or political economy
or biology

00:36:30.500 --> 00:36:33.250
or literature
or--or--or--or...

00:36:33.250 --> 00:36:38.333
The disciplines will take care
of themselves without my help.

00:36:38.333 --> 00:36:39.667
It\'s not like
everything that happens

00:36:39.667 --> 00:36:42.417
in the disciplines is bad,
far from it,

00:36:42.417 --> 00:36:45.083
but thinking is
what we are about

00:36:45.083 --> 00:36:48.041
and thinking is
a materialist practice

00:36:48.041 --> 00:36:48.917
with other thinkers.

00:36:48.917 --> 00:36:53.583
And some of the best thinking
is done as storytelling.

00:36:53.583 --> 00:36:56.208
(folk music)

00:36:56.208 --> 00:37:04.083
♪

00:37:04.083 --> 00:37:06.583
(male vocalist)
♪ Fat and docile, big and dumb ♪

00:37:06.583 --> 00:37:10.333
♪ They look so stupid,
they aren\'t much fun ♪

00:37:10.333 --> 00:37:12.125
♪

00:37:12.125 --> 00:37:14.041
♪ Cows aren\'t fun ♪

00:37:14.041 --> 00:37:15.166
♪

00:37:15.166 --> 00:37:17.959
♪ They eat to grow,
grow to die ♪

00:37:17.959 --> 00:37:21.667
♪ Die to be et
at the hamburger fry ♪

00:37:21.667 --> 00:37:23.208
♪

00:37:23.208 --> 00:37:25.166
♪ Cows well-done ♪

00:37:25.166 --> 00:37:26.375
♪

00:37:26.375 --> 00:37:28.917
♪ Nobody thunk it,
nobody knew ♪

00:37:28.917 --> 00:37:33.250
♪ No one imagined
the great cow guru ♪

00:37:33.250 --> 00:37:34.375
♪

00:37:34.375 --> 00:37:36.333
♪ Cows are one ♪

00:37:36.333 --> 00:37:36.834
♪

00:37:36.834 --> 00:37:39.709
♪ He hid in the forest,
read books with great zeal ♪

00:37:39.709 --> 00:37:44.166
♪ He loves Che Guevara,
a revolutionary veal ♪

00:37:44.166 --> 00:37:45.291
♪

00:37:45.291 --> 00:37:47.208
♪ Cow Tse Tung ♪

00:37:47.208 --> 00:37:47.875
♪

00:37:47.875 --> 00:37:50.500
♪ He spoke about justice,
but nobody stirred ♪

00:37:50.500 --> 00:37:54.999
♪ He felt like an outcast,
alone in the herd ♪

00:37:54.999 --> 00:37:56.125
♪

00:37:56.125 --> 00:37:58.375
♪ Cow doldrums ♪

00:37:58.375 --> 00:37:58.875
♪

00:37:58.875 --> 00:38:01.166
♪ He mooed \"We must fight,
escape or we\'ll die\" ♪

00:38:01.166 --> 00:38:05.500
♪ Cows gathered around,
\'cause the steaks were so high ♪

00:38:05.500 --> 00:38:07.166
♪

00:38:07.166 --> 00:38:09.166
♪ Bad cow pun ♪

00:38:09.166 --> 00:38:09.667
♪

00:38:09.667 --> 00:38:12.125
♪ But then he was captured,
stuffed into a crate ♪

00:38:12.125 --> 00:38:16.291
♪ Loaded onto a truck,
where he rode to his fate ♪

00:38:16.291 --> 00:38:17.792
♪

00:38:17.792 --> 00:38:20.000
♪ Cows are bummed ♪

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:20.542
♪

00:38:20.542 --> 00:38:23.458
♪ He was a scrawny calf
who looked rather woozy ♪

00:38:23.458 --> 00:38:27.041
♪ No one suspected
he was packing an Uzi ♪

00:38:27.041 --> 00:38:28.583
♪

00:38:28.583 --> 00:38:30.834
♪ Cows with guns♪

00:38:30.834 --> 00:38:31.291
♪

00:38:31.291 --> 00:38:33.792
♪ They came with a needle
to stick in his thigh ♪

00:38:33.792 --> 00:38:37.792
♪ He kicked for the groin,
he pissed in their eye ♪

00:38:37.792 --> 00:38:39.333
♪

00:38:39.333 --> 00:38:41.291
♪ Cow well hung ♪

00:38:41.291 --> 00:38:41.959
♪

00:38:41.959 --> 00:38:44.500
♪ Knocked over a tractor
and ran for the door ♪

00:38:44.500 --> 00:38:48.458
♪ Six gallons of gas
flowed out on the floor ♪

00:38:48.458 --> 00:38:50.000
♪

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:52.041
♪ Run, cows, run ♪

00:38:52.041 --> 00:38:52.542
♪

00:38:52.542 --> 00:38:56.417
♪ He picked up a bullhorn
and jumped up on the hay ♪

00:38:56.417 --> 00:38:58.834
♪ We are free roving bovines,

00:38:58.834 --> 00:39:01.750
we run free today ♪

00:39:01.750 --> 00:39:04.125
First of all is a quotation, um,

00:39:04.125 --> 00:39:06.625
of me, so we can get rid
of this rather quickly,

00:39:06.625 --> 00:39:10.959
although of course it\'s
a quotation of me in French,

00:39:10.959 --> 00:39:12.999
which I like because...

00:39:12.999 --> 00:39:14.458
I, of course,
wrote it in English

00:39:14.458 --> 00:39:17.083
and Isabelle translated it
into French

00:39:17.083 --> 00:39:18.959
and now I read it in French

00:39:18.959 --> 00:39:21.625
in order to speak
about it in English, uh,

00:39:21.625 --> 00:39:24.542
which is exactly
a Cat\'s Cradle game

00:39:24.542 --> 00:39:25.667
in and of itself.

00:39:25.667 --> 00:39:28.250
(speaks in French)

00:39:28.625 --> 00:39:32.417
We need other kinds of stories.

00:39:32.417 --> 00:39:34.875
We must change the story.

00:39:34.875 --> 00:39:38.417
The ages, the stories
of the Earth, uh,

00:39:38.417 --> 00:39:41.542
we must change
the deadly story,

00:39:41.542 --> 00:39:46.208
the story of the first
beautiful words and weapons,

00:39:46.208 --> 00:39:47.792
the story of the killing,

00:39:47.792 --> 00:39:50.625
the story of achievement
as the achievement

00:39:50.625 --> 00:39:53.125
of second birthing,
that is, killing.

00:39:53.125 --> 00:39:56.000
The great existentialist
philosopher Sartre

00:39:56.000 --> 00:39:59.458
who argues that it is
in second birthing

00:39:59.458 --> 00:40:00.458
that we become human.

00:40:00.458 --> 00:40:03.542
First birthing
is merely birthing,

00:40:03.542 --> 00:40:06.667
the birthing of women,
the birthing of the Earth,

00:40:06.667 --> 00:40:08.375
the birthing in the soil.

00:40:08.375 --> 00:40:09.875
It is in second birthing

00:40:09.875 --> 00:40:12.000
in the achievement
of self-made--

00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:14.875
in the following
through tragically

00:40:14.875 --> 00:40:16.875
of self-realized purpose,

00:40:16.875 --> 00:40:20.667
of coming--of that kind
of tragic consciousness

00:40:20.667 --> 00:40:22.667
that is human consciousness.

