North to the Future

Last night, Conan O'Brien staged a dramatic reading of Sarah Palin's farewell speech/mad triumphant soul-cry as read by William Shatner and accompanied by bongos and stand-up bass.

At first, we couldn't believe Palin actually said, "north to the future," but then we looked it up and saw that it's Alaska's state motto. North to the future? So Australia is living in the past? What happens when you reach the North Pole? That state is a fucking disaster.

Here's the video, followed by the text that O'Brien recognized as Ginsbergian poetry:

soaring through nature's finest show.
Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun.
And then the extremes. In the winter time it's the frozen road
that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty,
the cold though, doesn't it split
the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?
And then in the summertime such extreme
summertime
about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter
than just some months ago, than
just some months from now,
with fireweed blooming
along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing
and carving
and reminding us that here,
Mother Nature wins.
It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild
good life teeming along the road that is
north to the future.

Send an email to the author of this post at john@gawker.com.

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