"Make your travel plans now."

I'm not sure if there exists a phrase like that in English but I can't help saying it: if the following didn't exist, it should have been invented.

What the hell, you're asking, Dearreader?

Laurie Anderson as the voice of a planetarium. For real. Holy cr*p, this is so her. Me wants to go to Chicago, I mean, right now (hoping the show is still running). (No, of course it's not in the programme anymore.)

This video is a trailer for Time/Space, Adler Planetarium's animated show on the past and the future of the Cosmos, produced in 2005, narrated by Laurie Anderson:

(extra: a press release of the show from a previous version of Laurie's website)

"Here We Go", She Said (and She Meant It Literally)

"From a program recorded on September 14, 1981, Charles Amirkhanian gets a demonstration of the Eventide Clockworks Harmonizer from Laurie Anderson. The Harmonizer is the piece of equipment that Anderson has used, with such great effect, to lower the pitch of her voice in real time, during her concerts", says the description of Ode To Gravity's September 14, 1981 issue at archive.org.

Before that, the program also features Fenway Bergamot's first ever public appearance at the Nova Convention in 1978 (at that time he was just "a pompous blowhard" (quote from L. A.)). The recording, titled 'Song from America on the Move', a two-part performance piece by Laurie Anderson and Julia Heyward, can be found on the LP 'The Dial-A-Poem Poets: The Nova Convention'; Laurie's part was later titled as 'The Language of the Future' (in 'United States Live I-IV.').

• 00:45 - 07:02 The Language of the Future 

• 07:03 - 09:23 interview

In One of Those Abstract Trances :)

"My sKiRt is ShorT, mY HAir BIG,LauRie'S tIe is Hooked UP tO A SynClAvieR and The 5 Blind Boys ( of whom ThEre ARe Only 3) siNG LAAINGUIDGE, IS A VIRUS! fun to see this again."

(Joy Askew on the 'Language Is a Virus' video from 'Home of the Brave'

Facebook, 2011)

Painting with Light on an Enormous Canvas

Dead

stars

t  h  e  i  r    l i g h t    s  t  i  l  l

trapped

in time.

Light installation by Laurie Anderson

Sydney, Australia 2010
photo by huailimay

The picture above is part of this gorgeous photo gallery of Laurie Anderson's light installations on the sails of the Sydney Opera House during last year's VIVID Festival in Sydney, Australia.

Thanks to Darek for the URL!

Sleep is where you learn to let things go.

The dead in their hideouts.

The spinning world.

Yes, sleep is a vanishing act.

And then again, so is life.

[lyrics excerpt from 'Delusion' by Laurie Anderson]

[photo by Stanford Lively Arts]

Laurie Anderson at ICA (London), 1990

"[...] thrills for me are discovering something while I'm working or talking to someone or suddenly realizing "oh I could see that upside down for a second" or you just suddenly get a totally different point of view of a very familiar situation. To me that's a kind of key of... if it's already familiar but I can look at it as if it's not at all."

(Laurie Anderson, 1990)

Listen to a gorgeous conversation between Laurie Anderson and Sarah Kent at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, UK. According to the British Library's archive, the recording was made back in November 1990, cca. a year after the release of 'Strange Angels' album, and towards the last month of the 'Empty Places' Tour which was running almost during the whole year in 1990. Consequently, it's no surprise that among the topics were the current tour and the album; Wim Wenders; learning to sing; having a lot of different voices; speed and avant-garde; senator Jesse Helms and 'Coolsville' - plus many many more. There's a particularly amusing part about Ken Nordine around 38 minutes into the record; Laurie did a hilarious imitation of his manner of speaking.

• Laurie Anderson talk at ICA (1990) (audio length: 73 mins 13 secs; listen to the stream directly in the archive of the British Library)

Filling the Garden with a Single Melody

The Singing Trees project in Basel, Switzerland is not going to be Laurie Anderson's first garden sound installation - in 2002, she filled the World Financial Center Winter Garden with an enormous sound cloud created by her violin/viola.

Read about the details of the project Sonic Garden website or listen to Laurie's introduction and an excerpt of the lovely melody directly by clicking to the following URL:

• Laurie Anderson's Winter Garden Project (audio length: 2 mins 22 secs, file size: 3.27 MB)

Hablar... Gone... Awry

"I looked out and every single person had gone..."

(Laurie Anderson on her worst concert experience)

... the quote above is taken from Laurie's adventure with Spanish language from the time when she was trying to get rid of one of her bad habits. Read the rest of the story at WorstGig, music journalist Jon Niccum's interview series on artists' worst concert experiences.

Strange Perfumes in Budapest

"My mother is cold and my father is dead
I can only see him in the back of my own head."

(excerpt from 'Strange Perfumes' live version, 2007

music and lyrics by Laurie Anderson)

OMG, this is a mesmerizing live version of 'Strange Perfumes' - recorded in Budapest, Hungary, June 2007. It's got totally different lyrics from the album version, e. g. it mentions names from a long lost past - hear it for yourself.

The Ambience of Memory

'Egypt. Sunken Treasures', an extensive travelling exhibition of ancient Egyptian relics excavated from underwater in the area of the Nile Delta had a special extra feature in Italy: the musical / sound environment of the exhibition in Veneria was provided by Laurie Anderson.

