Messiness and Chaos (and a Bunch of Other Things, Too)

"I was originally a sculptor and I love things that just don't fit into boxes. I'm really happy when I see that things don't fit."

(Laurie Anderson, October 2010)

KUSF Radio (San Francisco) recently aired a conversation between Laurie Anderson and radio DJ Bryan Chandler, originally recorded in October 2010. Now you can listen to the whole two-hour-long Laurie Anderson Special in KUSF Radio's online archive - with a detailed introduction to Laurie's career by Bryan Chandle.



If you are interested in only the interview, here it is, cut into three parts - I edited the songs out and did some noise reduction on the audio:

• Bryan Chandler's interview with Laurie Anderson on KUSF - Part One (audio length: 6 mins 31 secs, file size: 8.96 MB)

• Bryan Chandler's interview with Laurie Anderson on KUSF - Part Two (audio length: 5 mins 59 secs, file size: 8.24 MB)

• Bryan Chandler's interview with Laurie Anderson on KUSF - Part Three (audio length: 7 mins 44 secs, file size: 10.6 MB)

(Impatient? Here's some tags for you: 'Homeland', workaholism, Karl Marx, 'Transitory Life', 'Delusion', progress, old hard drives and altitude, messiness and chaos, wedding, yawning, lip-synching, TV-B-Gone, food porn, Ken Nordine - who could wish for more.)


FYI: the list of songs that were played:

Flow
Let X = X
It Tango
Only an Expert remix
Sharkey's Day
Transitory Life
O Superman
Is Anybody Home
Strange Perfumes

Another Day in America
Sharkey's Night
Falling
Only an Expert
Accompanied by Ghosts
Difficult Listening Hour
The Ugly One with the Jewels

Laurie Anderson in Garantat 100%

"I don't see any perfect way to tell a story."

"I think it would be good to have an artist-in-residence in the Supreme Court, the Congress, the White House... artists see the world differently than politicians."

"I try to be a good observer and see what's going on, and to mix that with fantasy."

"You're born with anger, too, and real rage, Shakespearean rage. A two-year-old has Shakespearean rage, they just can't express it."

"I'm not the kind of person who's going "please put me on your magazine cover because I want people to look at me". And the reason is that I'm a snob. I don't really care, actually. I came from the art world into the pop culture and I thought it was idiotic. Pop culture in America is made for ten-year-olds. Nothing against ten-year-olds, they should have their stuff. I came from another world where we thought "maybe let's make something for other people than ten[-year-olds]"."

[All quotes by Laurie Anderson, as heard in a conversation with Cătălin Ştefănescu in Romanian cultural talk show 'Garantat 100%']

"Forget the Message."

"If artists just had messages to deliver in a work of art, you could just write your message down, you wouldn't have to make your symphony, etc... Forget the message. It's just something that makes us go... TAAH!"

(Laurie Anderson, November 2010)

Watch the first video of Mnemosyne's own Youtube channel: it's the trailer for the Romanian cultural talk show 'Garantat 100%'. Laurie Anderson was a guest of the show during her stay in Bucharest, Romania in November 2010.

The Hand in It

Laurie Anderson speaking about the importance of personality in a work of art in this video trailer for photographer Anderw Zuckerman's new album of musicians' portraits: MUSIC. (Andrew Zuckerman was the photographer of, amongst others, Fenway Bergamot's portrait that made it to the album cover of 'Homeland'. Judging from various discernible details, the video might have been made at the time of the shooting of this this photo.)

Laurie's Territory

A recent documentary on Laurie Anderson in Portuguese (luckily, the interview is subtitled) - click to the picture to watch the video (it will open in a new window):

How to Turn Random Goodness into a Blog

Dearreader(s),


now that the posts irreversibly outnumbered the ever possible readers of Files on a String (this is the 100th post on the blog, yay!), the moment of unabashed cult of personality has arrived (at last): here goes Mnemosyne's favourite portrait of Laurie Anderson, taken by Chester Simpson in San Francisco, 1984.


          Thanks for your attention so far.


                        Mnemosyne



(P. S.: In case you are new to Files on a String or never clicked to any photo: a bigger version does open in a new window.)

P. P. S.: For more gorgeousness, click to New Fine Art Prints' Laurie Anderson gallery.

Her Majesty

Laurie Anderson as Queen Mermaid, Coney Island, 2010.

Photo by Vincent James Pia

Original: Flickr

Neither snow nor rain nor gloom

... but this exquisite 'scribble' by graphic designer Jonathan Topf (click to the picture to get it in its appropriate, huge size):

I didn't know what was wrong with...

... Tim Knox's portrait of Laurie Anderson (see the original below the link),

until I

mirrored it horizontally.

Some things are just

pictures.

They're scenes

before   your   eyes.

Don't look now.

I'm   right

behind

you.

(Photo by Martin Schoeller, 1999. Source here)
('Coolsville' lyrics by Laurie Anderson)

Come here. Watch it glitter.

Click to the picture to learn about 10 of Laurie Anderson's favourite things - a splendid little multimedia portrait in FLYP Magazine from 2009:

[spoiler]

1. Canon EOS 5D - making "story films" with a budget* camera
2. Planetariums - projecting film on the dome of a planetarium in Austin, Texas
3. Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center - performance space in Troy, N.Y.
4. Eccentric Blogs - reading Unnecessary Quotes and Cats that Look Like Hitler
5. Lunch with the Ladies - Saturday meals with a rotating group of women
6. Imaginary Operas - creating an opera that could never be staged
7. Mingyur Rinpoche - learning about Tibetan Buddhism from her teacher
8. Sound Gardens - designing and building garden spaces that speak
9. Thinking about Texas
10. Urban Cycling - Riding around NYC on a Dutch-style bicycle

[/spoiler]



(Hint: make sure your speakers are on.)


* huh?

You know, sometimes I think I can smell light.

That distant smile worn under her closed eyelids - a genuine Laurie Anderson pose. A gorgeous photo just published today, initiator of this blog:

Laurie Anderson, musician and multi-media artist, in her New York home, May 19, 2010. Anderson's new album "Homeland", out now, is her first studio record of new material in nearly 10 years.

Photographer: Fred R. Conrad

(Original here)