【题目出自未来主义诗人菲利波·托马索·马里内蒂。劳丽·安德森是实验音乐界的先驱级人物。《美国后现代派短篇小说选》收录此篇，甘文平译本错误百出，作了一些修改。原文为《神经圣经的故事》「Stories from the Nerve Bible」一节，专辑《戴首饰的丑陋者》「The Ugly One with the Jewels」倒数第二首“曲目”《文化大使》「The Cultural Ambassador」收录安德森朗诵现场录音。】

海湾战争期间，我带着许多设备在欧洲各地巡演。那时每个机场都遍布警卫，他们会突然指着某个行李箱就开始吼：

　　“这是谁的箱子？立刻给我过来！”

　　周围一大堆旅客马上就弹开了，腾出一片扇形空间，然后像飞毛腿导弹【1】一样绕道走掉。

　　我背着许多电子设备，所以每过一次安检，就得把所有箱子都打开一次，插上电，给他们演示这些机器的效果。我感觉自己确实比较可疑。很多机器一开机，显示屏上就会跳出一个诸如“原子粉碎者”的名字【2】，我就得费一番口舌给他们解释，这东西跟间谍活动一点关系没有。

　　一路上我开了好几个即兴音乐会，弹新潮曲子给一拨又一拨警探和海关警察听。我得一遍又一遍启动这些设备，他们听上一会儿，就会开始问：“呃，这是什么？”

　　我就把，比如这个滤波器【3】，拿给他们看，说：“这是我所认为的威权的声音。”

　　然后我又要给他们解释了，我用这些来演奏音乐：各种各样的调制。然后他们就会说：

　　“那你为什么要这样说话？”

　　周围是：特警、便衣警察、警犬，以及角落里的一个收音机，正外放着超级碗上的战争报道【4】。我的视线一一扫过他们。然后我说：

　　“你、猜？”

　　当然，最后我还是通过了安检。毕竟，这些都是美国货，海关警察们忙的是谈论美国的战争策略，他们谈论着定点轰炸的有效——不，是它的美，它的优雅。高科技的外科手术式打击，依旧被CNN放在大歌剧和超级碗之间当成某种衔接，和最早的那些大停电【5】前的报道一样，一切都正步入高潮，一切令人如此兴奋。

War is the Highest Form of Modern Art

Laurie Anderson

During the Gulf War I was traveling around Europe with a lot of equipment, and all the airports were full of security guards who would suddenly point to a suitcase and start yelling: “Whose bag is this? I want to know right now who owns this bag!” And huge groups of passengers would start fanning out from the bag just running around in circles like a Scud missile was on its way in.

I was carrying a lot of electronics so I had to keep unpacking everything and plugging it in and demonstrating how it all worked and I guess I did seem a little fishy, a lot of this stuff wakes up displaying LED-program read-outs have names like “Atom Smasher” and so it took a while to convince them that they weren’t some kind of portable espionage system.

So I’ve done quite a few of these sort of impromptu new music concerts for small groups of detectives and customs agents and I’d have to keep setting all this stuff up and they’d listen for a while and then say: “So what’s this?” And I’d pull out something like this filter and say “This is what I’d like to think of as the voice of Authority” and it would take me a while to tell them how I used it for songs that were about various forms of control, and they would say:

“Now why would you want to talk like that?”

And I looked around at the SWAT teams and undercover agents and dogs and the radio in the corner tuned to the Super Bowl coverage of the war and I’d say:

“Take a wild guess.”

Finally of course, I got through. It was after all American-made equipment and the customs agents were all talking about the effectiveness, no, the beauty, the elegance, of the American strategy of pinpoint bombing, the high-tech surgical approach which was being reported on CNN as something between grand opera and the Super Bowl, like the first reports before the black-out when TV was live and everything was heightened, and it was so euphoric.

【1】海湾战争中伊拉克军队最“知名”的武器，它的弹道是一条弧线。

【2】用于调制无线电，有一款吉他踏板也以此为名。

【3】用于变声，朗诵时安德森会从这里开始使用它，一个粗重的男声。

【4】一九九一年超级碗于一月二十六日举行，海湾战争于其十天前爆发。

【5】海湾战争始于美国军机对伊拉克的空袭，美国记者在空袭开始前就抵达了巴格达等地，为电视观众直播空袭实况（作为一场高度媒体化的战争，海湾战争曾引起知识界的议论，例如鲍德里亚极具争议性的宣称“海湾战争从未发生”），空袭造成了伊拉克全国大范围停电。