i see laurie anderson as among those whose very lives have become a piece of art, or performance. but where that can be so, SO, annoying and even alienating with so many other people who have tried to do it, with laurie anderson i come away more impressed every time. as she gets older, her words and messages are getting warmer and more...comforting...but also her sense of humor is somehow getting both sharper and more subtly deployed. with everything. in interviews, in lectures. i saw her speak and play and show and tell at the art institute of chicago a couple years ago. after her performance, she wandered down the hall with one of the other musicians and they played instrumental duets (she on viola) out in the middle of one of the big hallway exhibits of ancient sculpture, with a small amp. i sat behind her and got lots of good pics of their setup from her pov, but with a perfectly chiseled ancient ass as the frame.
lol, i suddenly realized i've told this whole story before. i'm going to grab the image from above but not read my telling of it back then, to see how warped my memories have become
https://i.imgur.com/6iQyVZa.jpg
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 4 March 2021 19:08 (three years ago) link
hmm, i see see that now i think she "wandered" down the hall. i don't know. she probably did.
i loved one part in that first lecture above (which i think is still up til 5 pm EST today) where she talked about teaching ancient syrian and egyptian art history, and she couldn't remember so she just started making up things. and then later, got fired/quit. :D
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 4 March 2021 19:12 (three years ago) link
It's probably not your fault but it took me a moment there to realise with some relief that you were talking about a statue's ass and not LA's ;-)
― Noel Emits, Thursday, 4 March 2021 19:19 (three years ago) link
lol, hey she may be old but she is not ancient! either way, i'd say that we should put her on the $100 bill but it seems to disgusting to mix her up with the world of printed circulation. but she's a national treasure at any rate
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 4 March 2021 19:24 (three years ago) link
<3
― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 4 March 2021 20:05 (three years ago) link
is the national debt long, or is it wide?
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Thursday, 4 March 2021 20:08 (three years ago) link
repeatedly mentions “just a lot of questions” in this. at least as central to her technique as aquatic disaster
― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 4 March 2021 20:11 (three years ago) link
she is a master of the arresting question
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Thursday, 4 March 2021 20:22 (three years ago) link
obviously there's the zen koan connection too, and she cites them so frequently. i've never really been able to find a way into zen koans (not that i've given it a serious level of effort, like the amount of effort that it takes to run a ilm poll. so maybe i should...run another ilm poll!). but i kind of see her questions as related to those, maybe as her own versions of those for the modern day, and it makes me appreciate both her and also kind of helps me think of how those koans might be useful for other people too
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 4 March 2021 20:29 (three years ago) link
nothing to add here but this is making me all warm and fuzzy
― I like signing up to dead sites (sleeve), Thursday, 4 March 2021 20:31 (three years ago) link
she calls common sense “really just a long list of questions” on homeland
anyway thanks v much f hazel, woulda missed this.
― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 4 March 2021 20:32 (three years ago) link
same! did anyone catch when the next one is supposed to be? and there are 6 of them? 8? i may have dreamed about this last night
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 4 March 2021 20:59 (three years ago) link
also i'm going to straight up lift a few of her video/presentation/visual aides from that, because goddamn
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 4 March 2021 21:00 (three years ago) link
Yes. thanks---I wonder if the replay of the radio shows she mentions are going to be at 4:00am again---? Wouldn't be the same effect she describes if I set the alarm, grab a coffee--will just have to stay awake 'til they start.Her acceptance speech for Lou at R&Roll Hall of Fame--balance to what she says about music in lecture and pretty fine anyway (comments about "Lulu" most of the balance. also now we go from Eno to re:Arethe etc)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VaeEmBPmGk
― dow, Thursday, 4 March 2021 21:06 (three years ago) link
I think the next one is 3/24.
― JoeStork, Thursday, 4 March 2021 21:37 (three years ago) link
The next radio show!? What station? I'm guessing wfmu. Anyway, she's in good company amidst Steinski's Rough Mix: https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/56137
― dow, Thursday, 4 March 2021 22:27 (three years ago) link
https://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/archives/party-in-the-bardo-conversations-with-laurie-anderson-archive.html
― tylerw, Thursday, 4 March 2021 22:33 (three years ago) link
no, the next Norton lecture. which apparently has a conversation / Q&A portion after the lecture, so I signed up for the second one.
― lukas, Thursday, 4 March 2021 22:35 (three years ago) link
Bummed that, it appears, they aren't posting the rest of the conversations in this series.
