Blog post:

Life During Wartime

In the film Stop Making Sense it is during “Life During Wartime” that David Byrne begins running in circles around the stage, around the band, even behind Chris Frantz’s riser. The gesture is paradoxical—mute and eloquent, a singer running away from his microphone and at the same time seeming to say look at all I can encircle. Look at all that the alchemy of my fear and desire has brought into being. My wartime has become a party in my mind and yours. … It is the running of an animal measuring the limits of its cage.

—Jonathan Lethem, Fear of Music, 122.

“Thank you! Does anybody have any questions?”