00:40:22.667 --> 00:40:24.041
That is second birthing,

00:40:24.041 --> 00:40:26.667
usually through
some kind of killing.

00:40:26.667 --> 00:40:30.375
Well, no, if ever
there was nonsense

00:40:30.375 --> 00:40:34.083
of an extraordinary kind, uh,

00:40:34.083 --> 00:40:38.250
and a nonsense that
has ruled storytelling,

00:40:38.250 --> 00:40:40.500
not--I mean,
Sartre only concretized

00:40:40.500 --> 00:40:46.917
and distilled what is
a very old, um, uh,

00:40:46.917 --> 00:40:47.959
set of commitments,

00:40:47.959 --> 00:40:50.041
not just beliefs
but commitments.

00:40:50.041 --> 00:40:53.750
And we, all of us,
in this time,

00:40:53.750 --> 00:40:58.166
where the ongoingness
of life as we know it,

00:40:58.166 --> 00:41:01.750
where Gaia is intruding,

00:41:01.750 --> 00:41:03.458
where the intrusion of that

00:41:03.458 --> 00:41:08.083
which will no longer
be put down, um,

00:41:08.083 --> 00:41:11.834
threatens ways of life
as usual.

00:41:11.834 --> 00:41:14.709
It doesn\'t threaten life itself.

00:41:14.709 --> 00:41:17.542
Life itself, uh, will go on

00:41:17.542 --> 00:41:20.250
for as long as this planet
has the right conditions

00:41:20.250 --> 00:41:23.291
of temperature and moisture
and whatever for--

00:41:23.291 --> 00:41:26.041
microbes are very inventive, um,

00:41:26.041 --> 00:41:26.875
they\'re, you know,

00:41:26.875 --> 00:41:29.500
it\'s not like life itself
is at stake,

00:41:29.500 --> 00:41:33.667
but vast ways of life
and becoming with each other

00:41:33.667 --> 00:41:37.375
across peoples and species
on this Earth

00:41:37.375 --> 00:41:39.125
are truly at stake.

00:41:39.125 --> 00:41:43.166
And the rate of extinction
of ways of life,

00:41:43.166 --> 00:41:44.834
ways of living and dying,

00:41:44.834 --> 00:41:49.166
of peoples of all species
including human,

00:41:49.166 --> 00:41:52.625
are truly on the ledge,

00:41:52.625 --> 00:41:57.583
on the edge of falling off
into nothingness.

00:41:57.583 --> 00:42:03.000
Uh, the story of the Earth
is at stake

00:42:03.000 --> 00:42:04.375
as we participate in it.

00:42:04.375 --> 00:42:07.917
Our own extinction is,
of course, truly possible.

00:42:07.917 --> 00:42:09.542
But with
or without extinction

00:42:09.542 --> 00:42:11.959
in terms of
the kind of final death,

00:42:11.959 --> 00:42:16.417
the deepening
of the destruction

00:42:16.417 --> 00:42:20.417
of ways of living
and dying on this Earth

00:42:20.417 --> 00:42:21.875
is happening.

00:42:21.875 --> 00:42:24.166
And the story
of this Earth,

00:42:24.166 --> 00:42:27.000
the arts of living
on a damaged planet,

00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:28.834
Anna Tsing\'s term, uh,

00:42:28.834 --> 00:42:32.625
the absolute obligation
to become capable,

00:42:32.625 --> 00:42:37.999
to render each other capable
of changing the story,

00:42:37.999 --> 00:42:42.291
a story of ongoingness
cultivated in the Earth,

00:42:42.291 --> 00:42:43.709
in the tunnels
of the Earth.

00:42:43.709 --> 00:42:48.125
If the makers of living
and dying on this Earth

00:42:48.125 --> 00:42:52.125
could begin to somehow
risk--put, you know,

00:42:52.125 --> 00:42:53.875
be at risk to each other,

00:42:53.875 --> 00:42:58.166
to propose something real,
you know,

00:42:58.166 --> 00:43:01.041
to make a proposition
in a sense

00:43:01.041 --> 00:43:02.667
that Whitehead
might mean.

00:43:02.667 --> 00:43:05.667
That which is not yet
but might be, you know?

00:43:05.667 --> 00:43:10.917
Some mode of coherence
which might have a chance,

00:43:10.917 --> 00:43:11.750
every scale.

00:43:11.750 --> 00:43:15.500
Until the stories start
getting told like that,

00:43:15.500 --> 00:43:16.999
and until those
who tell the news

00:43:16.999 --> 00:43:19.667
start hearing where
those bits of story

00:43:19.667 --> 00:43:21.166
are actually being told,

00:43:21.166 --> 00:43:24.417
where people are
actually doing this

00:43:24.417 --> 00:43:26.542
but they\'re not
on the news.

00:43:26.542 --> 00:43:28.750
Maybe just a little bit,
maybe very weak.

00:43:28.750 --> 00:43:31.000
How to make
the weak stories stronger

00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:32.917
and the strong stories weaker.

00:43:32.917 --> 00:43:35.959
We are speechless to this now.

00:43:35.959 --> 00:43:37.750
And then we give it bad names.

00:43:37.750 --> 00:43:40.750
But good thinking
always happens

00:43:40.750 --> 00:43:43.250
at the moment
of speechlessness.

00:43:43.250 --> 00:43:45.375
You know, as a--
as a proper Catholic kid

00:43:45.375 --> 00:43:46.333
who grew up with, you know,

00:43:46.333 --> 00:43:48.500
reading Thomas Aquinas
and Anselm

00:43:48.500 --> 00:43:50.709
and, you know, I had
these doubts about faith

00:43:50.709 --> 00:43:52.959
and so I was told
to read all this stuff

00:43:52.959 --> 00:43:53.792
when I was 13 and 14.

00:43:53.792 --> 00:43:57.458
I didn\'t--you don\'t understand
a word, you know?

00:43:57.458 --> 00:43:58.000
I mean, what?

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:00.250
You have no idea
what you\'re reading.

00:44:00.250 --> 00:44:01.917
The mystics and the--
and the, you know,

00:44:01.917 --> 00:44:05.208
Thomas Aquinas, I mean,
come on, give me a break.

00:44:05.208 --> 00:44:09.041
No idea, but it--
but it fucks with your mind,

00:44:09.041 --> 00:44:10.166
you know what I mean?

00:44:10.166 --> 00:44:12.917
It changes who you are, right?

00:44:12.917 --> 00:44:15.750
And so, um, I,
from early on,

00:44:15.750 --> 00:44:16.917
you know,
baby Catholic on,

00:44:16.917 --> 00:44:19.542
I mean, you know,
teenage Catholic on,

00:44:19.542 --> 00:44:23.959
I knew that the minute you start
reciting the names of God,

00:44:23.959 --> 00:44:24.792
you are an idolater.

00:44:24.792 --> 00:44:27.792
The minute you think
you have a positive name,

00:44:27.792 --> 00:44:30.834
you have told--you have
become an idolater,

00:44:30.834 --> 00:44:34.375
you have told
a very particular kind of lie,

00:44:34.375 --> 00:44:35.792
the biggest kind of lie,

00:44:35.792 --> 00:44:37.667
and that the only truth
that can be told

00:44:37.667 --> 00:44:42.166
must at some--
at its most fundamental level

00:44:42.166 --> 00:44:43.542
be the failure of naming,

00:44:43.542 --> 00:44:46.999
it\'s the failure
of giving positive names.

