![]() Ironically, many who are against our federal and/or state governments allowing refugees from Syria seem to be more of the religious persuasion and most arguments that support curtailing the influx of refugees are based on fear-fear that the refugees will bring harm to our nation. ![]() I’m certainly no biblical scholar but at an early age I was taught the book of Psalms and specifically chapter 23, which reads in part “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Participating in sports can be dangerous. ![]() Driving in Atlanta traffic can be dangerous. We face a multitude of dangers every day of our lives. We hear those who profess to be of good moral character saying it is acceptable to refuse assistance to others in need because they might be a danger to our society. What troubles me is how a national tragedy has so deeply divided our nation. Whatever one’s preferred position on these topics is, there are statistics that can be manipulated to support it. Some will quote statistics of crimes committed by those of the Muslim faith. There are others who quote statistics of the number of Americans killed annually by fellow Americans and others who will quote stats of crimes committed by refugees. Some say Syrian refugees are no less of a threat than fellow Americans now known as homegrown terrorists. Some say the vetting process is not comprehensive enough to weed out possible terrorists from entering the country under the guise of a refugee, which is entirely possible. We have read and heard voices of condemnation and voices of support on the subject of admitting Syrian refugees into our country. Every song has a soul of wit and an edge of rebellion.The recent mass killings in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have put many in our country on edge and again pitted Americans against each other in hotly contested debates over immigration, gun control and refugee admissions policies. But the effect is not dry and antiseptic, as it is with some ultramodern music. There are times when Anderson seems almost like an anti-performance artist, times when she cuts off a song or interrupts a progression just as it is threatening to develop into melody and entertainment. Behind her, the rhythms are seductive, statements made over and over until they lull us into her mind state. The effect is sort of big-brotherish she seems official, a voice made from a machine, speaking words as objects. She was one of the first to use voice synthesizers, which lower the tone of her voice while maintaining the same speed of speech. She uses strange lighting effects to create instants of magic. She likes phrases such as "This just in.," as if she were at the anchor desk for the death of the world. ![]() She takes the hand-held mike and wanders the stage, reciting parables and slices of bizarre information. She moves in a kind of robot choreography, and she likes to seem deadpan. With her short, spiky hair and her athletic grace, Anderson sometimes seems more like a craftsman than a singer. In front of these images, the Laurie Anderson Band performs. We can see that the same images are being recycled in a circle, and the feeling is sort of poignant: All those sperm, all that effort, all for nothing. The film loops are so short that they announce themselves. The images are deliberately crude and machine-made. Crudely drawn sheep jump over a fence, again and again, or boats steam past a rusty bridge, or - as she talks about the sperm - we see little tadpoles earnestly swimming upstream, one of them breaking away every once in a while for a loop-the-loop. As a backdrop to her music, Anderson uses a large rear-projection screen that sometimes relays messages made up of technological cliches and sometimes uses film loops to show the same images over and over. Large parts of it will be familiar to anyone who has seen her in person during the past year, but the film has a somewhat different feel than her live performances. "Home of the Brave" is a 90-minute documentary based on one of her performances.
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