The Mysterious "J" (Live)-Laurie Anderson

[ti:The Mysterious "J"(live版)] [ar:Laurie Anderson] [al:The Ugly One With The Jewels And Other Stories] [by:] [offset:0] [00:00.00]The Mysterious "J" (Live) - Laurie Anderson [00:03.81]In the book there are several chapters about [00:06.90]Women talking and women writing [00:09.89] [00:11.77]Now it seems likely that men invented [00:14.39]Writing and wrote what [00:17.20]Maybe ninety [00:18.03]Maybe ninety five percent of [00:20.03]Everything that's ever been written [00:21.93] [00:24.25]Oh theres the recent theory that a woman [00:27.38]The mysterious jwrote much of the old testament [00:31.06] [00:31.78]But only because god was portrayed [00:33.51]In this book as patriarchal [00:36.43]Tyrannical and inconsistent [00:39.25] [00:39.99]The way presumably only a woman [00:42.44]Would write about a man [00:44.36] [00:45.81]But I think I can picture this j scribbling away [00:49.24]And laughing although the first time [00:52.25]I saw the bible re enacted was [00:54.78]Sometime in the seventys [00:56.26]And there was a cable tv show in the midwest and [00:59.83]Bible study groups would act out parts of the bible [01:04.07]But these were pretty low budget productions and [01:06.85]Shot in a church basement or somebodys [01:10.37]And all the prophets had towels wrapped around [01:13.43]Their heads for turbansbut you could see the tags [01:17.34]The ones with the washing instructions [01:19.29]Of Sort sticking out and back there were very [01:22.35]Few women on these tapes [01:23.99]They tended to be the odd shepherdess [01:25.14]Sort dancing girl bit part [01:27.86] [01:28.79]Then last year I was invited to perform in [01:31.53]Israel and I was very excited because [01:33.88]I wanted to see jerusalem where this mysterious [01:37.01]J had spent her life writing and working and [01:41.45]The gulf war had made me even more curious [01:44.72]So I did some asking aroundsome informal research [01:49.05]And I talked to an israeli woman who was living in [01:51.46]New york and she was really having a hard time [01:54.72]Living there and she was always complaining [01:58.00]About american men and say [02:00.97]You know american men are such wimps [02:05.12]I mean they're always talking about their feelings [02:08.19] [02:09.14]And I said they are [02:11.82] [02:12.94]And she said she really liked israeli men because [02:15.05]They were so tough and because [02:16.54]They all had guns and I said [02:18.61]Gunsyou like guys with guns [02:20.13]And she said she did and went on about how terrible [02:22.50]It was that clinton wanted to reduce the army [02:26.32]And she was so animate about this that [02:27.94]I started to get kind of worried yeah [02:29.21]Thought yeah I that's true what are all these [02:31.73]Military people going to do when they lose their jobs [02:34.65]And then I thought wellhang on weve [02:37.72]Got all these service industries now [02:39.66]Things like psychotherapy and the military [02:42.24]Approach to psychotherapy [02:43.83]Would really be kind of perfect [02:45.26]Really efficient and fastyou know listen [02:47.66]You are nothing you are a wormand if you [02:51.26]Don't get that mother complex out [02:52.96]By o four hours you are dead meat