00:44:46.999 --> 00:44:48.917
It\'s at that moment
of failure

00:44:48.917 --> 00:44:53.208
that there is
some encounter with it,

00:44:53.208 --> 00:44:54.125
whatever it is.

00:44:54.125 --> 00:44:56.667
Something that\'s not a lie.

00:44:56.667 --> 00:44:58.083
And the minute
you name it God,

00:44:58.083 --> 00:44:59.291
you\'re an idolater.

00:44:59.291 --> 00:45:02.542
So worshippers of God
are idolaters.

00:45:02.542 --> 00:45:06.375
And yet the only way
to come to grips,

00:45:06.375 --> 00:45:09.917
to come into the--
what presence of it,

00:45:09.917 --> 00:45:11.583
say the important mystics
that shaped

00:45:11.583 --> 00:45:14.875
my little 13-year-old
screwed up mind.

00:45:14.875 --> 00:45:17.041
(laughs)

00:45:17.041 --> 00:45:20.166
The only way to come
into the presence of it

00:45:20.166 --> 00:45:23.417
is to constantly keep
doing positive things,

00:45:23.417 --> 00:45:26.583
you have to keep trying
to make an experiment work.

00:45:26.583 --> 00:45:29.959
You have to constantly keep
writing this particular story,

00:45:29.959 --> 00:45:33.333
not some story in general,
but this story.

00:45:33.333 --> 00:45:34.250
You have to do this,

00:45:34.250 --> 00:45:36.250
you have to be here,
not everywhere.

00:45:36.250 --> 00:45:38.625
You have to be attached
to some things, not everything.

00:45:38.625 --> 00:45:42.458
The only possible way is
again and again and again

00:45:42.458 --> 00:45:46.208
we engage each other
in the--in the--

00:45:46.208 --> 00:45:48.166
in doing something, you know?

00:45:48.166 --> 00:45:49.125
-Okay.
-Okay.

00:45:49.125 --> 00:45:51.166
You don\'t even have
your back brace.

00:45:51.166 --> 00:45:54.458
All right,
those with stamina continue.

00:45:54.458 --> 00:45:56.583
(laughs)

00:45:56.750 --> 00:45:59.458
Those without stamina
take a break.

00:45:59.458 --> 00:46:01.083
(laughs)

00:46:01.083 --> 00:46:03.750
(soft music)

00:46:03.750 --> 00:46:13.999
♪

00:49:05.250 --> 00:49:08.083
(birdsong)

00:49:13.458 --> 00:49:16.375
But I don\'t have the choice,
we don\'t have the choice,

00:49:16.375 --> 00:49:17.792
Anthropocene is in play,

00:49:17.792 --> 00:49:20.375
it\'s a good enough word,
does a lot of work,

00:49:20.375 --> 00:49:23.291
good enough work, eh.

00:49:23.291 --> 00:49:24.417
Tough for me, whatever,

00:49:24.417 --> 00:49:27.000
so I would have done it
differently, too bad,

00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:28.500
who cares, you know?

00:49:28.500 --> 00:49:29.875
I mean, truly, who cares?

00:49:29.875 --> 00:49:31.458
We work with what we\'ve got.

00:49:31.458 --> 00:49:33.834
And they really
are places to work

00:49:33.834 --> 00:49:36.417
where that terminology
and that apparatus

00:49:36.417 --> 00:49:40.709
and those modelings
are really important,

00:49:40.709 --> 00:49:44.333
even though it\'s made to be
too big and too important.

00:49:44.333 --> 00:49:45.625
It\'s always a story.

00:49:45.625 --> 00:49:47.709
These stories,
Anthropocene,

00:49:47.709 --> 00:49:49.333
Capitalocene,
nyah-nyah-cene,

00:49:49.333 --> 00:49:51.875
they always threaten
to become too big.

00:49:51.875 --> 00:49:54.125
And as soon
as they become too big,

00:49:54.125 --> 00:49:57.125
they act like they take
over everything, okay?

00:49:57.125 --> 00:49:59.667
And if you\'re going
to change the story,

00:49:59.667 --> 00:50:00.959
you can\'t do that.

00:50:00.959 --> 00:50:04.083
So even, you know,
I propose the Chthulucene.

00:50:04.083 --> 00:50:06.250
Well, of course,
that\'s, in a way, a joke,

00:50:06.250 --> 00:50:09.750
because that threatens
to be too big too,

00:50:09.750 --> 00:50:10.375
you know, um...

00:50:10.375 --> 00:50:15.458
So Isabelle here is giving me
this provocation.

00:50:15.458 --> 00:50:17.875
She and Philippe Pignarre
and others,

00:50:17.875 --> 00:50:21.999
she is really worried
about the, um,

00:50:21.999 --> 00:50:26.041
the way that capitalism

00:50:26.041 --> 00:50:28.166
and the critique
of capitalism

00:50:28.166 --> 00:50:31.875
and the critique of capital
makes us stupid,

00:50:31.875 --> 00:50:35.041
and makes us stupid
in a particular way.

00:50:35.041 --> 00:50:38.000
It makes us believe
there is nothing else

00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:39.709
possible in the world.

00:50:39.709 --> 00:50:41.458
The kind of stupidity

00:50:41.458 --> 00:50:44.458
that comes from
constantly repeating

00:50:44.458 --> 00:50:46.458
the ever-newer,
ever-smarter,

00:50:46.458 --> 00:50:49.041
up-to-the-minute,
latest version

00:50:49.041 --> 00:50:50.667
of the critique of capital,

00:50:50.667 --> 00:50:55.542
the smartest possible,
you know, you know,

00:50:55.542 --> 00:50:57.709
I mean, really good,
you know what I mean?

00:50:57.709 --> 00:51:01.208
The Marxism that I really
am not gonna let go of,

00:51:01.208 --> 00:51:06.500
and I refuse to let Bruno
say that we don\'t need it.

00:51:06.500 --> 00:51:08.083
I think we do
need our Marxism

00:51:08.083 --> 00:51:10.458
and a lot
of other things too.

00:51:10.458 --> 00:51:12.917
But how to make it
be part of what is added

00:51:12.917 --> 00:51:15.458
to the Cat\'s Cradle
in the smart way

00:51:15.458 --> 00:51:18.917
because the stupid thing
is to be so mesmerized

00:51:18.917 --> 00:51:22.417
by the smartness
of the latest analysis

00:51:22.417 --> 00:51:25.500
of capital, you know,

00:51:25.500 --> 00:51:28.709
that we lose all sense

00:51:28.709 --> 00:51:30.625
that what is really important
in the world

00:51:30.625 --> 00:51:33.375
and the only reason
to do these analytical--

00:51:33.375 --> 00:51:36.333
to do this analytical work
is to learn how

00:51:36.333 --> 00:51:39.250
to tell another story
and to build--

00:51:39.250 --> 00:51:41.625
to learn how to add
to the work

00:51:41.625 --> 00:51:45.458
of those who were already
storying otherwise.

