0:00:10.609,0:00:14.422
The first funeral[br]I ever went to was in 1979.

0:00:14.422,0:00:16.438
I was 25,

0:00:16.438,0:00:18.494
and I was working[br]as an activities director

0:00:18.494,0:00:20.602
at a nursing home in Boston.

0:00:21.222,0:00:24.989
There was a man at the home[br]by the name of Arthur Brown.

0:00:25.179,0:00:27.922
One day, he took sick,[br]was taken to the hospital,

0:00:27.922,0:00:32.834
and he died shortly after that -[br]all in a short span of time.

0:00:33.304,0:00:36.752
But he was 96, had lived[br]a long and healthy life up till then.

0:00:37.102,0:00:40.087
I asked around to see if anybody[br]wanted to go to his funeral,

0:00:40.387,0:00:43.770
and there was another man[br]at the home who wanted to go;

0:00:43.770,0:00:45.699
he was the one who wanted to go.

0:00:46.069,0:00:48.452
His name was Arthur Wallace.

0:00:48.452,0:00:53.743
So the two of us set off[br]to go to this graveside service.

0:00:53.743,0:00:55.140
I borrowed a car.

0:00:56.080,0:00:58.789
On the way there, it took[br]a little longer than I thought -

0:00:58.789,0:01:00.004
I got a little bit lost -

0:01:00.004,0:01:02.735
and the entire way there,

0:01:02.735,0:01:05.919
Arthur was giving[br]a sort of running commentary

0:01:05.919,0:01:11.753
on skirt lengths and billboards[br]and bad directions,

0:01:11.753,0:01:12.986
and all the while,

0:01:12.986,0:01:15.320
he was monkeying around[br]with his hearing aid

0:01:15.320,0:01:17.652
that would fall[br]out of his ear onto the seat,

0:01:17.652,0:01:21.220
and he would jab it with a pen[br]in some kind of a repair ritual

0:01:21.220,0:01:22.336
and put it back in.

0:01:22.336,0:01:24.002
It would fall out again.

0:01:24.002,0:01:29.220
And the entire time he had a cigar[br]that was not lit but was wet on both ends.

0:01:29.220,0:01:30.349
(Laughter)

0:01:30.349,0:01:33.151
So this is who I was[br]in this small container with

0:01:33.151,0:01:37.408
for the time it took to find the cemetery.

0:01:37.408,0:01:39.853
Finally found it, pulled in.

0:01:39.853,0:01:42.388
There were a couple people[br]standing by one grave site.

0:01:42.388,0:01:44.835
I parked the car and helped Arthur out.

0:01:44.835,0:01:48.170
There were a lot of leaves[br]on the ground - it was November -

0:01:48.550,0:01:52.721
and I walked him across the leaves[br]over to where these people were standing.

0:01:52.721,0:01:54.451
There were a couple of elderly women

0:01:54.451,0:01:57.634
who were distant relatives[br]of the deceased,

0:01:57.634,0:01:59.385
and then there was a minister.

0:01:59.385,0:02:02.101
And when we were through[br]with these brief introductions,

0:02:02.101,0:02:06.100
the minister then said[br]a very short service.

0:02:06.250,0:02:10.253
At the end of that, he asked[br]if anybody else wanted to say anything.

0:02:10.253,0:02:13.849
And Arthur Wallace, who I brought along,[br]wanted to say something.

0:02:14.149,0:02:16.581
So he stepped forward[br]from where he was next to me,

0:02:16.581,0:02:19.135
and he said something like this:

0:02:21.015,0:02:23.312
"Arthur Brown was a good man,

0:02:24.482,0:02:29.047
but funny thing was[br]he didn't like bananas.

0:02:29.047,0:02:31.140
Now when his lunch[br]would come up on the tray,

0:02:31.140,0:02:32.982
if there was a banana on it,

0:02:32.982,0:02:34.814
he'd give it to me.

0:02:35.921,0:02:37.514
I like a banana.

0:02:37.514,0:02:39.194
I like a banana okay.

0:02:39.914,0:02:42.262
A banana's my number two fruit.

0:02:42.782,0:02:45.999
My number one fruit's a big, mild pear."

0:02:45.999,0:02:48.284
And then he stepped back next to me.

0:02:48.944,0:02:51.398
That was the first funeral I ever went to.

