I was in a city like San Francisco or New York. Some place unlike Los Angeles. Across a sloping street I saw David Byrne, in strange costume, lingering at the threshold of a caf and beckoning an audience. He wore black with occasional bright patches of white. His hair was dyed black and sculpted high on the left side and his eyes were painted with dark liner. A solid black triangle covered his left eye pointing to the bridge of his nose. He looked like some bizarro Elvis-impersonating pantomime. So I crossed the street of course! Inside the building it was part caf part artists’ space. David Byrne and several other artists mixed with the caf patrons. I sat at his table and tried to participate in the art, which was witty and enigmatic conversation, but my comments weren’t sophisticated enough. Whenever I spoke, David Byrne looked at me and laughed in a way that I could only understand as condescending. Finally I said loudly, "I don’t trust any of you!" to the artists. "It’s the dark around your eyes." And the hush in the room meant that I had spoken a great truth.
I began to talk with the average-looking stranger beside me who had fared better in the art with David Byrne. We were both from Indiana. So we talked about that. "Oh yeah? Where in Indiana?"
Sounds like a very surreal experience. David Byrne might reply that he was just an “advertisement for a version of himself”. Whatever. Few men can maintain integrity while wearing black eye makeup.
Katie, have you and Bob tried on Monty Python’s Meaning of Life? It was with this movie that I celebrated my Independence Day. I’m so patriotic. Anyway, the “Middle of the Movie” scene I found to be absolutely brilliant with such eery yet hysterical surrealism. The arms, the elephant head, the leather, the funny walk, the “I can’t quite put my finger on it” strange camera angle. None of it makes sense, yet it connects on such a mystical level that I’ve watched that 2 minutes over and over. And in case Bob balks at the thought of more MP, this one is far more clever than the mostly stupid humor of Holy Grail.
Scott – it’s been ages since I’ve studied The Meaning of Life. It currently languishes on our Netflix queue, separated from its mate The Life of Brian, along with dozens of other titles added following "that’d make a great double feature" epiphanies. There is hope, though: Bob was able to appreciate The Life of Brian when I made it mandatory viewing after he coerced me into seeing The Passion of the Christ back in April.
i still haven’t seen the life of brian, i heard of it when there was a film series at earlham of movies about christ, and i wondered what that one was so i looked it up. sounds great! i’m way behind on movie watching though. haven’t even seen spidey 2 yet. heck i never got around to watching the 3rd matrix movie….i’m so behind and out of touch with the movie world.
by the way have i ever told you that you’re weird? because you are.
As fun as the movie world is, there are usually many other more worthwhile worlds to invest my time in. So Normal Sister, I am even more behind than you! I just saw Spiderman (1) a month ago, and have yet to view even the 2nd Matrix movie. Usually as long as a movie is less than 5 years old, its still “new” to me. And of course one could spend a lifetime just catching up on all the excellent “old” movies that have been produced over the last 50 years. I fear I don’t have that kind of stamina though, so I’ll leave that task to the experts – you know who you are don’t you Mr. Uban Locust?