00:51:45.458 --> 00:51:47.458
The only possible thing
to do in the world

00:51:47.458 --> 00:51:51.291
as we are inhabiting
is to revolt, you know?

00:51:51.291 --> 00:51:52.834
It\'s like Emily Carr,

00:51:52.834 --> 00:51:53.542
it\'s like--

00:51:53.542 --> 00:51:56.750
it\'s an insurrection, okay?

00:51:56.750 --> 00:52:00.041
And it\'s an insurrection
that refuses to--

00:52:00.041 --> 00:52:03.375
refuses the paralysis
of critique,

00:52:03.375 --> 00:52:06.166
that the world is finished
because we knew how it works.

00:52:06.166 --> 00:52:08.125
And you\'re stupid \'cause
you don\'t know how it works

00:52:08.125 --> 00:52:11.834
and you\'re just an activist
or you\'re just a witch

00:52:11.834 --> 00:52:13.500
or you\'re just a something.

00:52:13.500 --> 00:52:15.125
You just believe in
all these stupid things.

00:52:15.125 --> 00:52:17.125
You\'re a Christian,
you\'re really stupid.

00:52:17.125 --> 00:52:18.667
You\'re a Muslim,
you\'re really stupid.

00:52:18.667 --> 00:52:20.667
You\'re a Pagan,
you\'re really stupid.

00:52:20.667 --> 00:52:23.417
We know how the world
really works.

00:52:23.417 --> 00:52:25.583
That kind of arrogance,

00:52:25.583 --> 00:52:27.917
which is the arrogance
of the scholars,

00:52:27.917 --> 00:52:31.250
the arrogance
of the intellectuals,

00:52:31.250 --> 00:52:35.291
our poison is that
with which we poison

00:52:35.291 --> 00:52:38.250
the very thing we think
we\'re doing, you know?

00:52:38.250 --> 00:52:42.375
We think we\'re contributing
to building a different story

00:52:42.375 --> 00:52:43.583
and we\'re feeding it poison

00:52:43.583 --> 00:52:48.417
by our own relentless being
smarter than everybody else

00:52:48.417 --> 00:52:51.375
with the latest version
of our theory.

00:52:51.375 --> 00:52:52.792
We do have
to practice war,

00:52:52.792 --> 00:52:56.625
we do have to be for
some worlds and not others.

00:52:56.625 --> 00:53:01.500
We are against some ways
of doing the world.

00:53:01.500 --> 00:53:05.834
We are truly against building
the Keystone Pipeline

00:53:05.834 --> 00:53:09.083
and sucking the Earth
dry of fossil fuels,

00:53:09.083 --> 00:53:10.500
and many other things.

00:53:10.500 --> 00:53:14.999
It is really important
to be in a revolt.

00:53:14.999 --> 00:53:18.417
So for some ways of life
and not others

00:53:18.417 --> 00:53:20.417
is a kind of
war of the worlds,

00:53:20.417 --> 00:53:21.917
but it\'s a war
of the worlds

00:53:21.917 --> 00:53:25.542
as a part of
the proposition of peace,

00:53:25.542 --> 00:53:28.208
of the risky proposition.

00:53:28.208 --> 00:53:30.750
So I think that this is--

00:53:30.750 --> 00:53:32.291
that there is a shift.

00:53:32.291 --> 00:53:34.417
There is of course
a shift in the world

00:53:34.417 --> 00:53:36.834
in that we have a little time.

00:53:36.834 --> 00:53:39.625
We--we, whatever this we is,

00:53:39.625 --> 00:53:42.709
we are living in
a period of time,

00:53:42.709 --> 00:53:44.375
short, long,
I don\'t know,

00:53:44.375 --> 00:53:47.709
it\'s not instantaneous
but it\'s maybe not long,

00:53:47.709 --> 00:53:51.875
there is a little time
to make a difference,

00:53:51.875 --> 00:53:53.834
maybe not very much,

00:53:53.834 --> 00:53:59.834
after which the consequences
of what we have provoked,

00:53:59.834 --> 00:54:01.917
not just we
in the human sense

00:54:01.917 --> 00:54:06.333
but significantly, uh...

00:54:06.333 --> 00:54:08.166
I don\'t know,
it\'s not the Anthropos.

00:54:08.166 --> 00:54:10.750
I really do think
it\'s a lot of--

00:54:10.750 --> 00:54:12.875
it\'s not only capitalism
of course,

00:54:12.875 --> 00:54:14.375
of course it\'s not
only capitalism,

00:54:14.375 --> 00:54:16.417
but, wow, if we could
have only one name,

00:54:16.417 --> 00:54:20.792
you know, the last 500 years
of sucking the Earth dry

00:54:20.792 --> 00:54:23.583
in the form of resourcing it
for, um,

00:54:23.583 --> 00:54:28.500
for extraction as wealth
in the form of capital.

00:54:28.500 --> 00:54:31.125
This is a pretty good
analysis, you know,

00:54:31.125 --> 00:54:34.959
of what these last 500 years
have done to this Earth.

00:54:34.959 --> 00:54:38.500
And we have
a little time, um,

00:54:38.500 --> 00:54:40.917
to reinherit
the consequences.

00:54:40.917 --> 00:54:47.750
And we have a while
to see if peace is possible.

00:54:47.750 --> 00:54:50.375
(mystical music)

00:54:50.375 --> 00:55:00.625
♪

00:56:40.625 --> 00:56:43.542
(soft snoring)

00:57:10.333 --> 00:57:12.999
(soft music)

00:57:12.999 --> 00:57:23.208
♪

00:57:25.166 --> 00:57:31.208
♪

00:58:02.083 --> 00:58:05.792
One\'s whole life
is in the work,

00:58:05.792 --> 00:58:07.834
in the writing and the play,

00:58:07.834 --> 00:58:10.417
and my life has involved

00:58:10.417 --> 00:58:14.875
intense, um, good family.

00:58:14.875 --> 00:58:17.875
A family with whom
I\'ve biologically--

00:58:17.875 --> 00:58:19.000
well, reproductive family,

00:58:19.000 --> 00:58:22.208
fathers, brothers,
mothers, cousins,

00:58:22.208 --> 00:58:23.041
so forths,

00:58:23.041 --> 00:58:26.208
with whom
I feel very strong--

00:58:26.208 --> 00:58:27.208
strong connection.

00:58:27.208 --> 00:58:32.959
So it\'s not about something
negative in that regard.

00:58:32.959 --> 00:58:36.166
But my life--
my adult life especially,

00:58:36.166 --> 00:58:38.999
but from kind of early,
I don\'t know,

00:58:38.999 --> 00:58:40.875
almost as early
as one can--

00:58:40.875 --> 00:58:42.792
I can imagine,

00:58:42.792 --> 00:58:45.208
I remember
my mother worrying

00:58:45.208 --> 00:58:47.291
that I wasn\'t
marriageable

00:58:47.291 --> 00:58:49.083
for some odd reason.

00:58:49.083 --> 00:58:51.291
There was a non-fittingness

00:58:51.291 --> 00:58:54.959
into heteronormativity
for me from childhood.

00:58:54.959 --> 00:58:57.375
I don\'t know why,
it just was.

00:58:57.375 --> 00:59:00.041
You know, I had 21 dolls
and most of them had Polio

00:59:00.041 --> 00:59:03.208
or were in iron lungs or--
you know what I mean?