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Thursday, 25 March 2021 18:07 (three years ago) link
The Mahindra Humanities Center is pleased to announce an upcoming broadcast of Laurie Anderson's second Norton Lecture, initially presented on March 24, 2021. The Forest will be available to watch online for a limited time. The recording will premiere at 5pm EDT on April 7, 2021 and will remain available for the next 24 hours, until 5pm EDT on April 8, 2021.it'll be herehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd68fLDyN_4
― lukas, Friday, 26 March 2021 16:52 (three years ago) link
thanks, put it on my calendar!
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 26 March 2021 16:55 (three years ago) link
Fantastic!
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Friday, 26 March 2021 17:03 (three years ago) link
Laurie Anderson’s 1982 debut album, Big Science, will return to vinyl for the first time in thirty years with a new red vinyl edition due April 9 on Nonesuch Records. The vinyl includes the re-mastered original album first released on CD for the 25th anniversary of Big Science on Nonesuch in 2007....While working on her now-legendary seven-hour performance art/theater piece United States, Part I–IV, she cut the spare "O Superman (For Massenet)," an electronic-age update of 19th century French operatic composer Jules Massenet’s aria ‘O Souverain’, for the tiny New York City indie label 110 Records. In the UK, DJ John Peel picked up a copy of this very limited-edition 33⅓ RPM 7” and spun the eight-minute-plus track on BBC Radio 1. The exposure resulted in an unlikely #2 hit, lots of attention in the press, and a worldwide deal with Warner Bros. Records.
'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice.And when justice is gone, there's always force.And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi Mom!..."In the ’70s I traveled a lot," Anderson recounts. "I worked on a tobacco farm in Kentucky, hitchhiked to the North Pole, lived in a yurt in Chiapas, and worked on a media commune. I had my own romantic vision of the road. My plan was to make a portrait of the country. Big Science, the first part of the puzzle, eventually became part two of United States I–IV (Transportation, Politics, Money, Love). My goal was to be not just the narrator but also the outsider, the stranger. Although I was fascinated by the United States, this portrait was also about how the country looked from a distance. I was performing a lot in Europe, where American culture was simultaneously booed and cheered. But the portrait was also a picture of a culture inventing a digital world and learning to live in it. Big Science was about technology, size, industrialization, shifting attitudes toward authority, and individuality. It was sometimes alarmist, picturing the country as a burning building, a plane crash. Alongside the techno was the apocalyptic. The absurd. The everyday. It was also a series of short stories about odd characters—hatcheck clerks and pilots, preachers, drifters and strangers. There was something about Massenet's aria ‘O Souverain’—which inspired ‘O Superman’—that almost stopped my heart. The pauses, the melody. 'O souverain, ô juge, ô père' (O Lord, o judge, o father). A prayer about empire, ambition, and loss." https://www.nonesuch.com/albums/big-science-lp?eml=2021April2%2F5293848%2F6011771&etsubid=33248291And here,, in conversation w Will Young on BBC2:https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tnsk?eml=2021April2/5293848/6011771&etsubid=33248291
― dow, Monday, 5 April 2021 18:45 (three years ago) link
The olde Official Video is in that Nonesuch link too.
― dow, Monday, 5 April 2021 18:47 (three years ago) link
Would it kill them to re-release United States Live?
Christ, it’s ridiculous that LAURIE ANDERSON HOME OF THE BRAVE never got a DVD. Her website mentioned a box of her WB works some years ago, and I think it was supposed to include it
― beamish13, Monday, 5 April 2021 18:48 (three years ago) link
Really would love for them to release The Ugly One with the Jewels on vinyl too fwiw.
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Monday, 5 April 2021 18:50 (three years ago) link
She's a guest on this week's Adam Buxton podcast too - https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/podcasts
― Maresn3st, Monday, 5 April 2021 18:53 (three years ago) link
Laurie Anderson hitchhiked...to the North Pole??
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Monday, 5 April 2021 18:53 (three years ago) link
Really would love for them to release /The Ugly One with the Jewels/ on vinyl too fwiw.I haven’t heard this one before - what is it like?
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Monday, 5 April 2021 18:54 (three years ago) link
As someone who's always been a fan of her spoken word cadence and learned, through the years, to appreciate her music compositions, it was for sure a gateway drug. It's all spoken word and it's all hypnotic to me.
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Monday, 5 April 2021 18:55 (three years ago) link
She references doing so on the Ugly One with the Jewels and I always wondered if she had really done that!
