The Moon Is a Harsh Patron (Your Tax Dollars At Work Edition)

The Washington Times reminds us that Laurie Anderson, NASA's first (and likely hopefully) last "artist-in-residence" has delivered on her $20,000 subsidy with the performance piece, "The End of the Moon":

"Nominally, [sez the "O Superman" auteur], it's my official report as the first NASA artist in residence, but the stories include things about war, my dog, trees, people I've known, theories."

The Times quotes from the piece:

"Americans say that everyone hates us because we are rich, democratic and free. They remind me of those girls who are convinced people hate them because they are beautiful. The truth is everyone hates them because they are [expletive deleted]."

Whole Times bit here.

I'll note that the Times is responsible for deleting the expletive, not moi. Indeed, I'm left wondering what the offending phrase was, though I'm too busy trying to get through my eight-track of Rick Wakeman's White Rock, the official soundtrack to the 1976 Winter Olympics (zzzz) to track down another piece of commissioned music that sounds like it really sucks. (Besides, didn't Dino effectively close out the moon as an inspiration for music?)

But let's give NASA some credit here: Every dollar they spent on Anderson was a dollar less they spent on killing people, as National Review's John Derbyshire would have it.

Me? I'm waiting to see what kind of art the Elvis of private space exploration, the great Burt Rutan, commissions. Here's hoping it's a black velvet portrait of him dancing on NASA's grave.