Listen: Laurie Anderson explores the Tibetan Book of the Dead

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/14/listen-laurie-anderson-explor.html

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I’m an atheist and a skeptic and also someone who has been interested in Buddhism for a couple of decades now. I always reject most forms of Buddhism for being like any other religion – relying on supernatural claims made by priests in order to generate revenue for the church etc. But approaching the TBotD from different angles, it strikes me as something so intrinsically familiar to my own … “experience”… of consciousness and thought and life.

Sounds like a very interesting collaboration. I love Laurie Anderson… she reminds me of that great wave of intense, intellectually oriented creativity coming out of NYC in the 70’s… Philip Glass, David Byrne, et al.

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I love me some Laurie Anderson. Looking forward to this, especially after seeing her latest movie a while back, the Heart of a Dog.

laurie-anderson-big-sci

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I hope my deathbed scene involves this recording & copious psychedelics.

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You read aloud from the Book of the Dead? Dung-eating fool! Thou hast doomed us all!
asdfasdf

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my wife and i have seen her perform live twice in dallas. it has been a rare privilege each time. one time was in support of her project dealing with melville’s “moby dick”. the other time was after her stint as composer in residence for nasa.

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Pierre Henry took on the Book of the Dead in 1962. I lent my copy to a friend one time and he fell asleep listening to it and woke up laughing. Neither one of us knew what to make of that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzldnsKdAYk&list=OLAK5uy_nZDBTl908a1cojYSrLBNxyyZcRb4abLBE

I’m jealous of that one! I would have loved to have seen that.

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Ditto. I’ve been a fan like, forever, and that movie was so gorgeous. :heart:

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I’m going to her doing this next year with my friend that I always go to Laurie Anderson with (and who I watched the dog movie with). I can’t help thinking about that line “feeling sad, without being sad” all the time. I’d actually heard it first from Patti Smith (who I saw last year!) talking about meeting her while out walking after Lou died.

I’ve loved her since I was a little kid. Not many I can say that about.

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Okay, you guys, in other Laurie Anderson news, she played a brain tumor in a play in podcast (a playcast) form by John Cameron Mitchell:

How I missed this, I don’t know, but, now we all know.

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