All the lies I live make me wonder

I was already having a tired and somewhat melancholy night and not looking forward to getting up early tomorrow to wait for a second round of repairs on our bathroom door, a situation which has begun to feel like a cross between Samuel Beckett and Flanders and Swann, and it did not improve my mood any to read that Bernard Hepton has died. At a reasonable age, but still. It's a reasonable age that Mel Brooks is not dead at (don't contradict me, Kaminsky). I don't think I ever wrote about him outside of Robin Redbreast (1970). I liked him wherever he turned up. He never looked remarkable and he was always, always good.

The major event of today was taking the cats to the vet for their annual tune-up. Autolycus is in robust health for which we are grateful after last summer's scare; Hestia needs a short course of medication, but providentially she seems to find pill pockets indistinguishable from candy. Per usual, she hisses and snorts at her brother for hours afterward for smelling like vet, even though she suffers the same indignity. They are such brave and affectionate cats. One of them is sitting beside my keyboard, licking hopefully at the back of my hand, as we speak. [edit: As I hit post, he moved with complacent purring to my lap.]

It made me very happy to read earlier this evening that one of Michael Almereyda's great influences was Derek Jarman. He started using Pixelvision because of the way Jarman used Super 8. He used Super 8 himself: I was not wrong to think of The Last of England (1987)'s time-bending home movies in The Eternal (1998) or the gently teasing self-deconstruction of Wittgenstein (1993) in Experimenter (2015). "His work had opened a window in my head."

At least my e-mail is no longer broken.

These slippery people going to see us through

So the general tenor of my afternoon following the bathroom door repair incident can be gauged from the two text messages I sent spatch around four-thirty:

HOLY MOW BLAP THE BUS SENT TO REPLACE THE BUS THAT BROKE DOWN ALSO BROKE DOWN AND WE ALL HAD TO WAIT FOR A THIRD UNRELATED BUS WHICH WAS GAME BUT CONFUSED. LOVE BUT NO LOVE TO CHARLIE BAKER, MAY HE NEVER RETURN

(Seriously, with a governor named Charlie and his failures on the MBTA, I don't know why the protest songs don't write themselves. "And will he ever return? / Well, he damn well better not / And his fate will be unlearned / SORRY CHARLIE / He may ride forever / Far away from Boston / So long as he doesn't return.")

Even when I got a bagel for dinner at the Boston Public Market, it went surprisingly wrong. I got some consolatory apple crisp to go and met rushthatspeaks at Charles/MGH. And then we met gaudior at the former Harborlights Pavilion and then we saw David Byrne.

I had seen him in The Blank Generation (1976) and Stop Making Sense (1984) and True Stories (1986). I had never seen him live. He's white-haired now; he moves like himself, in the way that suggests that his species evolved from wading birds with a good rhythm section; he remains essentially recognizable by his eyebrows. He can still run in place for much longer during a number than you would think reasonable and sing like he's just been struck by lightning. He opened the show sitting quietly at a table, singing to a brain. I didn't know any of the musicians working with him, all dressed like him in pearl-grey suits against a black box stage lined with a rippling scrim of fringe; about half of them were percussion and several were also dancers and all of them were great. Most of the songs I didn't know came from the new album, American Utopia (2018), which I now wish to buy. One of the others was a collaboration with St. Vincent, one came from his disco musical about Imelda Marcos with Fatboy Slim, and the last encore was a blistering cover of Janelle Monáe's "Hell You Talmbout," performed by permission. The songs I knew, the rest of the audience also knew, and threw themselves into. It was especially lovely to hear "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" with Rush because they sent it to me when we first started dating; it led classically into "Once in a Lifetime," a white spotlight on a black stage whirling Byrne like a marionette through the questions of his beautiful life. I have now heard an audience scream as one—the stage flips blinding white, all other sound cuts out—"MY GOD! WHAT HAVE I DONE?" About half the people around me knew about half the lyrics to "Burning Down the House," but everyone knew where to shout. It was incredibly cathartic. There was a man in a flat cap and a tallit katan step-dancing in the nearest aisle. That is the sort of thing that makes you believe against all odds that the country is going to be all right. I was sorry not to hear "Found a Job" just because I like that one and I think it would have matched the prevailing tone, but I did not expect either "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" or "The Great Curve" and they were both perfectly timed. It was a political show. As noted by one of my cousins, it was a political show that left you feeling exhilarated, not despairing or at least furious. That is a rare experience these days. Byrne is still making new music and it still feels new and it still feels relevant. And he introduced all his collaborators by name and made sure we knew there was no playback in the show—all the noise we were hearing was noise they were making right there.

The opening act was Benjamin Clementine. I had not previously heard and really liked him.

I had to shower as soon as I got home because the air in our immediate vicinity was a wall of pot smoke by the end of the concert. I also don't understand what kind of person goes to see David Byrne and then talks through a single one of the songs, but I am not a twentysomething engaged in a craft-beer-fueled courting ritual. At least they were having a visibly good time. So was the guy on my other side, about my age in a sub-Hawaiian-print shirt. He was just sort of bouncing no matter the song. It is nice to be next to a stranger radiating that much happiness at the music they're hearing. It is nice to be one of those people.

That was a much better way to end this month.