Laurie Anderson meets an Amish family in Pennsylvania

I was doing research, really, to see if there were places that, um, where technology wasn’t so dominant. Because I found I was getting burned out in my studio with so much stuff, uh, so many hard drives and microphones. And I thought, uh, this is killing me, this... This high-tech world. I wonder if I could go someplace that had no technology, and I wonder what that would be like, if maybe there’s another kind of tranquility there without everything plugged in like this. I just was, a bit by chance, in Western Pennsylvania, and at an Amish farmer’s market when I saw these people. And they were selling their, I think, bread and some scones, a kind of scones and, uh and these snickerdoodle cookies that are, uh, Amish specialties. And they were just hanging out there, and they… their arms were hanging at their sides, so they were very placid. And you know, you could buy their cookies, or you could not buy their cookies. Either way, they were fine with it. And then they just pack up and leave, and I thought, “What is going on with these people?” They are not tense. They are just kind of content. And so I struck up a conversation with one and said, you know, “I’m looking for a place to do a little farm work, you know, and help out on the farm. Do you have any need for that?” And they were like…They didn’t really even ask me why I wanted to come and do farming. I didn’t look like a farmer, I didn’t know anything about farming. But I just said, you know, I need to take a break, and I’m just curious about the way of life. So that was how I ended up in this Amish farmhouse kitchen. So I arrived, uh, with a… a few things, you know. And then what happened was, it was a couple and a little newborn baby and a two-year-old and, um it basically rained for two weeks. And we sat in the kitchen and the baby cried non-stop. And I think I have never met two more miserable people in my life than this couple. They were just... The silence was unbearable. This kitchen where we sat for two weeks in the rain in the Amish spring is embedded in my mind as [laughs] as, you know, ideas about misery and love and happiness.