Beginning French-Laurie Anderson

[ti:Beginning French] [ar:Laurie Anderson] [al:Live in New York] [by:] [offset:0] [00:00.00]Beginning French - Laurie Anderson [00:04.27]I've been doing a lot of concerts in French [00:06.98] [00:09.22]Unfortunately I don't speak French [00:11.85] [00:13.05]I memorize it [00:13.76] [00:15.06]I mean my mouth is moving but [00:17.24]I don't really understand what I'm saying [00:19.21] [00:21.19]It's like sitting at the breakfast table [00:22.85]And it's early in the morning and you're not quite awake [00:26.52]And you're just sitting there eating cereal [00:28.57]And sort of staring at the writing on the box [00:30.93] [00:32.81]And not reading it exactly [00:34.75]Just more or less looking at the words [00:36.54] [00:37.11]And suddenly for some reason you snap to attention [00:41.15]And you realize that what [00:42.85]You're reading is what you're eating [00:44.94] [00:45.93]But by then it's much too late [00:48.17] [00:50.51]After doing these concerts in French [00:53.60]I usually had the temporary illusion that [00:55.66]I could actually speak French [00:58.39]But as soon as I walked out on the street [01:00.21]And someone asked me simple directions [01:01.67] [01:02.67]I realized I couldn't speak a single word [01:04.59] [01:05.68]So as a result of this inadequacy [01:08.03] [01:08.79]I found that the people [01:10.35]I had the most rapport with were the babies [01:14.90]And one of the things I noticed about [01:16.86]These babies was that they were apparently being used [01:20.15]As some kind of traffic testers [01:21.90] [01:22.88]Their mothers would be [01:23.97]Pushing them along in their strollers [01:25.22]And they would come to a busy [01:26.55]Street with lots of parked cars [01:27.83] [01:28.57]And the mother can't see what the traffic [01:30.32]Is like because of all the parked cars [01:32.30]So she just sort of edges the stroller out [01:35.84]Into the street and cranes her head out afterwards [01:39.38] [01:40.06]And the most striking thing about this [01:43.46]Is the expression on these babies' faces [01:45.84] [01:48.53]As they sit there in the middle of traffic stranded [01:51.76] [01:52.62]Banging those little gavels they've all got [01:55.82] [01:57.28]And they can't even speak English [01:58.62] [02:00.94]Do you know what I mean