ATDTDA Playlist Addition

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Gawd, I love Laurie Anderson, managed to see/hear a 
cut-down version of "United States I-IV" at Perkins Palace,
Pasadena (Just around the corner from the old Poo-Bah's),
and I recall that "Electrical Dance". Fantasic show.

There was an intermission. About 20 minutes. There was 
a painted curtain, behind the lip of the stage---in one variety 
of stage nomenclature you might call its location a tad behind 
the proscenium arch. The painted curtain also functioned as 
an advertisment for a 1920's Big American Car dealership, with 
the painting of this sleek black vehicle set in the midst of some 
scenic mountain range, perhaps the San Gabriel Range to 
our Immediate north, the surrounding landscape rendered in
various gold tones with muted green. The automobile sales 
firm's name was set in a font that firmly placed the display in some 
anachronistic and charming age, not our own, and if not the 
work of Maxfield Parrish, then clearly an emulation of his style. 
When the intermission was over, this painted curtain was raised, 
revealing yet another painted curtain, identical save that 
the image now has moved a little to the right. That curtain 
was raised, revealing nearly the very same thing, save that 
it had now moved to the left a tad, then another, where 
another car has appeared, then (in succesive painted curtains) 
this other car moves independantly within that painting. And 
again and again in some complex scaled-up demonstration of 
three card monte, until there were two identical cars, side by side.

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Keith <keithsz at mac.com>
 'Dance of Electricity (for Nikola Tesla)' - from "United States I-IV"  
 by Laurie Anderson
 
 A while ago, I got a call from the Tesla Institute in Belgrade, long  
 distance. The voice was very faint and it said, “Understand do we  
 that much of your work has been dedicated to Nikola Tesla and do we  
 know the blackout of information about this man in the U.S. of A. And  
 so we would like to invite you to the Institute as a free citizen of  
 the world ... as a free speaker on American Imperialist Blackout of  
 Information .. Capitalist resistance to Technological Progress ...  
 the Western World’s obstruction of Innovation. So think about it.” He  
 hung up. I thought: Gee, really a chance to speak my mind, and I  
 started doing some research on Tesla, whose life story is actually  
 really sad. . . .     . . . . your mouth is slowly opening and  
 closing and you can feel the power but no words will come out.