Stop Making Sense, Jonathan Demme's 1984 film of the Talking Heads in performance, created the sport of Byrne-watching. The fascination was of watching a hostage ecstatically plot his escape - of watching a man change his tempo, change his clothes, change his body, change his mind. He turns to Chris, a burly actor decked out like a spangled hybrid of Sophie Tucker and a badly eroded Elvis. His task is to spasm heavy- metalishly. The sound men cranks up the volume smothering the thunder outside.
Life makes little sense, rock video says, but there's always dancing.
There is lots of dancing, the movies agree, and in the end there is some sense, maybe even justice, and money. David Byrne, who looked a few short years ago like an anorectic recently rescued from utter weightlessness, is currently living in the movies. Everyone is looking for America. Even Ruben Blades, the Panamanian salsa king, is buscando America. It may simply be the kind of quest that naturally occurs toward the end of a century, when we get an urge to add things up.