I'd like to begin this song I wrote about ceaseless yearning and never-ending want with a poem of popular Petrarchan paradoxes by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder: "I find no peace, and all my war is done; I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice; I fly above the wind, and yet I cannot arise; And naught I have, and all the world I seize upon."
♫ I want what I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have what I don't have, what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have what I don't have, what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have what I don't have, what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have what I don't have, what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have but I don't have ♫ ♫ It feels like all I got is loss on a bad back ♫ ♫ Gone with the last train, honey don't you fret ♫ ♫ Every cloud has a silver lining ♫ ♫ Just a little rain, just a little rain, just a little rain ♫ ♫ I want what I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have what I don't have, what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have but I don't have ♫ ♫ My mind won't stop, and my heart says go ♫ ♫ Nobody knows how to hold me ♫ ♫ My mind won't stop, and my heart says, ♫ ♫ "Good things come to those who wait" ♫ ♫ And I can't stand in ... ♫ ♫ I can't stand in line forever ♫ ♫ Stand the cold air ♫ ♫ Glad-handed ♫ ♫ Sick and tired of the "Later, maybe" ♫ ♫ Take it, fake it, take it, take-it-or-leave-it life ♫ ♫ And I gotta just tame it ♫ ♫ I gotta just name it ♫ ♫ I gotta just seize, so please, oh please, oh please, oh please ♫ ♫ Oh please me right, 'cause ♫ ♫ My mind won't stop ♫ ♫ And my heart says go ♫ ♫ Nobody knows how to hold me ♫ ♫ My mind won't stop -- and my heart says go-ooooo ... ♫ ♫ Good things must be here -- yes, right here ♫ ♫ Here, right here, right here ♫ ♫ I won't live this life forever ♫ ♫ One time round is all the offer is ♫ ♫ Sick and tired of the "Later, maybe" ♫ ♫ Take it, fake it, make it, leave it life ♫ ♫ And I gotta just name it, I gotta just claim it ♫ ♫ I gotta just seize ♫ ♫ Oh please, oh please, oh please me right ♫ ♫ I want what I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have what I don't have, what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have but I don't have -- you know that ♫ ♫ My mind won't stop, and my heart says go ♫ ♫ Nobody knows how to hold me, no ♫ ♫ My mind won't stop, and my heart says go ♫ ♫ 'Cause I want what I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have but I -- have what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have but I don't have, what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have what I don't have, what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have but I don't have, what I want ♫ ♫ What I can't have, need what I can't want ♫ ♫ Have but I don't have what I want ♫ (Applause)
(Cello music) (Music ends) On the flight here, I was reminded about my mom.
I'm a self-taught cellist, I've never had a lesson.
I studied double bass, but I just picked up the cello and started playing because I love doing it.
But my mom was an inspiration to me.
I did not realize she was an inspiration, because she got her music degree through a mail-order course, the US School of Music.
While raising two kids, she received a lesson a week in the mail, and practiced.
And at the end of a couple of years, she put on a recital.
And I'll be 50 this month, and it took me that long to realize that she was that big of an inspiration.
I'm just going to keep -- yeah, thanks, mom.
(Applause) She's also one of the most extraordinary people I know, beyond being a wonderful musician.
I want to play a little bit for mom and your moms as well, actually.
(Cello music) (Music ends) You know, when you normally hear a cello, you think of this.
(Plays Bach Cello Suite No.1) We're not going to do that today.
(Laughter and applause) (Drums) (Cello) Hey!
(Looped samples of onstage sounds) (Cello music and looped samples) (Music ends) (Applause and cheers)
There's this quote by activist and punk rock musician Jello Biafra that I love.
He says, "Don't hate the media.
Be the media."
I'm an artist.
I like working with media and technology because A, I'm familiar with them and I like the power they hold.
And B, I hate them and I'm terrified of the power they hold.
(Laughter) I remember watching, in 2003, an interview between Fox News host Tony Snow and then-US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
They were talking about the recent invasion of Iraq, and Rumsfeld is asked the question, "Well, we're hear about our body counts, but we never hear about theirs, why?"
And Rumsfeld's answer is, "Well, we don't do body counts on other people."
Right?
It's estimated that between 150,000 to one million Iraqis, civilians, have died as a result of the US-led invasion in 2003.
That number is in stark contrast with the 4,486 US service members who died during that same window of time.
I wanted to do more than just bring awareness to this terrifying number.
I wanted to create a monument for the individual civilians who died as a result of the invasion.
Monuments to war, such as Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial, are often enormous in scale.
Very powerful and very one-sided.
I wanted my monument to live in the world, and to circulate.
I remember when I was a boy in school, my teacher assigned us this classic civics assignment where you take a sheet of paper and you write a member of your government.
And we were told, if we wrote a really good letter, if we really thought about it, we would get back more than just a simple formed letter as a reply.
This is my "Notepad."
What looks like an everyday, yellow legal tablet of paper is actually a monument to the individual Iraqi civilians that died as a result of the US invasion.
"Notepad" is an act of protest and an act of commemoration disguised as an everyday tablet of paper.
The lines of the paper, when magnified, are revealed to be micro-printed text that contains the details, the names, the dates and locations of individual Iraqi civilians that died.
So, for the last 5 years, I've been taking pads of this paper, tons of this stuff, and smuggling it into the stationery supplies of the United States and the Coalition governments.
(Laughter) (Applause) I don't have to tell you guys this is not the place to discuss how I did that.
(Laughter) But also, I've been meeting one-on-one with members and former members of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, who assisted in the invasion.
And so, whenever I can, I meet with one of them, and I share the project with them.
And last summer, I had the chance to meet with former United States Attorney General and Torture Memo author, Alberto Gonzales.
(Video) Matt Kenyon: May I give this to you?
This is a special legal tablet.
It's actually part of an ongoing art project.
Alberto Gonzalez: This is a special legal pad?
MK: Yes.
You won't believe me, but it's in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art; I'm an artist.
MK: And all of the lines of the paper are actually -- AG: Are they going to disappear?
MK: No, they're micro-printed text that contains the names of individual Iraqi civilians who have died since the invasion of Iraq.
AG: Yeah.
OK.
AG: Thank you.
MK: Thank you.
(Laughter) The way he says "thank you" really creeps me out.
(Laughter) OK, so I'd like each of you to look under your chairs.
There's an envelope.
And please open it.
The paper you're holding in your hand contains the details of Iraqi civilians that died as result of the invasion.
I'd like you to use this paper and write a member of government.
You can help to smuggle this civilian body count into government archives.
Because every letter that's sent in to the government, and this is all across the world, of course -- every letter that is sent in is archived, filed and recorded.
Together, we can put this in the mailboxes and under the noses of people in power.
Everything that's sent in eventually becomes part of the permanent archive of our government, our shared historical record.
Thank you.
(Applause) Tom Rielly: So, tell me Matt, how did this idea come into your head, of "Notepad"?
Matt Kenyon: I'd just finished a project that dealt with the US Coalition side of the war and it was a black armband that was called the "Improvised Empathetic Device" which accumulated, in real time, the names, ranks, cause of death and location of US service members who had died overseas, and each time the Department of Defense or CENTCOM released their data, it would stab me in the arm.
And so, I became aware that there was a spectacle associated with our own people who were dying overseas, but a disproportionate amount of casualties were the civilian casualties.
TR: Thank you so much.
MK: Thank you.
(Applause)