O Mom and Dad: Laurie Anderson 30 Years On

On a bright October Saturday I strolled over to hear a staged conversation with performance artist Laurie Anderson at Wheeler auditorium on the UC campus...

I first saw and heard Laurie Anderson perform thirty years ago this December. The occasion was a celebration of William S. Burroughs called The Nova Convention which took place in New York city. It was my first opportunity to see Burroughs whose works and whose persona I had been keenly investigating for the ten years previous. That year, 1978, I had been working on a land-surveying crew for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but the job had mercifully lapsed. It was just in time to avoid having to work outdoors in the cold weather and, any road, I was planning to leave for California the first week in January 1979. So I was free and had a little scratch for a change. I called the Intermedia theater for tickets and booked a room at the Chelsea Hotel.
What a thrill it was to meet our fearless leader at last--the mythic Hombre Invisible in person. Opening night was a Friday and it was fraught. After Bill's rather brief apparition on stage, came elusive exemplars of the 20th century avant-garde including Burroughs' doppel-ganger Brion Gysin. John Cage performance consisted of amplifying the sounds of himself brewing and drinking tea while Merce Cunningham minced around as if to music.
Along with these legends whom I was seeing for the first time there were other artists on stage most of whom were well-known to me. Others were completely new, such as the two striking women who were introduced at separate points in the show to do quite similar acts. They were both attired in man-tailored tails and both recited texts with sound effects added to their voices. One of them was Julia Heywood whose voice became a chorus of sped-up penguins. The other woman performed a gripping piece contriving to be the authoritarian voice of a pilot during a near plane-crash. She had sparkling eyes a wide smile and in those days brown bobbed hair and she made a rather wholesome overall impression. This was Laurie Anderson 1978. The shock of the new, the recognition of a new modality of expression, post-modernity before the word became a commonplace, all these premises were mingled in my unmitigated appreciation of her. How corny Ginsberg and Orlovsky's hootenanny seemed that evening.

I recall a few notices of Julia after that night but when Burroughs went on tour a year or so later it with John Giorno and Laurie Anderson. She was the one selected to filled the bill. By then she had had an international hit single with "O Superman" which actually entered the U.K. top twenty pop records. In that short time, it had become her fame that was helping to introduce Burroughs to the young and trendy. Her arsenal of special effects and electronic trickery was state-of-the-art and second to none. The charm of her demeanor and the unmistakable presence and yet ambiguity of her social and political critique of America served to support a big tent.

In 1986 I hosted a in-store appearance by Laurie at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco in support of the publication of the book of her project entitled The United States. A vast amount of people showed up to meet her and in the course of a long evening I became somewhat acquainted with her. I found her to be an authentic, genuinely sweet person who gave me the distinct impression of a school teacher type. She put a thumb fingerprint in ink in each book she signed and received much affection in return.

Twenty years later, I find myself interested in what she's up to but not terribly so. She turns up on the high-brow circuit in Berkeley and San Francisco every few years with an incredibly ambitious project such as an operatic treatment of Moby Dick. The reviews are always positive--fawning verging on yawning is how I would describe them. If someone gave me a ticket I probably would go to, for example, her latest opus, Homeland, a play on The Homeland Security Act one doesn't doubt. Yet I am not particularly curious about it. It was however a unusual opportunity to see her in the unrehearsed venue of this talk and one I was determined to sacrifice my Saturday afternoon to attend.

Minutes before the start time I was able to glide in and find a seat in the fifth row center. It may have helped that the ceremonial blood-letting on the grid-iron was taking place at the same time--worthwhile events with free admission tend to be packed hereabouts. The predictable preambles were delivered by operatives from the academic culture-crats. We were consoled for the difficulty in obtaining parking spaces on a "game day." Laurie came out with her interlocator for the occasion. She looked ever the same--a very-well preserved version of her perennial self. The interviewer was a fairly young guy from a campus office of art and technology.
He seemed to exhibit a trait I have often observed in the young scholars of today's academia--they throw out some undigested slab of something they read that they think may relate to a discussion at hand. After a loose citation, they then turn to the older person--a professor, or a distinguished visitor in this case, and expect them to make the sense out of it that they did not. Some of his thinking indicated that, while he might have the mind for an artist, he was not perhaps the best person for the present job. He had a sloppy note-pad full of semi-organized jottings rather than a set of questions. Everything was "fascinating" or "really, really interesting."
After he asked her what growing up among ten siblings did for her, she seemed to decide that she would set the agenda for what she said rather than fictionalize a narrative of herself as was expected of her. Laurie is one of the great crowd-pleasing school marm types of the era. When she saw how screwy things would be if she allowed this guy to bring up all his own baloney--I now know that his daughter's name is Odessa-- she told her own stories and only let him in now and then. Not to say she didn't show him a good time--when William S. Burroughs came up, he decided to perform his favorite quote of Bill's in a thoroughly lousy impression of him. Then Laurie who certainly knew better said "What a good imitation of Bill's voice." Was this stroke to humor him while winking to those in the know? Her work is characterized by no single thing more than the double entendre.

