In this episode, Connor and Jack discuss Mary Karr's "Carnegie Hall Rush Seats." In the course of the conversation they also talk about big-R Romanticism, Calvinism, the Netflix program Chef's Table, and the quasi-mystical process behind the crafting of the world's finest classical instruments. Connor sticks up for the midwest, Jack's poetic preferences are laid bare, and a physical copy of the OED is consulted. Read the poem below. More on Mary Karr, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-karr Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking Find us on twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at [email protected]. Carnegie Hall Rush Seats By: Mary Karr Whatever else the orchestra says, the cello insists, You’re dying. It speaks from the core of the tree’s hacked-out heart, shaped and smoothed like a woman. Be glad you are not hard wood yourself and can hear it. Every day the cello is taken into someone’s arms, taken between spread legs and lured into its shivering. The arm saws and saws and all the sacred cries of saints and demons issue from the carved cleft holes. Like all of us, it aches, sending up moans from the pit we balance on the edge of.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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