A Great Desire to Walk off with Someone Else’s Groceries
What is a puppet? It’s an imitation. A pretend person attached to a real person by strings or wires or something. The puppet is a good analogy for the Heads, whose personas hang loose from their selves. David Byrne, with his puppetish jiggling, snapping into position, bouncing till he aches: here is a man so out-of-touch with his own celebrity that his stage costume barely even touches his body.
Carly Stone on the rerelease of Stop Making Sense.
Sea Weeds
My father strangled the family cat. It felt more like an arbitrary fact than something that had really happened. I have no memory of the event itself, just the aftermath. He had those white rings around his nostrils and his eyes were tight. He was back from another night out pub-crawling along the seafront, and he’d been arguing with Mum. I could guess what it was about, but I don’t know how it came to that. I just know he wrapped his fingers around the cat’s throat and snapped its neck. Mum howled, but she didn’t tell anyone. She hugged me in my princess pyjamas, snot dripping down to my chin. She had pit stains on her nightie and blood under her nose. She got nose bleeds when she was stressed.
A short story by Emily Black.