Laurie Anderson The Ugly one with the Jewels Lyrics:
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°, 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 other's 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
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husband."

I lived within in a yurt, a thatched structure
shaped like a cob cake. And there's 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, OK, 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
Lyrics: The Ugly one with the Jewels, Laurie Anderson [end]