"Laurie Anderson Has a Message for Us Humans," Sam Anderson's New York Times Magazine feature on Laurie Anderson in last week's issue of the magazine, is today's episode of The Sunday Read from the Times podcast The Daily. Before reading his article, the writer conveys five questions Laurie Anderson had shared with him, "a sort of test that uses to figure out whether a piece that she's working on is good or not ... 'Is it complicated enough? Is it simple enough? Is it crazy enough? Is it beautiful enough? And finally, Is it stupid enough?' And I thought that was kind of a great criteria for proceeding with life, with whatever you are doing."
"Laurie Anderson Has a Message for Us Humans," Sam Anderson's New York Times Magazine feature on Laurie Anderson published in last week's issue of the magazine, is today's episode of The Sunday Read from the Times podcast The Daily, read by the author himself. It can be heard below via Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
"I knew of Laurie Anderson, I knew some of the other experimental work that she's done," the Times writer says in his introduction to the episode after playing an excerpt of "From the Air," from her 1982 debut album, Big Science, "but as soon as I really started getting into the research, I was totally blown away by how much I didn't know and by just how much she's done in so many different fields. And what struck me was how unsummarizable her career was."
The writer later conveys five questions Laurie Anderson had shared with him, "a sort of test that she uses to figure out whether a piece that she's working on is good or not. And she said she thinks about this every single creative project, every single medium, whether it's a song or a painting or some kind of talking sculpture ... 'Is it complicated enough? Is it simple enough? Is it crazy enough? Is it beautiful enough? And finally, Is it stupid enough?' And I thought that was kind of a great criteria for proceeding with life, with whatever you are doing."
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