The Ugly One With The Jewels集合視覺藝術、音樂、攝影、寫作、電影、電腦動畫等創作於一身的Laurie Anderson，將表演藝術帶進主流市場，也將流行文化帶向前衛的境界，堪稱前衛藝術表演家。Laurie Anderson屬於那種帶有女權傾向的前衛音樂家，在她短暫地向流行進軍了一首“O Superman”之後，她開始比那年代其他的先鋒派更加熱衷於在公眾場所的演出。她本身的音樂就帶有強烈的表演性質，比如在裝置怪異的舞臺上拉個裝有馬桶的電子小提琴之類結合各種表現藝術手法的表演。Laurie Anderson生於1947年的芝加哥，年輕的時候學習小提琴，大學就讀於美術史係，畢業後在大學教授藝術史和埃及建築學。這些學歷成為了她以後音樂創作的大部分內容。1976年開始，她的演出地點遍及南美和歐洲各類博物館、音樂廳和各地藝術節。她的音樂風格主張表達為文字和語言，她的演出也著重強調觀看的形式和剪輯技術。

The Ugly One With The Jewels - Laurie Anderson

In 1974, I went to Mexico to visit my brother who was working as an anthropologist with Tsutsil Indians, the last surviving Mayan tribe.
And the Tsutsil speak a lovely birdlike language and are quite tiny physically; I towered over them. Mostly, I spent my days following the women around since my brother wasn't really allowed to do this.
We got up at 3am and began to separate the corn into three colors.
And we boiled it, ran to the mill and back, and finally started to make the tortillas.
Now all the other women's tortillas were 360 degrees, perfectly toasted, perfectly round; and after a lot of practice mine were still lobe-sided and charred.
And when they thought I wasn't looking they threw them to the dogs.
After breakfast we spent the rest of the day down at the river watching the goats and braiding and unbraiding each others hair.
So usually there wasn't that much to report.
One day the women decided to braid my hair Tsutsil-style.
After they did this I saw my reflection in a puddle.
I looked ridiculous but they said, "Before we did this you were ugly, but now maybe you will find a husband."

I lived within in a yurt, a thatched structure shaped like a cob cake. And there is a central fireplace ringed by sleeping shelves sort of like a dry beaver down.
Now my Tsutsil name was Lausha, which loosely translated means "the ugly one with the jewels."
Now ugly, Okay, I was awfully tall by local standards.
But what did they mean by the jewels? I didn't find out what this meant until one night, when I was taking my contact lenses out, and since I'd lost the case I was carefully placing them on the sleeping shelf; suddenly I noticed that everyone was staring at me and I realized that none of the Tsutsil had ever seen glasses, much less contacts, and that these were the jewels, the transparent, perfectly round, jewels that I carefully hid on the shelf at night and then put for safekeeping into my eyes every morning.

So I may have been ugly but so what? I had the jewels.

Full fathom thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But that suffers a sea change
Into something rich and strange
And I alone am left to tell the tale
Call me Ishmael