Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre – Ten Responses to the Proposal To Challenge the Plague to a Duel [Video]

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Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre, performing at the Button Studio in Minneapolis, MN.

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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:02
– “Ten Responses to the Proposal
0:04
to Overcome the Current Plague
0:06
by Challenging It to a Duel.”
0:10
“One.
0:12
Sometimes you just have to say a thing out loud
0:14
and everyone immediately hears how ridiculous it is.
0:18
If that doesn’t work, two: were it truly possible
0:23
to challenge this sickness to a duel, it is not,
0:26
know that I would volunteer, pistols or knives
0:30
or bare-knuckle with the plague god,
0:32
crown of mossy bone, black talons
0:35
still stained with my siblings.
0:38
Rage would propel me to victory, were victory possible.
0:42
It is not.
0:43
I say this only to validate your rage.
0:46
I want this plan to work.
0:48
It will not.
0:50
Three.
0:51
We make gods of what matters.
0:53
Harvest is important, so a god is born.
0:56
The sun, this moon, its many oceans,
0:59
many gods, warring and whorling on,
1:01
how sickness ascends from nightmare to spirit to deity,
1:06
a laughing deep-green antlered owl
1:09
sitting atop the world as it sinks below the horizon.
1:13
What is made can be unmade,
1:15
but can you unmake fire with just your fists?
1:19
Can you unmake sickness with only strength?
1:23
Four.
1:24
You have strength, as a hero must,
1:26
but remember, the same hammer that builds a house
1:29
can be thrown at a stray cat.
1:31
What if your hands became hammers?
1:33
How would you change a bandage?
1:35
How would you hold your children?
1:37
Five.
1:37
You have courage, as a hero must,
1:39
but is it courage to saunter,
1:43
smirking, into a pit of snakes?
1:45
Is it boldness to dance atop a tall tower
1:48
during a lighting storm?
1:49
Is it leadership to say,
1:51
‘If, in my fearlessness, I die, then I die,’
1:54
when during a plague, the more accurate statement is,
1:57
‘If, in my fearlessness, I kill, then I kill.’
2:01
Six.
2:02
You question authority, as a hero must,
2:06
so when the village healer says the plague is serious,
2:08
you say, ‘Of course she wants us to be afraid.
2:11
That’s how she makes her money.’
2:12
But when your boss, who makes his money
2:14
off of your labor, says the plague is not serious,
2:17
that we should all just go back to work like normal,
2:20
your dueling pistol is suddenly empty.
2:23
You muzzle the barking dogs inside you,
2:26
stack their skulls in a shrine to the god of obedience.
2:29
Seven.
2:31
After the plague took my sister,
2:34
I punched the stone wall of her room so hard
2:37
it shattered all the bones in my right hand.
2:40
This is how the men in my family tell sad stories.
2:44
We always add a little violence.
2:47
I can be vulnerable as long as I look cool,
2:50
hat low at the funeral, back row of mourners,
2:54
leaving early to smoke, to sharpen a knife.
2:58
This is how the men in my family mourn. Like heroes.
3:02
Eight.
3:05
I’m not here to tell you that no one should ever duel anyone
3:08
or that there are no problems that violence can solve.
3:11
If a murderer threatens your family, take his head.
3:15
Just note how quick we are to kill for our families
3:19
when so many of us won’t make the smallest sacrifice
3:21
to protect them, won’t cover our faces during a plague,
3:25
won’t ask for help when we so clearly need it.
3:28
Note how quick we are to die
3:30
for some abstract notion of freedom when…
3:34
You know, it occurs to me.
3:39
I don’t know all of the gods,
3:41
but I’ve never heard of a god of freedom.
3:44
We have a god of war,
3:46
but not for the thing we’re told everyone is fighting for,
3:49
like we have a god of death,
3:51
but not of mourning, of sadness, of letting go,
3:55
a god of thunder, but not of rain,
3:58
a god of courage, but not of care,
4:00
a god of vengeance, but not of prevention,
4:03
a god of plague, but not of dancing,
4:06
a god of wrath, but not of reflection.
4:09
We have patron deities for duelists,
4:12
soldiers, hunters, thieves, assassins,
4:15
all those professions for which chaos requires control,
4:19
even if, especially if, that control is an illusion,
4:24
a thought, a prayer.
4:27
Nine.
4:29
I’m not here to tell you that the plague is not our enemy,
4:33
just that there are things we can learn from our enemies.
4:36
We understand power as dominance,
4:38
but when a plague is too dominant,
4:40
too unstoppably bloodthirsty,
4:42
it kills too quickly, cannot spread, and burns itself out.
4:47
We understand power as purity,
4:50
but the most effective medicines
4:51
often contain small traces of sickness in them.
4:55
We understand power as individual, but plague is not a god.
4:59
It is an unfathomably large number
5:02
of unfathomably small creatures working together.
5:05
We are as gods to them, and they annihilate us regularly.
5:10
We understand power as control,
5:13
but every plague is a harbinger of the next plague,
5:16
a pattern we cannot kill, cannot control,
5:20
but can use as a reason
5:23
to adapt to change, to grow.
5:28
Ten.
5:30
Brittle victory, soft survival.
5:33
This is not a fight we can win with brute force.
5:37
This is not a fight we can win.
5:39
This is not a fight.
5:42
This is a dance, and yes, a dance can be a battle,
5:47
but never a duel, never to the death.
5:50
Instead, to life, to the circle,
5:55
to everyone we have lost, to everyone else still here,
6:01
to all the gods and spirits we don’t have names for.”

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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