Hey DM, ED!

[Drunk Monk]

Last weekend, Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson crushed it. Here's why.

• Walter Ryce
   
  
• Sep 27, 2016
  
  

• Bas Uterwijk
  

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Last Friday, when I had to park nine blocks away from Carmel's Sunset Center where Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson were about to give a rare full-length concert, it seemed like it was going to be an event. And it was. They enthralled a packed-to-the-rafters audience with a show of artful music, poetry, film and sounds, uninterrupted by intermission, solo and collaborative work. They played along to film projections of a unicorn standing in the rain, they played on each other's songs, they played to recorded poems by Allen Ginsberg and Lou Reed. Anderson told the backstory (involving Greek playwright Aristophanes' The Birds) of her installation with Mohammed el Gharani called Habeas Corpus, about Guantanamo and incarceration. Glass read poetry. They earned four curtain calls by an appreciative audience that stood and practically cheered.
Before that concert, Glass spoke with the Weekly about Laurie and this year's abridged Days and Nights Festival, earning the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama's administration, and why he's returned to Monterey County year after year since 2011.

Weekly: Where are you now?

Philip Glass: I’m in New York. We’re having a long talk about the election. This is not the way to start your day, talking about this damned election.

How did you arrive at this concert that you and Laurie Anderson are going to do on Friday?  

We’ve known each other 40 years. Truly. When she first came to New York, I was one of the first people she met. I’ve known her through all the changes. I saw her become a performance artist, and rise to the top of that list. Over the years we began to do things together, benefit concerts and fundraisers. We’d go do something for 5-10 minutes, without any agenda. For this year’s festival I originally wanted to show her movie [Heart of a Dog]. We had planned to do five concerts at [Henry Miller Library]. But everything got changed with the fire. We [decided we] wanted to do concert. We didn’t want to miss the year. Luckily we got a night at Sunset Center.

How are you feeling about being awarded a National Medal of Arts?

It’s interesting because this is the grown-up award. The MacArthur award, they take young people, throw spaghetti on the wall, and see what sticks. With this one, it’s what stuck. I’m going to be 80 years old. Wynton Marsalis is getting it. Mel Brooks. These are the grown-ups. I guess that includes me. When I think about it, I hadn’t thought of myself in terms of my generation, but when I saw my name, I thought “I guess that’s where I am.” I really wanted to go to the White House with this president. He puts the medal on you. Michelle Obama will be there. In my lifetime I never expected to be invited to the White House to get a medal [considering] what I work on, who I work with, where I started. I’m glad I’m on this year because it’s Obama’s year.

You changed your schedule so that you could speak at CSU Monterey Bay, fly to D.C. to get your medal, then come back and play Sunset Center. Why are the students here, and this place, so important to you?

I should get a medal from the airlines. We have a relationship with the school. Cultivating younger audiences is not easy but it’s important. This is, historically, a place where artists and painters and writers have lived. It’s a beautiful place. I was invited to go and play at the [Henry Miller Library]. I had been [to Big Sur] before, on a motorcycle [in the ‘60s] looking for Henry Miller. I didn’t know he had moved to Pacific Palisades. As a kid in the ‘50s, you couldn't’ read Henry Miller [because he was banned]. There’s a history here and I would like to be part of it. There are young people and they are coming to our performance. The school is important. We need to cultivate our [young people].

With me at Symbiosis and ED at Life is Beautiful, those are fair excuses, right tg?  

At least it gave me an excuse to reach out to Laurie.