My Conversation with Laurie Anderson

by Sparrow, August 21, 2008

Outtakes of my phone conversation with Laurie Anderson, August 7, 2008:

Sparrow: So now is a good time to talk?

Anderson: It is a good time.  I'm just out on a walk.

Sparrow: You're in the Hamptons, I hear.  

Anderson: We are!  It's great.  It's really fun.

Sparrow: So you swim?  You've been swimming?

Anderson: We're on our way to the beach right now.  I'm lagging behind, so that I can talk to you.

Sparrow: Oh, thanks!

Anderson: Yeah, we're slowly ambling down the sidewalk -- several people and a dog.

Sparrow: It's not too late to swim?  It's still warm enough?

Anderson: It's pretty warm.  It looks like it's about to storm.  So if you never hear from us again, we got lost in the storm.

Sparrow: [Laughs.] I'll get the exclusive!

Anderson: You will!

Sparrow: This could make my reputation.

Anderson: This could do it!  This could be the break you've always been waiting for!

[Later, on the subject of Homeland Security.]

Sparrow: You travel a lot, so you really deal with this Homeland Security apparatus.

Anderson: All the time.  Every other day.

Sparrow: My worst experience was, one time I was racing for a plane in San Francisco.  I get to the airport, the bell goes off, they look in my bag, they find a tube of toothpaste, and they just drop it in the garbage can.  And I'm a natural foods person, so my toothpaste costs four dollars!  

Anderson: Awwww!

Sparrow: They can't give you a break; you can't put the tube in your other luggage.  It's just like: "You're out!  That's gone!"

Anderson: "You're out!  Your name's on the list!"

Sparrow: [Laughs.]  "... as a fucking toothpaste terrorist!"  

Anderson: Yeah.  A toothpaste terrorist.

Sparrow:  Which is the lowest form of terrorist. 

[And the very ending:]

Sparrow: I saw Bob Hope once, in Gainesville, Florida in 1976.

Anderson: All right!

Sparrow: At the Gator Growl, the pep rally.  He would begin a song, then he'd stop himself and tell one of the dumb jokes his writers handed him.  He was great.

Anderson: I wish I had writers.