00:59:03.208 --> 00:59:07.709
They were--they were--
it was--I had...

00:59:07.709 --> 00:59:09.583
It was--it was--
I had a very--

00:59:09.583 --> 00:59:11.250
I had a relationship
to femininity

00:59:11.250 --> 00:59:14.667
that was probably
not all that unusual,

00:59:14.667 --> 00:59:16.291
that was both/and,
neither/nor,

00:59:16.291 --> 00:59:19.166
all of the above,
none of the above

00:59:19.166 --> 00:59:19.917
kind of thing.

00:59:19.917 --> 00:59:24.208
And I think
in my adult life, um,

00:59:24.208 --> 00:59:26.917
Jay, who was
a fellow graduate student

00:59:26.917 --> 00:59:27.709
at Yale University,

00:59:27.709 --> 00:59:28.792
he was in
the history department,

00:59:28.792 --> 00:59:33.250
and I came to be intensely
engaged with each other

00:59:33.250 --> 00:59:36.999
as friends and lovers
with no model

00:59:36.999 --> 00:59:41.625
for how--how to handle that
except marriage.

00:59:41.625 --> 00:59:44.041
I knew Jay was gay,

00:59:44.041 --> 00:59:46.959
there was never
any secret about that.

00:59:46.959 --> 00:59:49.917
Um, and, um,
for some reason,

00:59:49.917 --> 00:59:53.208
it didn\'t activate jealousy
or--I don\'t know,

00:59:53.208 --> 00:59:54.959
for some--I don\'t know why

00:59:54.959 --> 00:59:56.583
there was a way
in which Jay and I,

00:59:56.583 --> 00:59:58.500
for our own reasons,
needed to be married,

00:59:58.500 --> 01:00:02.417
but somehow marriage was
seriously the wrong model

01:00:02.417 --> 01:00:03.625
for what we were doing.

01:00:03.625 --> 01:00:04.709
It was a kind of, what,

01:00:04.709 --> 01:00:07.375
brother/sister sexuality that--

01:00:07.375 --> 01:00:08.375
incest is the wrong name, too,

01:00:08.375 --> 01:00:11.041
\'cause that connotes
some kind of violation

01:00:11.041 --> 01:00:12.417
and it wasn\'t.

01:00:12.417 --> 01:00:14.583
And that kind
of accreting,

01:00:14.583 --> 01:00:17.583
making family
by making homes,

01:00:17.583 --> 01:00:20.583
that making kin,
making kind.

01:00:20.583 --> 01:00:23.667
And this was, of course,
a period of history

01:00:23.667 --> 01:00:26.999
where lots of people
are experimenting

01:00:26.999 --> 01:00:32.166
with forms of social
and sexual life.

01:00:32.166 --> 01:00:34.125
Communes of all kinds,

01:00:34.125 --> 01:00:36.792
love relationships
of all kinds,

01:00:36.792 --> 01:00:38.542
heteronormative marriage
was an object

01:00:38.542 --> 01:00:39.917
of ridicule
and critique,

01:00:39.917 --> 01:00:41.333
that helps a lot.

01:00:41.333 --> 01:00:41.709
(laughs)

01:00:41.709 --> 01:00:45.583
Yeah, you know,
in one\'s own explorations.

01:00:45.583 --> 01:00:48.500
And, um, you know,

01:00:48.500 --> 01:00:50.041
Jay\'s lover Bob,

01:00:50.041 --> 01:00:54.750
my current--my lover
and husband and friend, Rusten,

01:00:54.750 --> 01:00:55.417
joi--enjoin--

01:00:55.417 --> 01:00:56.667
I mean, we got
officially divorced

01:00:56.667 --> 01:00:59.583
but we could never figure out
who got the camera,

01:00:59.583 --> 01:01:01.375
you know what I mean,
we couldn\'t split the property.

01:01:01.375 --> 01:01:04.208
I don\'t know, we had
a sewing machine and a camera.

01:01:04.208 --> 01:01:05.250
I\'m being facetious.

01:01:05.250 --> 01:01:08.625
The point is,
whatever it was that we did,

01:01:08.625 --> 01:01:10.625
was--really was for life, um,

01:01:10.625 --> 01:01:14.208
and in ways that we had
no particular models for

01:01:14.208 --> 01:01:17.834
except that a lot of people
at that moment in history

01:01:17.834 --> 01:01:18.999
were finding
ways of living

01:01:18.999 --> 01:01:21.083
for which there were
no particular models.

01:01:21.083 --> 01:01:24.625
And in retrospect it wasn\'t
all that radical or anything,

01:01:24.625 --> 01:01:27.792
but it--but it
never resolved into

01:01:27.792 --> 01:01:30.625
the reproductive
heteronormative family

01:01:30.625 --> 01:01:32.083
as a model
for a good life.

01:01:32.083 --> 01:01:35.041
And so our relationships
with Susan and Marco Harding,

01:01:35.041 --> 01:01:37.750
our godson
and good friend Susan,

01:01:37.750 --> 01:01:40.291
is an extended
kin relationship

01:01:40.291 --> 01:01:42.333
that is way more--

01:01:42.333 --> 01:01:43.709
in a significant way

01:01:43.709 --> 01:01:45.917
we are extended kin
to each other.

01:01:45.917 --> 01:01:48.458
In some ways legally
with things we\'ve done

01:01:48.458 --> 01:01:49.667
with various instruments,

01:01:49.667 --> 01:01:52.291
but mostly
it\'s that insistence

01:01:52.291 --> 01:01:54.250
on living that way.

01:01:54.250 --> 01:01:56.709
You know, Jay and Bob
both died of AIDS,

01:01:56.709 --> 01:02:00.667
Bob in 1986
and Jay in 1991.

01:02:00.667 --> 01:02:01.500
Um, and, you know,

01:02:01.500 --> 01:02:05.166
they were among the early, um,

01:02:05.166 --> 01:02:06.999
people who fell to the--

01:02:06.999 --> 01:02:11.166
you know, that fire
that swept their generation

01:02:11.166 --> 01:02:12.583
of--of, um, gay men,

01:02:12.583 --> 01:02:14.999
and, of course,
continues to sweep--

01:02:14.999 --> 01:02:17.542
cut a wide swath among
the peoples of the world

01:02:17.542 --> 01:02:20.999
even though it\'s manageable
as a chronic disease now

01:02:20.999 --> 01:02:23.583
with drug cocktails
and the rest.

01:02:23.583 --> 01:02:24.792
It\'s, you know, there--

01:02:24.792 --> 01:02:27.542
it affects
tens of millions of people,

01:02:27.542 --> 01:02:30.083
which is a big deal,
you know?

01:02:30.083 --> 01:02:33.542
And it touched us
intimately

01:02:33.542 --> 01:02:36.291
at the heart
of our family.

01:02:36.291 --> 01:02:39.333
And Jay\'s mother, Maxine,

01:02:39.333 --> 01:02:42.250
you know,
conventional,

01:02:42.250 --> 01:02:44.500
conservative
Christian woman,

01:02:44.500 --> 01:02:45.417
so on and so forth.

01:02:45.417 --> 01:02:47.999
She introduces Rusten and me
as her daughter-in-law

01:02:47.999 --> 01:02:50.291
and her son-in-law,
you know what I mean?