The defining moment came right away. He was one of these smug people at UC Berkeley who think that they are part of the anti-establishment associated with historical Berkeley. He said he had heard her brother was an alumnus. She said that was true and that he was here today with his daughter. Interviewer responded, " So you are one of us then." "Keep drawing those lines," she incisively relieved him of his unchallenged hubris.
When he continued to describe Berkeley as the last remaining bastion of resistance and free speech. She recollected her own time in the 60s and asked if it were still that way. I shook my head with a regretful expression. This was entirely visible to Laurie who was seated in a chair eye-level with me, and invisible to the hapless and naive interviewer. Just as well, I didn't dislike him and had no desire to put him off his game. Laurie on the other hand noticed and said she would like to hear more about how Berkeley has changed while appearing to look directly at me. In my fresh fade military haircut, my Lou Reed Raybans, my T-shirt and vegetarian build, and my hearing aid, maybe I looked like someone she could relate to, or maybe she actually recognized me from her book party at City Lights 20 years ago, or maybe it was just my delusion of reference, but she seemed eager to talk to me.

A very hilarious moment occurred next that would be difficult to describe and induce hilarity as such--but it may be amusing nevertheless. The ever homey interviewer mentioned that Laurie had recently gotten married. She said yes, she married her partner of 15 years. In her homey humble way she said, "He's also a musician, his name is Lou Reed." And a lady seated in the row behind us said "O-oh," sounding as if she thought she were having coffee alone with Laurie. I scour the world for laughs and was stoned, so I laughed, but the student-aged girl next to me, and even more so two guys in front of us, were all quaking with laughter. Laurie missed the lady but saw us laughing. She was a little non-plussed for a second, probably curious, but then just she assimilated it as welcome good feeling.

Laurie was very much on about the state of the Union so to speak. She remarked at one point that at least it looked like the Democrat would win and tried to raise a cheer. Small cheer it was too--one thing the interviewer got right was that Berkeley presents a tough audience. Many may think that Senator Obama is too little, too late.
We learned where she will be election night--in Tel Aviv. The intrinsic wrongness of it seemed apparent to many including herself. It seems there had been a switcheroo on the date pulled on her by the Israelis whose concern for American public relations is constant. Perhaps they want a prominent quasi-anti-US government artist to appear on the night Joe Lieberman's preferred War party loses the election. That was pure conjecture on my part. What she said next is more a matter of record. A Israeli official asked her to remove references to the occupation of Iraq from Homeland. He said the reason was that the War was very popular in Israel. It goes without saying naturally that nothing must ever upset or challenge the Israeli people. Her vacillation over this her latest career move--to play Israel-- was obvious. There was however no uncertainty in her following statement that it made it very angry when people try to get her to take things out of her show. I tried to say "Well?" with my eyebrows.

Then it was time for the questions from the peanut (and other assorted nut) gallery. Right away, a guy who eschewed the formality of lining up at the microphone asked her a version of the first question many of us were thinking: "What do you hope to accomplish by going to Tel Aviv?" She bristled slightly which is unusual for her and said she didn't think an artist should have to "accomplish something." In one of a couple of references to Bob Dylan*, she said it was like expecting Dylan to always write protest songs. She may have been a wee bit evasive.
All the other "questioners" really had no questions for her but wanted her response to a few minutes of them rambling on about themselves. The one-hour talk had already been stretched to beyond that and, frankly, I was ready for the out-of-doors. One girl whose point I actually liked--that upon coming in from the country she was struck by the militarization of society citing as an example greenery kept trimmed very short or tall trees with their low branches cut--just went on for too long. In a slightly exasperated but not at all hostile tone of voice I said, "q-u-ess-tion-n!" Nobody gave me a "You're mean" look. She did get to a question of sorts and Laurie picked up on the tree trimming in particular in her reply. "It's not for our safety it's to keep surveillance on us."
The last questioner was the farthest out. Laurie had just advised artists to try changing their voices to discover sides of themselves heretofore unseen. A tall gray-haired woman approximately the same age as Laurie began to address her in a deep, "sexy-knickers" sort of voice. Absurd from the git-go, when she between piling on the ambiguous sexual innuendos it became a humorous performance art act. Laurie, a lover of stories, never cuts people off and seemed interested, maybe she was somewhat flattered. Then the lady said, "It's really great great when we can bounce off each other like this." I had to remark to the young lady next to me--"There's an attempt at seduction to this." "Oh totally," she laughed. "Laurie Anderson taught me to see everything as a double-entendre," I joked.

Then it was smiles all around as the conclusion seemed foregone. Interviewer jested that he could have gone on another few hours. As I shook my head and mouthed "no," Laurie spoke up to say "Don't worry that's not going to happen... and I want to hear from you how Berkeley has changed." It was few only hours before her big show that night and I wasn't joining the scrim of fans eager to chat. I gave her a hearty pranam with arms extended, then I hit the aisle leading toward the rest of the afternoon.

Postscript:
Four days later phony "former-Arab terrorists" were allowed to spread disinformation in the same Wheeler auditorium where Laurie appeared. The University Republicans were allowed to put on this foulness despite the fact that these guys, who toured around the time they were first selling the occupation of Iraq, have already been exposed as frauds in in the NY Times and in the Israeli press. But the people who sold America the bogus "war on terror" wanted another propaganda event to scare voters one more time on the eve of the election. Huge expensive color posters covered the neighborhood. They showed eyes behind an Arabic scarf with "Why We Want to Kill You" written large. I tore down a half-dozen myself.
The reason I mention this is to contrast it with the delusions expressed by Laurie Anderson's interviewer regarding the legacy of free speech at Berkeley. The campus paper The Daily Cal reported that the night of the unwelcome appearance of these evil stooges, UC Police lined the walls of Wheeler. They intimated many out of freely challenging these lying propagandists, and escorted off any who took the microphone to express outrage at government support for toxic Zionism.


*The other mention was to say that Dylan romanticized the loser, made losers cool. In my own thinking, that is why "Like a Rolling Stone" is not a put-down song but a song endorsing personal liberation, the abandonment of bourgeois values.