0:02:51.398,0:02:52.434
(Laughter)

0:02:52.434,0:02:54.230
So I should now tell you

0:02:54.230,0:02:57.130
how I came to be working[br]in a nursing home in the first place.

0:02:57.130,0:03:00.108
About a year before,[br]I was on a cross-country trip

0:03:00.498,0:03:02.613
and stopped in Palm Springs

0:03:02.613,0:03:05.048
where my grandmother[br]was spending the winter.

0:03:05.658,0:03:09.998
I met a couple who were[br]lifelong friends of hers, the Feitlers.

0:03:09.998,0:03:13.505
And Herb Feitler and I[br]spent the better part of a day

0:03:13.505,0:03:14.964
sort of palling around.

0:03:14.964,0:03:16.174
We went in his car

0:03:16.174,0:03:20.629
to flea markets in surrounding[br]desert communities out there.

0:03:20.629,0:03:22.861
And I just had a fantastic time.

0:03:23.541,0:03:25.481
When I got back home to Boston,

0:03:25.481,0:03:28.198
in considering this fantastic time I had,

0:03:28.198,0:03:30.413
I realized that what made it unique

0:03:30.413,0:03:34.490
was that it was the first time[br]I sort of had made friends with somebody

0:03:34.490,0:03:39.366
who was significantly older than me[br]but wasn't in my family.

0:03:40.033,0:03:43.111
And I liked that, and I thought[br]I would like to do that again.

0:03:43.111,0:03:46.063
I had just graduated from art school[br]with a degree in painting,

0:03:46.063,0:03:49.496
and I thought there was something[br]I could do that would be better for me

0:03:49.496,0:03:53.563
than scooping ice cream[br]and delivering flowers.

0:03:53.563,0:03:58.313
So I heard about a job at a nursing home[br]as an activities director

0:03:58.313,0:04:00.519
that somebody I'd gone[br]to school with was doing

0:04:00.519,0:04:02.315
and was going to be leaving the job.

0:04:02.315,0:04:05.916
So I went there and applied,[br]and I got the job -

0:04:05.916,0:04:09.745
for 50 cents an hour less[br]because I had no prior experience.

0:04:10.415,0:04:12.854
But I started then, right away.

0:04:13.244,0:04:16.696
It was in a residential,[br]tree-lined neighborhood

0:04:16.696,0:04:18.395
in Jamaica Plain, in Boston,

0:04:18.395,0:04:22.461
and it was an old, converted duplex house,

0:04:22.461,0:04:25.507
hence its name, the Duplex Nursing Home.

0:04:26.257,0:04:29.933
And as soon as I set foot

0:04:29.933,0:04:33.760
into this environment,

0:04:33.760,0:04:36.043
I was just captivated with it.

0:04:36.043,0:04:42.670
It was just filled with riveting bits[br]of conversation that I had to write down,

0:04:44.743,0:04:46.645
here being some examples:

0:04:48.227,0:04:49.243
"I keep smoking,

0:04:49.243,0:04:52.496
but what I really want to do[br]is drive around in a stick-shift car."

0:04:53.026,0:04:56.949
"If a crow would see my picture,[br]the crow would fly away."

0:04:57.599,0:05:00.558
"Mars will probably be a state someday."

0:05:00.558,0:05:01.726
(Laughter)

0:05:01.726,0:05:04.856
"I'm going to get me a fly,[br]and I'm going to keep it in my room."

0:05:04.856,0:05:06.191
(Laughter)

0:05:06.191,0:05:08.241
"The most important thing[br]of human behavior

0:05:08.241,0:05:10.902
is don't be terrorizing anybody."

0:05:11.442,0:05:14.042
"I heard a knock at the door,[br]and I hung up on it."

0:05:14.042,0:05:15.725
(Laughter)

0:05:15.725,0:05:19.209
"When you rake the yard,[br]you rake the yard with a rake."

0:05:19.659,0:05:20.698
I love that one.

0:05:20.698,0:05:21.712
(Laughter)

0:05:21.712,0:05:25.240
"I can speak five languages,[br]and I can also blabber."

0:05:25.240,0:05:26.642
(Laughter)

0:05:26.642,0:05:29.051
"The weatherman says[br]it's going to be cold tonight,

0:05:29.051,0:05:32.348
so around midnight, I'm going to cook up[br]a pork chop in the moonlight.

