Laurie Anderson - Big Science


Thanks so much for all the on and offline happys. Usually when birthdays are involved i pull out that Cage The Elephant album, but i've had a lovely Saturday of running errands and playing guitar and just generally piddling around (my favorite pasttime), so for this 44th one i think we'll let x equal x and pull out an even better and more surprising happy birthday album, Laurie Anderson's Big Science.

You were born. And so you're free. So happy birthday. Just watch out for those impending nuclear bombs and shopping malls. 

Technically this isn't an album so much as studio recordings of selections from her 8ish hour performance piece United States, but i think it works. You jump out of a plane, get lost, fall in and out of love, and have to listen to dudes say dumb things like "isn't it just like a woman." She's not wrong, you gotta put in mountains and staircases or else the characters won't have anything to fall off of. You also have to have a sense of humor darker than a dead clown's mouth, because it's intended to be funny in the Absurd sense. Not lowercase absurd, capital Alabama Absurd, the hilarity of the abject tragedy of a society that demands meaningful structure in the face of chaos. Not an everybody kind of album, but i enjoy it immensely.

Anywhozles, thanks again for thinking of me, and i hope you had a lovely day as well.

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