November 22, 2003
One Beautiful Evening
In the Garden of Eden
A snake came walking in the twilight
He was leaning on his ivory cane
And he said:
"Let me tell you a little secret about life:
There's a certain sharpness
To a knife
Or a diamond
Come here!
Watch it glitter!"
It's another blue day in a nowhere place. I have no idea what brought that to mind, but there it is.
I love Laurie Anderson. Love.
Sometime in the early 1980s various folk from the still fairly communesque household I lived in went off to see her perform United States I-IV at the Dominion (where I saw Star Wars on its first run, and restored silent The Thief of Baghdad with a full orchestral accompaniment, and assorted other odd things; and which has for the last 15-odd years been home to one unspeakable musical after another, the current specimen being We Will Rock You). These various folk invited me. And, curse my fuckwitted adolescent self, I declined.
Let me just reiterate that: curse my fuckwitted adolescent self. He didn't know any better, I guess, but... AAARRGH! I was so close to seeing it. It was offered to me on a plate. And I -- he -- said no. Curse. Curse. Curse.
In any case, I came to my senses soon after and have not let it happen again. Whenever she has toured the UK since, I have gone. One of those people laughing and clapping in the background of The Ugly One With The Jewels, recorded in the old Sadler's Wells, would be me. Another would be Matthew, one of my converts. I converted Ian too, when the time came, and others as well. It wasn't difficult. I just took them to see her; she did the rest.
In September 2001, she played the Royal Festival Hall; the closest I've seen her get to a traditional rock concert. It was a week or so after the World Trade Center attacks. Quintessential New Yorker that she is, Laurie was clearly still pretty traumatized. When she sang O Superman, a beautiful but always melancholic song that had somehow become a novelty hit twenty years before, it seemed shockingly prescient and moving. Partly because of the lyrical coincidences:
They're American planes
Made in America
Smoking or non-smoking?
But more because the whole song -- and really, most of the rest of her work -- takes a very clear-eyed view of America and its place in the world. It was a very emotional evening -- giving lie to any notion that the avant garde is somehow cold and uninvolving.
Earlier this year she toured her show Happiness, another solo performance, and thanks to a timetabling collision I saw it twice. It was perhaps a little darker and more intimate than usual, though still very funny. She has astonishing stage presence and just commands attention. She is shimmeringly aware. She tells the truth; and lies beautifully. In one of the most finely-balanced sequences of Happiness, she told a story about teaching fictitious Egyptology. And then went on to a wholly unrelated story about Egypt, which was -- of course -- a complete fabrication. Which sounds clod-hopping, but wasn't in the least.
Anyway.
If you're going to tell stories, you might as well look to those who do it well. I look, at least some of the time, to Laurie Anderson. Her voice is the one I wish I could speak in. But since I can't, you'll just have to put up with mine.
Posted by matt at November 22, 2003 05:15 AM