0:05:32.348,0:05:34.708
Doesn't cost too much[br]to cook in the moonlight."

0:05:35.008,0:05:37.794
"My shoveling days are over, Davy baby."

0:05:38.384,0:05:41.494
"I'll smoke another cigar, by and by."

0:05:43.907,0:05:46.873
So these quotes[br]and conversations that I had

0:05:46.873,0:05:50.207
became the basis[br]for a publication I started

0:05:50.207,0:05:52.604
called "The Duplex Planet."

0:05:53.224,0:05:55.193
I didn't know exactly where it was going,

0:05:55.193,0:05:58.724
but I felt like it was something[br]that I needed to communicate as an artist,

0:05:58.724,0:06:00.753
and in fact, I set aside painting.

0:06:00.753,0:06:06.040
I felt like if this was to be something[br]that I was to find my way in,

0:06:06.040,0:06:09.939
I shouldn't have any other outlet[br]that would allow that.

0:06:10.879,0:06:13.089
I got the first issue together

0:06:13.089,0:06:17.423
and gathered all the residents[br]together one afternoon

0:06:17.423,0:06:19.962
and handed out a copy to each one of them.

0:06:20.592,0:06:22.596
Within about two minutes, they figured out

0:06:22.596,0:06:26.005
that I wasn't also passing out cake[br]or refreshments or something

0:06:26.005,0:06:29.701
and most of them wandered away,[br]discarding these.

0:06:30.121,0:06:33.467
However, that night,

0:06:33.867,0:06:38.654
copies that made it home with me[br]roommates and friends saw,

0:06:38.654,0:06:42.367
and I instantly got[br]that this was for everybody

0:06:42.367,0:06:44.345
but the people in it.

0:06:44.705,0:06:48.720
Had it been more traditional oral history,

0:06:48.720,0:06:50.563
it would have been a keepsake of sorts

0:06:50.563,0:06:51.568
for the residents,

0:06:51.568,0:06:53.669
but this was something else:

0:06:53.669,0:06:57.955
this was characters[br]springing to life on the page.

0:06:59.149,0:07:02.369
So I got to know[br]all 45 of these residents;

0:07:02.369,0:07:04.968
it was an all-male[br]nursing home, this place.

0:07:06.045,0:07:07.708
Some were talkative; some were not.

0:07:07.708,0:07:09.837
Some were agitated; some were calm.

0:07:09.837,0:07:13.768
Some were very articulate[br]about all manner of things,

0:07:13.768,0:07:19.206
and some didn't really make[br]a lot of sense in expected ways.

0:07:19.816,0:07:24.520
And it was those latter ones[br]who I was most interested in.

0:07:24.520,0:07:28.935
I felt fortunate to be in close contact[br]with people who were going through that,

0:07:29.405,0:07:31.880
and I came to see

0:07:31.880,0:07:37.735
that they ended up not making sense

0:07:37.735,0:07:42.419
having made the same sense[br]that we all make when we make sense.

0:07:42.419,0:07:44.269
If that makes sense.

0:07:44.269,0:07:46.052
(Laughter)

0:07:46.052,0:07:50.618
There was one man at the home[br]by the name of William Gunn Ferguson,

0:07:50.618,0:07:53.135
affectionately known as Fergie[br]to everybody there.

0:07:53.135,0:07:56.168
And he needed a sentence or so

0:07:56.168,0:07:57.173
as a runway,

0:07:57.173,0:08:00.319
and he'd be off, darting around.

0:08:00.319,0:08:02.431
And it might come back[br]to where it started,

0:08:02.881,0:08:03.991
or maybe it didn't,

0:08:03.991,0:08:09.285
but it was also an incredible trip.

0:08:09.285,0:08:11.257
So this is one thing that he said:

0:08:11.917,0:08:14.827
"The best place to hide[br]is in the top of a tree.

0:08:14.827,0:08:16.273
I used to tell those children,

0:08:16.273,0:08:21.023
'If you want to hide from your mother,[br]you climb up in that tree and hide.'

0:08:21.023,0:08:23.600
I'll tell ya, they'd hide[br]so I couldn't even find them.

0:08:23.600,0:08:25.183
And I don't mean any small trees.