Watch the video and enjoy the unique atmosphere supported by a hypnotic instrumental version of 'The Beginning of Memory' (at 0:53):

Thanks to Viki for the URL!

Pioneer of the Downtown Scene, 1974

'How to Yodel in Soup and Tart' by Laurie Anderson

The Kitchen, NYC, 1974

photo by Peter Moore

part of this forthcoming exhibition in the Barbican Art Gallery
(London, March - May 2011)

Just Another Fire in Dreamland

"What's this bell
Ringing in my ear?"

Musical Canine Classification

"This summer, a few months ago, I was directing a big music festival in Sydney and I said "okay, we're gonna invite a lot of people, all my favourite musicians from all around the world - Mongolian throat singers, rock bands, symphonies, blues guys" - a crazy mixture. And I said "I wanna do some music for dogs", and they said "okay, fine, fine". We thought maybe couple hundred dogs would show up... thousands of dogs showed up! All on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. [...]

I had the best time of my life. Also the dogs - they had been told for a week "you're going to a show", they were all very excited because they'd been having this preparation from their owners going "it's gonna be music for you and you're gonna love it", so when they got there, their tails were like...

BLAST!!

... You know, a lot of people say their dogs like classical music - for the same reason they say their children do because they [fall] asleep and it's very convenient when they're just...

ZZZZ

... but there were a lot of rocker dogs that went like...

I WANT TO ROCK!!

... Well, a lot of [the music] was frequencies upward, dogs love the high stuff but dog trainers said "don't play the super high stuff because you don't know what's gonna happen with that many dog"... My favourites were the dogs who were in the front row, the droolers, they were just looking up at the stage like...

WHAT.

... they were so sweet! And a lot of people brought their very old dogs... in carriages, dogs with one leg... it was a magic thing for me because I love animals and I love music. What it was it's just a new kind of music and a new kind of event."

[Stills of and quotes from Laurie Anderson, as seen / heard at Garantat 100%]

Möte med Laurie Anderson

"I'm thinking of shows like Oprah. They approach everything like something's wrong with you... Nothing's wrong with you. You're a human being [with] some things to figure out. [...] Fix yourself."

(Laurie Anderson, 2010) 

Click to the picture to (re-)watch Laurie Anderson talking about screaming and personality design, reaching out for help and oprahfication on the sofa of the set of 'Delusion' in Uppsala, Sweden, April 2010.

Grammy Flashback from 1984

While browsing the Grammy website for any mention of Laurie Anderson's nomination for Grammy 2011 (no success yet, by the way), I bumped into the following eye candy from 1984: along with Ray Davies, Laurie was the announcer for Best New Artist - the winner was Cyndi Lauper.

"I dreamt that I was living in a billboard...

... and I was living there because the city had become so crowded that billboards were the only places left..."

This is the beginning of Laurie Anderson's introduction to the episode on Place of PBS's 'Art in the Twenty-First Century' documentary series where "artists explore the idea of place by questioning commonly held assumptions about land, home and national identity".

Watch the video for more Andersonesque pondering on, for example, how she uses places as jumping-off points in her art or why we fall in love with places.

Just Because It Was There #2

Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed in Groningen, November 2008
photo source: Reyer Boxem / Redux

Making Something Is Really *Daring*

Australian writer / blogger Chris Boyd's interview with Laurie Anderson in three parts, on - amongst others - disembodiment, angels, elephants, the 'Homeland' performances as "back pocket shows" and the beauty of being an artist:

1. "The lost art of conversation..."
2. Homeland
3. "when people say 'I know exactly what you're talking about!"

(Note: for me, the order of the interview parts somehow seems to have been reversed, that's why I put "part three" into the first place and so on.)

Beauty of the World

The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize is "awarded to a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life through performances on the stage or in films or in any other area of the performing arts, by writing or composing a book, libretto, score, composition or other artistic work to be used in the performing arts, by directing performances, plays or films, by conducting orchestras or recitals or who has designed a stage set, theater, concert hall, opera house or other artistic or architectural creation for use in the performing arts or through other fields of art such as architecture, painting, sculpture, poetry and literature. The recipient should by excelling in his or her field have served as a model and encouragement to all others who would follow in his or her path. It is [Lillian Gish's] desire, by establishing this prize, to give the recipients of the prize the recognition they deserve, to bring attention to their contributions to society and to encourage others to follow in their path".


In 2007, Laurie Anderson was the chosen one.

By clicking to the picture below, you can watch the video of the Gish prize ceremony honoring Laurie Anderson, along with appreciative words and performances from friends and fellow artists Marina Abramović and Philip Glass (among others). The video opens in a new window.

Laurie's acceptance speech starts at 36 minutes into the video. This article at CultureKiosque cites parts of her speech about untrue-but-good stories and NASA's ambitious long-time plans. At 47', there's an after-ceremony interview with the freshly honored Laurie Anderson.

Hmmkay...

I don't have any additional information on this photo, I stumbled upon it at random, photos from those heydays of casual collaborations around Europe seem to pop up so rarely (and, according to the description below, this one must have been pretty interesting), I just needed to share:

"1979 - Truus and Laurie Anderson collaborating at the Vleeshal in Vlissingen, The Netherlands,

at an incredible show organized by Michel Waisvisz that included cheese wheels dropped from planes and exploding manure littered seating for a finale"*

Photo by Dirk Stevesyns

* the source of the quote and the photo is this website