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Saturday, January 12, 2008

Stories from the Nerve Bible

I mentioned some work by Laurie Anderson in my previous post. The 'lyrics' (I'm never sure what to call the words LA uses) I was thinking of are set out below:

"The first really strange stories I heard were Bible stories and these stories were completely amazing: about parting oceans and talking snakes and people seemed to really believe these stories, and I'm talking about adults who mainly did the most mundane things imaginable, mowing their lawns, throwing pot luck parties; they all believed in these wild stories and they would sit around and discuss them in the most matter of fact way. So in a way I was introduced to a special local form of surrealism at an early age; so there was always a question in my mind about what is actually true and what is just an artform.

And so as an artist I always thought that my main job was to be a spy and use my eyes and ears and find some of the answers. . ."

1 comment:

Eric said...

Further on in LA's album, she talks about her interest in the occult. I can't tell if she is satirical, ironic, or serious. But if serious, the fascinating conjunction of thinking Bible accounts to be 'surrealist' but being able to participate in occult rituals is wonderful!

I recall ages ago an article in Southern Cross that reported a survey saying that those who rejected biblical accounts of origins also were more likely to be wide open to any crazy (new age) idea going!

Not that surprising when modern science got its big kick along from those who today we'd call biblical creationists.