0:08:25.183,0:08:27.725
I mean trees that were 50, 60 feet high.

0:08:28.285,0:08:30.250
And they'd fall out of those trees too.

0:08:30.250,0:08:31.899
(Laughter)

0:08:31.899,0:08:36.267
They'd fall out of those trees[br]just like you'd smoke a pipe.

0:08:36.267,0:08:38.031
(Laughter)

0:08:38.031,0:08:39.924
And I used to have a lot of pipes.

0:08:40.464,0:08:44.531
Until the children got into them,[br]and they hid them.

0:08:44.531,0:08:46.411
And you know where they hid them?

0:08:46.981,0:08:48.550
In the trees."

0:08:48.550,0:08:50.764
(Laughter)

0:08:51.424,0:08:53.016
One day at work -

0:08:53.016,0:08:56.565
and I say work, but it really[br]just seemed like my life at the time.

0:08:56.565,0:08:58.231
It didn't really seem like work.

0:08:58.231,0:09:00.648
Though there came a time[br]about two years later

0:09:00.648,0:09:03.697
when I felt like I made a better friend[br]to the residents there

0:09:03.697,0:09:06.299
than I did as an employee for the owners,

0:09:06.299,0:09:08.532
and so I left the job.

0:09:08.532,0:09:09.864
But anyway, this one day,

0:09:09.864,0:09:11.701
a resident by the name of Larry Greene

0:09:11.701,0:09:12.914
came to me,

0:09:12.914,0:09:17.181
and with all the urgency he could muster,

0:09:17.181,0:09:21.130
he said, "Dave, nobody's come[br]to get my dad's tray."

0:09:21.130,0:09:24.680
Now, the tray part I understood -[br]their noontime meal came up on a tray -

0:09:24.680,0:09:29.530
but the dad part didn't make any sense,[br]because his father was long dead.

0:09:29.530,0:09:32.220
But I followed him out[br]of this activities and dining room

0:09:32.220,0:09:34.229
around another part of the home,

0:09:34.229,0:09:36.929
and he led me to this room[br]that was shared by two men,

0:09:36.929,0:09:38.410
one of whom was sitting there,

0:09:38.410,0:09:39.748
Walter McGeorge.

0:09:39.748,0:09:43.212
There he sat with his tray[br]in front of him on a little table,

0:09:43.212,0:09:45.198
and Larry went over and stood next to him

0:09:45.198,0:09:47.483
and said, "Hi, Dad."

0:09:48.113,0:09:49.680
And Walter was smiling.

0:09:49.680,0:09:53.948
He seemed to be smiling for Larry[br]as if to acknowledge the "Hi, Dad,"

0:09:53.948,0:09:55.529
and he seemed to be smiling at me

0:09:55.529,0:09:59.022
as a way to say, "It's all right.[br]It's no big deal.

0:09:59.022,0:10:01.113
We'll let him think I'm his father."

0:10:01.863,0:10:04.750
Larry was in this remarkable state

0:10:04.750,0:10:06.936
where he thought[br]that anybody who smiled at him

0:10:06.936,0:10:08.312
was an old friend of his,

0:10:08.312,0:10:10.580
and he had sort of remembered his life

0:10:10.580,0:10:13.146
into something much easier[br]than it had ever been.

0:10:13.146,0:10:15.679
He had had a fairly difficult life.

0:10:15.679,0:10:17.945
He had worked on a coal wharf,

0:10:17.945,0:10:19.128
never had enough money,

0:10:19.128,0:10:20.630
had six children.

0:10:20.630,0:10:22.928
He would now say that he had two children.

0:10:22.928,0:10:26.141
You could name any of the six,[br]and he would acknowledge them as his,

0:10:26.141,0:10:28.683
but he would always have[br]the math come out to be two.

0:10:28.683,0:10:31.739
It just seemed like an easier life[br]that way or something.

0:10:32.179,0:10:37.071
But what I learned from Larry[br]and from Walter and from Fergie

0:10:37.071,0:10:38.595
and from many other people there

0:10:38.595,0:10:42.947
was that anything was as real[br]as anybody said it was.