01:02:50.291 --> 01:02:55.041
Her having this religious
apartment complex.

01:02:55.041 --> 01:02:56.250
They just look like, \"What?\"

01:02:56.250 --> 01:02:58.333
You know, they really
can\'t figure this out.

01:02:58.333 --> 01:03:02.417
You know, Maxine doesn\'t
even know she\'s saying that.

01:03:02.417 --> 01:03:05.875
Um, so making kin--

01:03:05.875 --> 01:03:07.458
making non--

01:03:07.458 --> 01:03:08.625
making kin, making fa--

01:03:08.625 --> 01:03:12.125
making, uh,
family with each other

01:03:12.125 --> 01:03:15.917
without the imperative
of biological reproduction,

01:03:15.917 --> 01:03:17.959
and indeed with
quite something else,

01:03:17.959 --> 01:03:20.917
with a kind of--cultivating
the responsibility

01:03:20.917 --> 01:03:24.709
to be part of moving
the population of this Earth

01:03:24.709 --> 01:03:26.583
to more tolerable levels.

01:03:26.583 --> 01:03:28.792
And starting
in the rich countries.

01:03:28.792 --> 01:03:31.709
Um, I mean,
obviously, the...

01:03:31.709 --> 01:03:34.458
So, um, and then,

01:03:34.458 --> 01:03:36.417
as you point out
with Cayenne,

01:03:36.417 --> 01:03:38.667
it\'s more than a joke.

01:03:38.667 --> 01:03:41.875
We are kin with more
than other human beings.

01:03:41.875 --> 01:03:45.834
We make our households,
our families, our, um,

01:03:45.834 --> 01:03:49.625
our worldings with
a host of other critters.

01:03:49.625 --> 01:03:53.125
And that cobbling together
connections that really matter,

01:03:53.125 --> 01:03:57.125
may as well call them kin,
making kinships.

01:03:57.125 --> 01:03:59.875
And the question
is not so much

01:03:59.875 --> 01:04:00.875
who you go
to bed with,

01:04:00.875 --> 01:04:01.959
although that
of course matters

01:04:01.959 --> 01:04:04.917
at certain key points
in one\'s life, you know,

01:04:04.917 --> 01:04:10.291
but the ways
one builds lifetime kin,

01:04:10.291 --> 01:04:11.667
I would love to see

01:04:11.667 --> 01:04:14.583
certain kinds of
institutional apparatuses

01:04:14.583 --> 01:04:18.750
like being able much more easily
to adopt adults,

01:04:18.750 --> 01:04:21.542
to build
legally protected family

01:04:21.542 --> 01:04:25.625
to be engaged in city planning
and architecture

01:04:25.625 --> 01:04:27.792
and--and, um, to, um,

01:04:27.792 --> 01:04:29.875
be engaged in
the building of rituals

01:04:29.875 --> 01:04:32.375
that celebrate adulthood
with, uh,

01:04:32.375 --> 01:04:34.417
adulthood that involves
the response--

01:04:34.417 --> 01:04:35.625
the decision
not to have a child,

01:04:35.625 --> 01:04:39.709
how to celebrate that as opposed
to regard it as a tragedy

01:04:39.709 --> 01:04:42.083
while celebrating
children too.

01:04:42.083 --> 01:04:45.500
You know, it\'s that
kind of needing to build

01:04:45.500 --> 01:04:50.000
a non-heteronormative joy
in these kinds of lives.

01:04:50.000 --> 01:04:55.999
So, yeah, it\'s a lifetime
commitment for sure.

01:04:56.458 --> 01:04:57.959
(director)
Finish finally

01:04:57.959 --> 01:05:00.417
this green screen shooting.

01:05:00.417 --> 01:05:02.959
Okay, end of green screen.

01:05:02.959 --> 01:05:03.709
Hey, we get--

01:05:03.709 --> 01:05:06.333
oh, good,
holes in being at last.

01:05:06.333 --> 01:05:07.875
(laughs)

01:05:08.999 --> 01:05:10.417
Yay!

01:05:10.417 --> 01:05:11.417
Agh!

01:05:11.417 --> 01:05:14.000
(laughs)

01:05:14.000 --> 01:05:15.417
Oh, yes.

01:05:15.417 --> 01:05:18.750
I can--I can have
a third eye.

01:05:18.750 --> 01:05:19.208
(laughs)

01:05:19.208 --> 01:05:21.542
I don\'t know
what\'s happening here.

01:05:21.542 --> 01:05:22.625
Yes, this is excellent.

01:05:22.625 --> 01:05:24.417
I have more
green things out there

01:05:24.417 --> 01:05:26.166
if you bring them in.

01:05:26.166 --> 01:05:27.792
(laughs)

01:05:27.792 --> 01:05:29.542
(director)
I searched for the big ball.

01:05:29.542 --> 01:05:30.709
The big ball
is in the bedroom,

01:05:30.709 --> 01:05:33.750
it\'s over--it\'s in
the corner of the bedroom.

01:05:33.750 --> 01:05:35.875
Yeah, and we have--

01:05:35.875 --> 01:05:37.750
yeah, this is...

01:05:37.750 --> 01:05:39.250
(laughs)

01:05:39.834 --> 01:05:41.917
Yeah? Or maybe this is--
oh, I don\'t know,

01:05:41.917 --> 01:05:43.458
this is the egg you laid,

01:05:43.458 --> 01:05:45.083
I\'m sorry.

01:05:45.083 --> 01:05:46.917
There we go.

01:05:46.917 --> 01:05:48.417
(laughs)

01:05:49.000 --> 01:05:51.333
(director)
This is not bad.

01:05:51.333 --> 01:05:53.375
It laid an egg.

01:05:53.375 --> 01:05:54.875
(laughs)

01:05:54.875 --> 01:05:57.208
-This is...
-Okay.

01:05:57.208 --> 01:05:58.333
(laughs)

01:05:58.333 --> 01:05:59.999
This is--yeah, there we go.

01:05:59.999 --> 01:06:00.999
Okay.

01:06:00.999 --> 01:06:01.333
(laughs)

01:06:01.333 --> 01:06:03.166
There we go,
now we\'re really done.

01:06:03.166 --> 01:06:05.291
(director)
Yes, thank you.

01:06:05.291 --> 01:06:05.834
(laughs)

01:06:05.834 --> 01:06:07.917
(Donna)
How\'s that for the end?

01:06:07.917 --> 01:06:10.417
(laughs)

01:06:17.750 --> 01:06:19.417
(Cayenne barks)

01:06:22.291 --> 01:06:25.166
(nature sounds)

01:06:32.917 --> 01:06:35.542
(dark music)

01:06:35.542 --> 01:06:45.792
♪

01:06:46.542 --> 01:06:49.333
(footsteps in brush)

01:06:49.333 --> 01:06:59.250
♪

01:07:06.542 --> 01:07:09.375
(footsteps intensify)

01:07:09.375 --> 01:07:19.625
♪

01:07:23.375 --> 01:07:25.625
Early in the 21st century,

01:07:25.625 --> 01:07:29.041
communities
all over the planet

01:07:29.041 --> 01:07:30.959
sensed a kind of urgency

01:07:30.959 --> 01:07:34.917
of the undoing of ways
of living and dying.

