Ok, so this is another little New York City thing…<\/p>\n
I have had, over the years, a number of close calls with avant-pop icon David Byrne. I have run into him several times, but have actually missed having dinner with him, or hanging out with him on more than one occasion. Add this to the fact that I’m an admirer of his work and I end up with an odd kind of consciousness about him, but he has no reason to know who I am.<\/p>\n
A number of years ago, while working on a show at The Ohio theatre in Soho, I went to get a bottle of water or something at the Gourmet Garage and there was David Byrne. No big surprise, it’s his neighborhood. I did however, notice that he was wearing a very distinctive set of blue overalls. They looked like mechanic’s overalls but were a nearly iridescent blue color that was very distinct.
\nYesterday, while riding to rehearsal, I was at a corner right by the Javits Center, and there’s this guy on a bicycle beside me, wearing blue overalls. I don’t immediately place them, and so I’m looking at them thinking “where have I seen that color before?” And just as I’m realizing that they’re similar to the ones David Byrne was wearing, I realize that the guy on the bike beside me is David Byrne. <\/p>\n
So what’s interesting to me about this is that in Soho my mind went: “Look it’s David Byrne-Look at the funky overalls.” Up by the Javits Center my mind went “Look at the funky overalls-Look it’s David Byrne.”<\/p>\n
Context.<\/p>\n
Reminds me of the story Laurie Anderson tells about when she got a job at a McDonalds a few years back, and she would be interacting with people who she knew, and she knew knew her, and they would simply not register that it was her. <\/p>\n