The Cultural Ambassador (Live)-Laurie Anderson

[ti:The Cultural Ambassador(live版)] [ar:Laurie Anderson] [al:The Ugly One With The Jewels And Other Stories] [by:] [offset:0] [00:00.00]The Cultural Ambassador (Live) - Laurie Anderson [00:00.31]Anyway I was in israel as a kind [00:03.67]Of cultural ambassador [00:06.53]And there were lots of press [00:07.97]Conferences scheduled [00:09.17]Around the performances [00:10.78]The journalists usually started things off [00:13.45]By asking about the avantgarde [00:15.65] [00:16.53]So what's so good about new they'd ask [00:20.83]Well new is interesting [00:21.90] [00:25.58]And what they would say is so [00:27.34]Good about interesting [00:29.66]Well interesting is you know it's interesting [00:34.94]It's like being awake you know [00:37.80]I'm treading water now [00:38.73]And what is so good about [00:39.83]Being awake they'd say [00:41.29]Finally I got the hang of this [00:43.56]Never answer a question [00:45.33]In israel always answer by asking [00:47.45]Another question [00:49.01]But the Israelis were vey curious [00:51.28]About the gulf war [00:52.54]And what americans had thought [00:53.74]About it and I tried [00:55.38]To think of a good question to [00:56.62]Ask and answer to [00:57.50]This but what was really on [00:58.81]My mind was that the [01:00.42]Week before I had myself [01:02.13] [01:02.86]Been testing explosives [01:04.94]In a parking lot in tel aviv [01:08.20]Now this happened [01:09.17]Because I had brought some [01:10.33]Small stage bombs [01:11.75]To Israel as props for this [01:14.08]Performance and the [01:15.57]Israeli promoter was very interested in them [01:19.16]And it turned out that he was on weekend duty [01:21.54]On one of the bomb squads and bombs were [01:24.36]Also something of a hobby during the week [01:27.92]So I said [01:28.87]Look you know these bombs are [01:30.31]Nothing special just just a little smoke [01:32.31] [01:32.84]And he said well we can get much [01:35.29]Better things for you [01:37.09]And I said [01:37.61]No really these are fine and he said [01:39.91]No but it should be big theatrical [01:42.09] [01:42.65]It should make an impression I mean [01:44.13]You really just the right bomb [01:46.35]And so one morning he arranged to have [01:48.57]About fifty small bombs delivered to a parking lot [01:52.84]And since he looked on it as a sort of [01:54.56]Special surprise [01:54.90] [01:55.89]Favor I couldn't really refuse so [01:59.22]We are on this parking [02:00.23]Lot testing the bombs and after [02:01.92] [02:02.46]The first few explosions [02:04.51]I found I was really getting pretty interested [02:08.48] [02:09.56]They all had very different characteristics [02:12.03]Some had fiery orange tails and [02:14.18]Made these low paah [02:15.19]Paah paah popping sound others [02:17.71]Exploded mid air [02:19.03]And left long smoky slinky trails [02:22.40]And he had several [02:23.36]Of each kind in case I needed to [02:26.18]Review them all at the end [02:27.89]And I'm thinking [02:28.73] [02:29.63]Here I am a citizen of the world's largest arms [02:34.26]Supplier setting off bombs with the world's second [02:37.61]Largest arms customer and I'm having a great time [02:43.43] [02:45.11]So even though the diplomatic part of the trip [02:47.35]Wasn't going so well at least [02:49.39]I was getting some instruction in terrorism [02:53.14]And it reminded me of something in a book by [02:55.79]Don deLillo about how terrorists [02:58.29]Are the only true artists [02:59.94]Left because they're the only ones who are still [03:02.84]Capable of really surprising people [03:05.79] [03:06.52]And the other thing it reminded me of were all the [03:09.06]Attempts during the gulf war to outwit [03:11.46]The terrorists and I especially [03:13.41]Remember an interesting [03:14.66]Liist of tips devised by the us embassy in madrid [03:20.14]And these tips were designed for americans [03:23.06]Who found themselves in wartime airports [03:25.63] [03:26.38]The idea was not to call ourselves to the [03:28.88]Attention of the numerous foreign terrorists [03:31.90]Who were presumably lurking all over the terminal [03:34.29] [03:34.86]So the embassy tips were a list of mostly don'ts [03:40.10]Things like don't wear a baseball cap [03:43.78] [03:44.64]Don't wear a sweat shirt with the name of [03:47.09]An american university on it don't wear [03:50.49]Timberlands with no socks don't chew gum [03:55.41]Don't yell ethel our plane is leaving [04:00.70]I mean it's weird when your entire culture [04:03.20]Can be summed up in eight giveaway characteristics [04:07.23] [04:10.82]And during the gulf war I was traveling around [04:13.06]Europe with a lot of equipment and all the airports [04:16.55]Were full of security guards who would [04:19.23]Suddenly point to a suitcase and start yelling [04:22.91]Whose bag is this I wanna know right now [04:25.29]Who owns this bag [04:26.88]And huge groups of passengers would start [04:29.35]Out for the bag just running around in circles like a [04:32.22]Skud missile on its way in and I was carrying [04:35.63]A lot of electronics so I had to keep unpacking [04:38.97]Everything and plugging it in and demonstrating [04:41.03] [04:41.73]How it all worked and I guessed [04:44.01]I did seem a little fishy [04:46.06]A lot of this stuff wakes up displaying led program [04:49.18]Readouts that have names like adam smasher and [04:52.36]So it took a while to convince them that they [04:54.49]Weren't some kind of espionage system [04:57.98] [04:58.63]So I've done quite a few of these sort of impromptu [05:02.84]New music concerts for small groups of detectives [05:06.65]And customs agents and I'd have to keep setting [05:11.08]All this stuff up and they'd listen [05:12.92]For a while and they'd say [05:14.43]So uh what's this [05:17.38]And I'd pull out something like this sayfilter and [05:20.91]Now this is what I'd like to think [05:23.34]Of as the voice of authority [05:26.80]And it would take me a while to tell them [05:29.35]How I used it for songs that were you know [05:32.38]About various forms of control and they would say [05:37.81] [05:39.15]Now why would you want to talk like that [05:45.09] [05:46.72]And I'd look around at the and the undercover [05:50.06]Agents and the dogs and the radio in the corner [05:54.41]Tuned to the superbowl coverage of the war [05:58.14] [05:58.68]And I'd say take a wild guess [06:05.24] [06:06.80]Finally of course I got through with this after all [06:10.42]American made equipment and the customs agents [06:13.69]Were all talking about the effectiveness no the [06:17.12]Beauty the elegance of the american [06:20.62]Strategy of pinpoint bombing [06:23.17] [06:23.73]The high tech surgical approach which was being [06:27.63]Reported by cnn as something between grand opera [06:32.54]And the superbowl like the first reports before the [06:37.55]Blackout when tv was live and [06:41.45]Everything was heightened [06:43.75]And it was so euphoric [06:45.75]The Cultural Ambassador(live版) - Laurie Anderson