01:07:34.917 --> 01:07:36.750
(nocturnal nature sounds)

01:07:36.750 --> 01:07:40.709
An undoing that involved
humans and other critters

01:07:40.709 --> 01:07:46.083
in the tissues of our being
together on Earth itself.

01:07:46.083 --> 01:07:48.875
(soggy footsteps)

01:07:48.875 --> 01:07:52.542
♪

01:07:52.542 --> 01:07:56.250
Somehow, a kind of wave
of feeling and action

01:07:56.250 --> 01:08:00.999
and thinking and motion
began to sweep the Earth

01:08:00.999 --> 01:08:03.542
in a very particular sense.

01:08:03.542 --> 01:08:08.166
Communities
of 150 to 500 people

01:08:08.166 --> 01:08:10.166
began to form
with each other

01:08:10.166 --> 01:08:12.458
either from already
being in place

01:08:12.458 --> 01:08:14.792
but finding each other
and coming together

01:08:14.792 --> 01:08:19.291
with intensities that were
practiced in quite new ways

01:08:19.291 --> 01:08:22.458
or moving from one place
to another.

01:08:22.458 --> 01:08:24.750
(nocturnal nature sounds)

01:08:24.750 --> 01:08:27.208
All of these communities
formed themselves

01:08:27.208 --> 01:08:31.291
around a particular kind
of felt intensity,

01:08:31.291 --> 01:08:36.166
of felt need and lust
and desire and project,

01:08:36.166 --> 01:08:38.750
which was to live
for the recuperation

01:08:38.750 --> 01:08:40.417
of the critters
of the Earth,

01:08:40.417 --> 01:08:42.875
the human
and the non-human.

01:08:42.875 --> 01:08:46.000
(nocturnal nature sounds)

01:08:47.417 --> 01:08:50.041
(ethereal music)

01:08:50.041 --> 01:08:57.500
♪

01:08:58.875 --> 01:09:03.917
To somehow cultivate the arts
of living on a damaged planet,

01:09:03.917 --> 01:09:08.250
to be those who came
to recuperate and restore

01:09:08.250 --> 01:09:09.375
where they could,

01:09:09.375 --> 01:09:12.625
as communities
who either already lived

01:09:12.625 --> 01:09:14.917
or moved to damaged lands

01:09:14.917 --> 01:09:19.542
to be communities
of care and concern.

01:09:19.542 --> 01:09:29.291
♪

01:09:29.291 --> 01:09:30.125
(rocks falling)

01:09:30.125 --> 01:09:32.542
Camille 1 was born
in a community

01:09:32.542 --> 01:09:35.709
that had decided that
at least three parents

01:09:35.709 --> 01:09:39.750
were going to be required
for every new baby.

01:09:39.750 --> 01:09:42.583
And having a baby
was not something

01:09:42.583 --> 01:09:44.625
someone could
just decide to do.

01:09:44.625 --> 01:09:47.083
It was rather
a collective decision,

01:09:47.083 --> 01:09:49.458
so that folks
who wanted to bear babies

01:09:49.458 --> 01:09:50.834
or bring babies
into the world

01:09:50.834 --> 01:09:54.208
might well have to wait
or might never be able to do so,

01:09:54.208 --> 01:09:56.834
but they could
participate as parents

01:09:56.834 --> 01:09:59.542
in a family
raising a baby.

01:09:59.542 --> 01:10:02.166
(soft music)

01:10:02.166 --> 01:10:04.166
♪

01:10:04.166 --> 01:10:06.875
So that Camille 1 was going
to have to have siblings,

01:10:06.875 --> 01:10:10.083
not necessarily in
the same immediate household

01:10:10.083 --> 01:10:12.458
but the children to be born
in this community

01:10:12.458 --> 01:10:13.959
had to have
other children

01:10:13.959 --> 01:10:15.875
who were going to be
their siblings

01:10:15.875 --> 01:10:18.875
but who were almost
certainly not going to be

01:10:18.875 --> 01:10:21.166
their biological siblings.

01:10:21.166 --> 01:10:24.083
(nocturnal nature sounds)

01:10:24.083 --> 01:10:26.999
♪

01:10:26.999 --> 01:10:30.208
So the reproductive choice
for the person

01:10:30.208 --> 01:10:31.875
who would bear
the pregnancy,

01:10:31.875 --> 01:10:35.000
whether that person was
a male or a female person

01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:36.792
in the beginning
of this process,

01:10:36.792 --> 01:10:39.583
whoever bore the pregnancy
to birthing

01:10:39.583 --> 01:10:43.125
had a particular kind
of reproductive choice

01:10:43.125 --> 01:10:45.417
which was to choose
a symbiont,

01:10:45.417 --> 01:10:49.125
another critter
who was to be in symbiosis

01:10:49.125 --> 01:10:53.583
with the human baby
for the lifetime of that baby.

01:10:53.583 --> 01:10:56.750
(nocturnal nature sounds)

01:10:56.999 --> 01:10:58.667
(soft moan)

01:11:07.125 --> 01:11:08.834
(soft moan)

01:11:12.417 --> 01:11:13.417
(soft moan)

01:11:13.417 --> 01:11:15.625
(dark music)

01:11:15.625 --> 01:11:18.583
So the woman
who bore Camille 1,

01:11:18.583 --> 01:11:22.041
in a dream that she had
during her pregnancy,

01:11:22.041 --> 01:11:23.542
chose for Camille 1

01:11:23.542 --> 01:11:27.417
the symbiont
of a monarch butterfly.

01:11:27.417 --> 01:11:28.875
(soft moan)

01:11:28.875 --> 01:11:32.667
♪

01:11:32.667 --> 01:11:36.000
Monarch butterflies
had part of their range

01:11:36.000 --> 01:11:39.667
in the area where this
community had settled down.

01:11:39.667 --> 01:11:43.083
Camille 1, at puberty,
could do many things.

01:11:43.083 --> 01:11:46.417
Camille 1 could decide
to alter its body

01:11:46.417 --> 01:11:50.083
into male--in male or female
or other ways.

01:11:50.083 --> 01:11:51.500
Camille 1
could choose to stay

01:11:51.500 --> 01:11:54.333
with whatever body
it was birthed with

01:11:54.333 --> 01:11:55.291
or it could
partially alter,

01:11:55.291 --> 01:11:57.333
maybe a little bit of this,
little bit of that.

01:11:57.333 --> 01:11:58.917
And some of it was
gonna be irreversible,

01:11:58.917 --> 01:12:01.500
they\'d have to learn
to live with consequences.

01:12:01.500 --> 01:12:03.291
The community
was not afraid

01:12:03.291 --> 01:12:07.542
of a kind of
morphological experimentation

01:12:07.542 --> 01:12:09.250
and thought that
that was something

01:12:09.250 --> 01:12:12.542
that adolescents ought
to have the means to do.

01:12:12.542 --> 01:12:16.542
Camille 1 chose
to stay with the symbiosis

01:12:16.542 --> 01:12:17.542
and to deepen it.

01:12:17.542 --> 01:12:23.125
And the story begins with
the first heir of Camille 1,

01:12:23.125 --> 01:12:24.375
Camille 2.