0:10:43.277,0:10:45.276
The days of their big[br]adventures were over,

0:10:45.276,0:10:48.159
and they were now[br]sort of recombining things,

0:10:48.159,0:10:50.267
and they were coming out differently,

0:10:50.727,0:10:53.252
and the most direct way[br]for me to get to know somebody

0:10:53.252,0:10:56.061
was to just accept[br]whatever they said as real

0:10:56.061,0:10:59.392
because it was real for them

0:10:59.392,0:11:02.600
and that was how[br]I was going to get to know them.

0:11:03.895,0:11:06.912
(Music with ticking sound)

0:11:07.415,0:11:10.616
(Recording) David Greenberger:[br]Funny how time marches on.

0:11:12.106,0:11:14.962
But they're all in the same boat a year.

0:11:15.342,0:11:17.359
Happy-go-lucky.

0:11:18.658,0:11:20.924
How time marches on.

0:11:22.543,0:11:26.475
They must realize[br]they are a kid no longer.

0:11:28.475,0:11:32.411
They're always looking[br]for that first snowstorm

0:11:33.651,0:11:35.357
that we had the other day.

0:11:36.007,0:11:38.523
I don't suppose[br]you'd call that a snowstorm.

0:11:40.491,0:11:45.074
Just about everybody likes to see[br]the old-fashioned Christmas.

0:11:47.009,0:11:49.540
Yeah, but time marches on.

0:11:50.044,0:11:51.614
[Time Marches On]

0:11:55.011,0:11:56.681
(Church bells ringing)

0:11:59.408,0:12:00.807
(Music ends)

0:12:00.807,0:12:03.030
(On stage) DG: "The Duplex Planet"

0:12:03.030,0:12:07.890
continued as a little, self-published,[br]chapbook-sized periodical

0:12:09.140,0:12:10.906
that I started back then in 1979,

0:12:10.906,0:12:15.288
but in the '90s, it became better known,[br]the work that I was doing,

0:12:15.288,0:12:17.958
through several books that came out.

0:12:18.618,0:12:20.682
The material was adapted[br]into a comic book,

0:12:20.682,0:12:22.673
and there were a couple of documentaries.

0:12:22.673,0:12:25.439
And for the past 15 years or so,

0:12:25.439,0:12:30.956
I've been most interested[br]in creating monologues with music.

0:12:30.956,0:12:34.022
I've done a series of CDs and performances

0:12:34.022,0:12:40.268
for museums and arts presenters[br]and universities and NPR.

0:12:41.888,0:12:46.305
And these have been done with a variety[br]of different musical ensembles,

0:12:46.305,0:12:47.439
different styles.

0:12:47.439,0:12:48.444
But in all cases,

0:12:48.444,0:12:49.945
I strive to have the music

0:12:49.945,0:12:56.367
be a fully active element[br]in the final piece,

0:12:56.367,0:12:59.071
not background music.

0:12:59.071,0:13:03.904
I'd likened it to a band[br]with a guy talking - me.

0:13:05.065,0:13:07.470
So these audio pieces that I record,

0:13:07.970,0:13:12.703
they're not recreations[br]of time that I spent with somebody;

0:13:12.703,0:13:16.203
they're abstracted from it.

0:13:16.203,0:13:22.168
The words and the music[br]come together for me and fall into place

0:13:22.668,0:13:26.653
when it seems like how it feels[br]to remember that person.

0:13:26.653,0:13:28.803
So that it's a gauge that I use to know,

0:13:28.803,0:13:32.002
and hopefully it resonates[br]in some way for somebody else.

0:13:32.002,0:13:35.872
These aren't documentary snapshots

0:13:36.545,0:13:39.245
of elderly people that I met.

0:13:39.682,0:13:44.196
But I try to have it be

0:13:44.196,0:13:48.091
something that will resonate[br]separate from that.

0:13:49.151,0:13:53.556
I'm not using their voices,[br]the actual voices of them,

0:13:53.556,0:13:55.986
or projecting their pictures behind me.

0:13:55.986,0:14:01.481
Because I want these to resonate[br]with listeners individually.

0:14:05.531,0:14:09.632
Last year, I was in Milwaukee,[br]finishing up an artist residency

0:14:09.632,0:14:14.401
that I did there for the Center on Age[br]and Community at the university there.

