The Middle Ages Won't Go Away

And then those questions come up

Like was the Constitution written in invisible ink?

Has everybody here forgotten how to think?

Is this great big boat starting to sink?

And you thought there were things that had disappeared forever

Things from the Middle Ages

Beheadings and hangings and people in cages

And suddenly they were everywhere

And suddenly they're alright

Welcome to, welcome to, welcome to the American night

No Matter What

You know Tom Paine wrote the first best-seller at a dark time in the Revolution when we were losing and all the soldiers were deserting. Giving up. And the book was called Common Sense and it was really just a long list of questions. And one of the questions was: Does it make common sense for an island to rule a continent? And everybody kind of went hmmm and they signed back up.

And today you could ask: Does it make common sense for a country to rule the world? But no matter what your answer, no matter what you think, no matter what you vote for–

We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up. No matter what.

We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up. No matter what.

 — Laurie Anderson 'Dark Time In The Revolution'

Homeland Insecurity

Like was the Constitution written in invisible ink?
Has everybody here forgotten how to think?
Is this great big boat starting to sink?
 — Laurie Anderson 'Dark Time In The Revolution'

Performativity

And he said: Hey! 
Are you talking to me? 
Or are you just practising 
For one of those performances of yours?
 — Laurie Anderson 'Language Is A Virus'

The Scales Fell From My Eyes

He says: I've wasted my life on our stupid legend

 — Laurie Anderson 'The Dream Before'

Double Bind

The only thing that binds me to the turning world below
and to all the people and noise and sounds and shouts.
This tightrope made of sound.
This long thin line made of my own blood.
— Laurie Anderson 'Tightrope'

Happily Ever After

Hansel and Gretel are alive and well
And they're living in Berlin
She is a cocktail waitress
He had a part in a Fassbinder film
— Laurie Anderson 'The Dream Before'

History

History is an angel
being blown
backwards
into the future.
— Laurie Anderson 'The Dream Before'

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
— James Joyce 'Ulysses'

History nowadays is not a matter of conviction, it's a performance, it's entertainment …
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

… arguing for effect; not believing what you say; that is not history, it's journalism.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

History is a commentary on the varying and continuing incapabilities of men.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

History is women following behind with the bucket.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

History is one fucking thing after another.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless.
— Sir Humphrey Appleby

Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals — the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned, if at all.
— Martin Gardner

Ugly Customer

Well he was an ugly guy.
With an ugly face.
An also ran
in the human race.
And even God got sad
just looking at him.
— Laurie Anderson 'Gravity's Angel'

A Gender Not Hidden

Every man for himself.
— Laurie Anderson 'Big Science'

He said: Isn't it. Isn't it just like a woman?
She said: It takes. It takes one. It takes on to. It takes one to know one.
He said: Isn't it just like a woman?
She said: She said it. She said it to no. She said it to no one.
— Laurie Anderson 'It Tango'