― mark e. smith-moon (f. hazel), Monday, 5 April 2021 18:56 (three years ago) link
(and for my money, that's her best album)
― mark e. smith-moon (f. hazel), Monday, 5 April 2021 18:57 (three years ago) link
I really love that album and that story in particular
― I like signing up to dead sites (sleeve), Monday, 5 April 2021 19:00 (three years ago) link
The whole routine about being stopped by security in Israel is all-time
― jammy mcnullity (wins), Monday, 5 April 2021 19:00 (three years ago) link
iirc the North Pole trip is real? I think the hardcover book covers that
― I like signing up to dead sites (sleeve), Monday, 5 April 2021 19:01 (three years ago) link
TUOWTJ is almost completely spoken-word iirc, right?
― Maresn3st, Monday, 5 April 2021 19:08 (three years ago) link
Basically yes, and a (highly edited) live album.
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Monday, 5 April 2021 19:09 (three years ago) link
Her narratives are so confidently related in her work that I always assumed they're all made up. Like the scene from "It Was Up in the Mountains" from United States Live... did that really happen?
― mark e. smith-moon (f. hazel), Monday, 5 April 2021 19:10 (three years ago) link
I had a really nice afternoon a few years back when I took acid and wandered around a park listening to The Ugly One With the Jewels, it's kind of perfectly balanced between funny and unsettling and comforting.
― JoeStork, Monday, 5 April 2021 20:16 (three years ago) link
I'm really hoping this is the first of multiple reissues? So much of her best work is hard to find on any physical format.
― You guys are caterpillar (Telephone thing), Monday, 5 April 2021 21:37 (three years ago) link
wow, I guess it's not surprising but the majority of her albums are indeed OOP in any physical format.
― mark e. smith-moon (f. hazel), Monday, 5 April 2021 22:12 (three years ago) link
Ugly One and Bright Red were both great albums and should be in print again and on vinyl, that would be nice.
Home of the Brave: here's a really nice looking visual remaster someone did and put on youtube. It's been there for quite a while so I don't think it's going to be removed. I wouldn't hold out hope for any kind of official re-release since I've heard she has little to no interest in revisiting her past works. I wonder what kind of visual documentation there is of things like Nerve Bible and Empty Spaces? Empty Spaces was the first show I ever saw of hers and it was thrilling but so long ago I barely remember it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v663kBnsD0A
― akm, Monday, 5 April 2021 23:29 (three years ago) link
I've heard she has little to no interest in revisiting her past works
this is a shame, do you have a source or can you expand? it also explains the weird out-of-print issues.
brb gonna salvage my HOTB interview 2LP from the sell pile in the basement
― I like signing up to dead sites (sleeve), Monday, 5 April 2021 23:33 (three years ago) link
I attended a screening of HOME OF THE BRAVE. She says the hitchhiking story is true, although she didn’t quite reach the magnetic North Pole
― beamish13, Tuesday, 6 April 2021 00:04 (three years ago) link
Anderson also explained at said screening that she is proud of the music in it, but that the visuals make her “cringe” which is nuts to me
― beamish13, Tuesday, 6 April 2021 00:05 (three years ago) link
it's almost uniformly amazing. maybe she cringes at whatever is going on at about 1:02:45, because holy shit they really ham it up for a while there, lol
"Radar", at 45:12, is maybe the best thing i've ever seen
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 April 2021 06:31 (three years ago) link
"do you have a source or can you expand? " Anil Prasad told me that based off conversations and interviews he's done with her.
― akm, Tuesday, 6 April 2021 14:28 (three years ago) link
That kind of attitude is admirable but I wish there were a way to thread the needle between not forcing an artist into Legacy Mode and ensuring their past work is properly archived/made available
― You guys are caterpillar (Telephone thing), Tuesday, 6 April 2021 16:01 (three years ago) link
As lukas noted upthread, part 2 of the Norton Lectures is now live until 5pm EDT on April 8th:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd68fLDyN_4
― mark e. smith-moon (f. hazel), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 22:01 (three years ago) link
"It has never been more pertinent": Margaret Atwood on the chilling genius of Laurie Anderson’s 'Big Science'
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/apr/08/margaret-atwood-laurie-anderson-big-science-o-superman-prophetic-80s-america-pertinent
― Portsmouth Bubblejet, Thursday, 8 April 2021 08:28 (three years ago) link