0:14:14.905,0:14:16.341
I had spent three months

0:14:16.341,0:14:22.217
talking and conversing, meeting[br]with elderly who have memory loss,

0:14:22.217,0:14:23.321
varying degrees of it -

0:14:23.321,0:14:27.990
from barely noticeable[br]to profoundly fragmented.

0:14:30.363,0:14:33.599
The one thing that everybody[br]had in common that I spoke with, though,

0:14:33.599,0:14:37.413
was that everybody liked[br]the idea of talking with me.

0:14:37.413,0:14:39.740
They agreed to talk with me.

0:14:40.260,0:14:44.681
Maybe they thought they already knew me,[br]but it didn't really matter.

0:14:45.651,0:14:49.466
What was amazing for me to see

0:14:49.466,0:14:50.481
was that the people

0:14:50.481,0:14:55.831
who were the least able to have a -[br]carry on a narrative conversation

0:14:55.831,0:15:00.598
still had the blueprint,[br]the shape of a conversation

0:15:00.598,0:15:02.565
that they utilized.

0:15:02.565,0:15:05.272
I would say something,[br]and then they would say something,

0:15:05.272,0:15:07.849
and then I would say something:[br]we'd go back and forth.

0:15:07.849,0:15:13.754
And they still adhered[br]to that sort of social convention.

0:15:14.563,0:15:16.864
That it didn't always link up -

0:15:16.864,0:15:18.748
I might say something, I often would,

0:15:18.748,0:15:21.793
and then they would say something[br]completely separate from that,

0:15:21.793,0:15:22.999
and I would go with that,

0:15:22.999,0:15:25.047
and then they would go somewhere else.

0:15:25.047,0:15:29.930
It didn't link up, but I realized[br]that it didn't matter.

0:15:30.454,0:15:31.774
(Strumming guitar)

0:15:31.774,0:15:33.577
(Recording) DG: I had to behave.

0:15:33.770,0:15:38.132
I had two sisters,[br]and I had a - let's see -

0:15:38.132,0:15:43.310
I had a - let's see - six brothers,[br]a lot of brothers.

0:15:43.848,0:15:47.198
My mother, all she had to do was work.

0:15:47.648,0:15:49.964
My father worked every day.

0:15:49.964,0:15:52.930
He worked in a - let's see -

0:15:53.090,0:15:56.079
he worked in a - let's see -

0:15:56.079,0:15:59.413
he worked in a - oh, where did he work?

0:15:59.413,0:16:01.280
He worked every day.

0:16:01.280,0:16:04.106
It took a lot of money[br]to support his kids.

0:16:05.006,0:16:06.928
I wasn't real happy.

0:16:07.448,0:16:10.106
I did it because I had to.

0:16:10.896,0:16:15.237
When my mother comes after me,[br]then I didn't feel so good.

0:16:16.847,0:16:18.414
She came after me.

0:16:19.147,0:16:20.729
She came after me.

0:16:21.330,0:16:23.646
She came after me

0:16:23.646,0:16:26.707
to see that I was doing okay.

0:16:26.923,0:16:28.248
[Mother Comes After]

0:16:28.248,0:16:29.662
(Music ends)

0:16:29.912,0:16:34.646
(On stage) DG: Arthur Wallace, the man[br]who had a mild pear as his favorite fruit,

0:16:34.646,0:16:39.049
ended up dying about a year[br]about the man whom he eulogized,

0:16:39.049,0:16:42.843
and his demise was not so sudden.

0:16:43.783,0:16:47.093
And it was remarkable to see[br]what happened with him.

0:16:47.093,0:16:50.557
He'd always been very precise[br]in all of his recollections,

0:16:50.557,0:16:52.977
was very interested[br]in world events and politics.

0:16:52.977,0:16:56.804
And what was happening then, at the end,

0:16:56.804,0:17:00.634
was that the facts[br]were becoming dislodged.

0:17:01.771,0:17:04.126
(Feedback sound)

0:17:05.447,0:17:10.125
(Recording) DG: I remember a sign[br]on Brimmer Street to go to the South Pole.

0:17:10.125,0:17:11.819
[The Last Words of Arthur Wallace]

0:17:11.819,0:17:15.472
I don't understand,[br]but I do dream about it at nighttime.

0:17:17.912,0:17:20.626
Brimmer is where the State House is.

0:17:20.626,0:17:23.191
I signed on to go with Byrd.