01:12:24.375 --> 01:12:27.250
(thunder, rain)

01:12:27.458 --> 01:12:31.041
Camille 2 was born female,
and as an adolescent,

01:12:31.041 --> 01:12:34.709
Camille 2
decided to stay female

01:12:34.709 --> 01:12:37.500
but wanted
to grow a beard.

01:12:37.500 --> 01:12:40.375
(thunder, rain)

01:12:42.500 --> 01:12:44.583
In Camille 1\'s lifetime,

01:12:44.583 --> 01:12:46.333
the symbiotic relationships

01:12:46.333 --> 01:12:50.709
were not yet
at a molecular level.

01:12:50.709 --> 01:12:53.583
(thunder, rain)

01:12:54.250 --> 01:12:55.458
Biological sciences,

01:12:55.458 --> 01:12:57.208
the technobiological sciences

01:12:57.208 --> 01:12:59.959
of the community had
developed in such a way

01:12:59.959 --> 01:13:02.542
that by the time
Camille 2 was born,

01:13:02.542 --> 01:13:06.542
it was possible and indeed
desirable in the community

01:13:06.542 --> 01:13:09.250
for the symbionts
and the human beings

01:13:09.250 --> 01:13:11.125
to share
bodily substance

01:13:11.125 --> 01:13:13.917
and to share
genetic substance.

01:13:13.917 --> 01:13:16.709
(otherworldly music)

01:13:16.709 --> 01:13:20.125
♪

01:13:20.125 --> 01:13:22.500
So at puberty
Camille 2 decided

01:13:22.500 --> 01:13:25.291
to have implanted
on her face

01:13:25.291 --> 01:13:27.917
a beard made up
of the stem cells

01:13:27.917 --> 01:13:31.500
that would grow
the antennae of butterflies.

01:13:31.500 --> 01:13:32.917
♪

01:13:32.917 --> 01:13:35.417
So that Camille 2
had a face

01:13:35.417 --> 01:13:38.792
full of the antennae
of butterflies.

01:13:38.792 --> 01:13:40.917
And the antennae
could sense,

01:13:40.917 --> 01:13:43.667
could taste the air,
taste the foods.

01:13:43.667 --> 01:13:48.542
And Camille 2 had
an enhanced sensory being

01:13:48.542 --> 01:13:53.166
that she--he/she--
xe felt enhanced

01:13:53.166 --> 01:13:56.667
xe\'s ability to care for
and to care about

01:13:56.667 --> 01:14:00.125
the ongoing possibilities
of the monarchs.

01:14:00.125 --> 01:14:03.166
(insects buzzing)

01:14:03.166 --> 01:14:05.834
(soft music)

01:14:05.834 --> 01:14:09.250
♪

01:14:09.250 --> 01:14:11.917
(child shouting)

01:14:11.917 --> 01:14:12.542
♪

01:14:12.542 --> 01:14:13.959
By Camille 2\'s generation,

01:14:13.959 --> 01:14:17.667
the kids were doing
skin implants of stem cells

01:14:17.667 --> 01:14:20.125
to build patterns
on their skin

01:14:20.125 --> 01:14:21.917
that were the patterns
of the insects

01:14:21.917 --> 01:14:24.667
and the critters that
they were taking care of.

01:14:24.667 --> 01:14:25.625
So they would do, you know,

01:14:25.625 --> 01:14:27.875
their dance raves
and drug scenes

01:14:27.875 --> 01:14:28.625
and all the rest,

01:14:28.625 --> 01:14:31.250
they had various kinds
of light shows

01:14:31.250 --> 01:14:32.166
and really, you know,

01:14:32.166 --> 01:14:33.333
some of the--
the ones that were, um,

01:14:33.333 --> 01:14:36.999
symbiotically banded
to the octopus and the squid

01:14:36.999 --> 01:14:39.375
had the chromatophores
in their skin

01:14:39.375 --> 01:14:40.792
so if they got
sexually excited

01:14:40.792 --> 01:14:41.959
they would pulse
the same way

01:14:41.959 --> 01:14:44.250
that the squid
and the cuttlefish

01:14:44.250 --> 01:14:45.542
and the octopus
would pulse.

01:14:45.542 --> 01:14:49.792
They could do these amazing
light shows with their skin.

01:14:49.792 --> 01:14:52.417
(water bubbling)

01:14:52.417 --> 01:14:52.834
♪

01:14:52.834 --> 01:14:55.917
So there was
a kind of playfulness

01:14:55.917 --> 01:14:58.750
around this caring.

01:14:58.750 --> 01:15:07.542
♪

01:15:07.542 --> 01:15:11.250
Just as making kin
without making babies

01:15:11.250 --> 01:15:12.250
was a lifetime matter,

01:15:12.250 --> 01:15:16.000
this question of forming
and reforming kin

01:15:16.000 --> 01:15:17.917
was not something
done all at once.

01:15:17.917 --> 01:15:20.000
You didn\'t inherit
everything all at once.

01:15:20.000 --> 01:15:22.999
Frequently, adoptions
would take place

01:15:22.999 --> 01:15:25.500
of people
in their 50s.

01:15:25.500 --> 01:15:27.250
Families would
form and reform

01:15:27.250 --> 01:15:28.999
and perhaps redo
their houses

01:15:28.999 --> 01:15:30.834
and rewrite
their instruments

01:15:30.834 --> 01:15:34.542
of financial
joint responsibility.

01:15:34.542 --> 01:15:36.834
(wind blowing)

01:15:36.834 --> 01:15:39.166
It was understood
that making family

01:15:39.166 --> 01:15:40.208
was a lifetime matter

01:15:40.208 --> 01:15:42.041
and that families
needed to be able

01:15:42.041 --> 01:15:44.250
to experiment
and change.

01:15:44.250 --> 01:15:46.208
The commitments
were very serious

01:15:46.208 --> 01:15:48.500
and intended to be
for a lifetime,

01:15:48.500 --> 01:15:50.083
but it could take
various forms.

01:15:50.083 --> 01:15:53.834
It was understood that you
needed rituals and support,

01:15:53.834 --> 01:15:55.500
you know,
ways of celebrating

01:15:55.500 --> 01:15:57.458
the breaking up
of love affairs

01:15:57.458 --> 01:15:59.625
and the consolidation
of friendships

01:15:59.625 --> 01:16:02.750
out of love affairs
that had broken.

01:16:02.750 --> 01:16:05.542
(otherworldly music)

01:16:05.542 --> 01:16:15.458
♪

01:16:15.625 --> 01:16:17.917
Of course there were
terrible mistakes made.

01:16:17.917 --> 01:16:19.917
It was understood
that there would be

01:16:19.917 --> 01:16:21.709
a lot of suffering in this,

01:16:21.709 --> 01:16:22.500
but the communities felt

01:16:22.500 --> 01:16:24.125
that they were
the Children of Compost,

01:16:24.125 --> 01:16:25.542
they were staying
with the trouble.

01:16:25.542 --> 01:16:30.083
They were here to somehow
build the Cat\'s Cradle games

01:16:30.083 --> 01:16:34.417
that would make flourishing
ongoing possible.

01:16:34.417 --> 01:16:37.208
(footsteps in the brush)

01:16:37.208 --> 01:16:47.458
♪

01:16:47.709 --> 01:16:50.375
(mellow music)

01:16:50.375 --> 01:17:00.625
♪