0:17:23.940,0:17:27.942
I made a mistake, and I asked him

0:17:27.942,0:17:31.273
"Why do I dream at night[br]that I go to the South Pole?"

0:17:33.942,0:17:38.102
I remember a sign on Brimmer Street,[br]near the State House.

0:17:39.092,0:17:41.501
His name was Byrd.

0:17:42.641,0:17:47.175
I occasionally dreamed[br]that I went with Byrd to the South Pole,

0:17:47.575,0:17:51.358
but he quit when we got to Scott's grave,

0:17:51.358,0:17:53.090
where the Englishman Scott was,

0:17:53.090,0:17:55.040
who perished.

0:17:56.440,0:17:59.224
I dreamt that Byrd[br]got in a violent argument with us,

0:17:59.224,0:18:01.231
and he quit.

0:18:02.141,0:18:05.596
But the Americans went on[br]until they discovered it.

0:18:05.806,0:18:09.080
That's my dream. I dream it.

0:18:09.540,0:18:12.083
Why is my side all numb?

0:18:13.023,0:18:15.422
I must have gotten frozen.

0:18:16.122,0:18:21.156
I must have gone there,[br]and that's why my side is all numb now.

0:18:24.855,0:18:26.490
(Feedback sound ends)

0:18:26.490,0:18:28.741
(On stage) DG: I did[br]some rough math and figured

0:18:28.741,0:18:31.606
I've had about a quarter-million[br]conversations in my life,

0:18:31.606,0:18:35.019
and I've forgotten almost all of them.

0:18:35.889,0:18:37.721
Conversations are a way for two people

0:18:37.721,0:18:42.122
to be in the same time[br]and place as one another.

0:18:42.412,0:18:43.972
And we extract the data from it,

0:18:43.972,0:18:48.114
and we're left, then,[br]with an emotional memory of somebody.

0:18:48.604,0:18:49.838
I'm an artist,

0:18:49.838,0:18:53.237
and I'm also somebody[br]in the second half of my life,

0:18:53.237,0:18:54.439
well into it,

0:18:54.439,0:18:58.506
and I think I've learned as a human being[br]and grown as an artist

0:18:58.506,0:19:00.587
from continuing to meet people

0:19:00.587,0:19:05.637
who are living[br]the last years of their lives.

0:19:06.337,0:19:08.587
The differences between us are obvious,

0:19:08.587,0:19:14.554
but it's the things that we have in common[br]that are the most fulfilling to me.

0:19:14.554,0:19:22.020
That's where you find the surprise[br]and the mystery and the truth.

0:19:23.237,0:19:25.560
(Music starts)

0:19:26.752,0:19:30.719
(Recording) DG: I felt like I was really[br]getting towards Alzheimer's.

0:19:30.719,0:19:33.392
I was hoping it wasn't Alzheimer's,

0:19:33.392,0:19:37.319
but I was finding myself[br]repeating myself very often,

0:19:37.319,0:19:39.869
just in a normal conversation.

0:19:40.469,0:19:44.302
And I felt that I better do something[br]to help with my memory.

0:19:45.402,0:19:48.936
My daughter's the one[br]that came up with this program here.

0:19:49.536,0:19:52.385
One of my sons drove me over[br]for the first time

0:19:52.385,0:19:54.352
to find out what it was about

0:19:54.352,0:19:58.622
because he wanted to see it too,[br]what all was involved in it.

0:19:59.202,0:20:01.903
This was actually not too long ago,

0:20:01.903,0:20:03.782
and I thought it was quite interesting

0:20:03.782,0:20:05.501
and decided to register

0:20:05.501,0:20:09.536
and keep on coming back[br]on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

0:20:10.036,0:20:11.651
And you know what?

0:20:11.651,0:20:13.341
It has helped me.

0:20:13.791,0:20:15.686
Since I've been coming here,

0:20:15.686,0:20:19.534
I've not noticed any further[br]deterioration of my memory.

0:20:19.985,0:20:22.460
Nothing I can detect anyway.

0:20:23.301,0:20:24.697
I'm satisfied.

0:20:24.977,0:20:25.977
[Satisfied]

0:20:25.977,0:20:27.245
(Music continues)

0:20:27.245,0:20:28.528
(On stage) DG: Thank you.

0:20:28.808,0:20:30.341
(Applause)