Un Chien Andalusia

It's been a long time since I've been to a proper show. OK, saw a little thing in Seattle before we moved back to New York, but it was a band I didn't know, just kind of something to do.

So the Pixies. Certainly my favorite band, arguably one of the most influential of the last 20 years of non-hip hop, non-top 40 ensembles; NOT seeing them when I was in college and actually attending concerts regularly was one of my biggest regrets.

When Kara surprised me with the announcement that she planned to buy tickets to the Pixie's Doolittle tour, a one-month gig in honor of the 20th anniversary of their first major-label album, I don't know if even she realized what it would mean to me. I have never been so excited to see a concert, period.

I should start by saying that my expectations were exceeded in every way.

That being said, a brief review: The concert was organized around the album Doolittle itself. The show started before the band came on stage with a montage of clips from the Dali-Bunuel film Un Chien Andalou, a fairly well-known surrealist short movie that features, among other scenes, the slicing of an eyeball, a hand pierced with stigmata crawling with ants, and a bizarre series of clips of a man and a woman interacting in strange ways (the most bizarre being the man yoked to a grand piano with a donkey carcass on top and pulling it slowly across an apartment living room).

Of course, the film was the inspiration for the lead track to the album, "Debaser." ("Got me a movie, I want you to know, slicing an eyeball, I want to you know, girl is so groovy, I want you to know, don't know about you, but I am un chien andalusia"). I have to admit something: I never made the connection between the old film and the song until then (and neither did this guy standing next to me who turns to his girlfriend to impress her, saying, and I quote, "That's what the song Debaser is about." Duh.)

After a few minutes of surreal weirdness, the band came out. It was amazing. Black Francis was a bit on the heavy side, Joey Santiago and David Lovering looked like they were watching their weight, but Kim Deal (the only member of the band I had ever actually seen live before -- as the front for the Breeders back in 1993) was unrecognizable. Her hair was cropped fairly short (actually, kind of a "pixie" haircut, now that I think about it), and she was actually quite round. It was fantastic. I can't say how great it was to see my favorite band look so much like, well, me. And not to digress, but that was one of the most delicious things about the show overall: Kara and I, two nerds by any measure, were completely representative in age, dress and demeanor, of 2/3 of the audience. I can honestly say it was the first time I ever went to a concert and didn't feel anxiety for how un-cool I was.

OK, enough about that: the show started with Kim Deal saying: "The b-sides." And then music. The band was incredible. They were tight; throughout the entire show, it was as though they could read each other's minds on every cut (which, after this long, the probably can). The music was just transcendent. And once the four or five b-sides associated with Doolittle were done, without a word Kim Deal started the classic baseline to "Debaser." The crowd exploded. Someday, I would love to know, if only for a minute how it must feel to be a musician experiencing the sheer joy of having a crowd melt with a few notes.

After that, every cut from the album, one after the other. Songs that stood out: "Tame," (cathartic but controlled screaming, outstanding); "Here comes your man" (a little pop-y for me normally, but it was a winner, especially with the screen montage of the close-ups of the band's faces projected behind them -- see my pic for this post -- and hey, it's Kara's fave); "Mr. Grieves" (loud); and my favorite song of the album, the final cut "Gouge Away" (I have to post on that song one of these days -- simply brilliant).

The encores: almost all winners. Kim Deal did a very loud, long version of "Into the White," (in fact, the encores were heavier on Deal songs -- "Gigantic" sticks out). The only off-note of the whole show was when the band started playing "My Veloria," and it seemed as though Francis' voice was just worn out; they stopped about 30 seconds in, and restarted (after a little back-and-forth between Francis and Deal) with "Bone Machine" (which was fine by me; I like the earlier stuff the best).

As far as cliches go, "I didn't want the evening to end" must be a pretty basic one, but that was actually how I felt. Trying to sum up why I felt so emotionally, intellectual and musically fulfilled by this concert, I'm really at a loss. On the basic level, it was a great concert by a band I have loved for years.

But on a deeper level, perhaps the best way I can get at the show's meaning was to say that it was one of those exceedingly rare moments (at least for me) of the perfect nexus of private memory, aesthetic accomplishment, and the enthusiasm of an experience shared with a large crowd. It was what art, I think, is supposed to accomplish.

Mr. Fox -- Fantastic!

I admit with some sheepishness that I am a Wes Anderson fan. Or rather, I should say, I have a love-frustration relationship with his work. On the one hand, I find the style, taste, subjects, characters and preoccupations of his films to be uncomfortably close to my own. So much so, that (and this is where the frustration comes in), I tend to see right through the artifice of his movies, to detect that lack of real substance behind the artistry. I've seen each one, all with the exception of Bottle Rocket in the order they were made, and almost every time I've walked away almost mad. Mad that there isn't something...more, but more mad at myself because I know deep down inside that if I could have a world view and film it, it would look a helluva lot like a Wes Anderson film.

So enter The Fantastic Mr. Fox. In the jerky, stop-action punctiliousness of this amazing movie, Anderson has finally come home. To me, this is the movie he has been practicing to make since Bottle Rocket. Every film, from Rushmore to Royal Tenenbaums to Darjeeling Limited, has been so perfect yet ultimately so unsatisfying, and now I realize why. In each of these movies, it is the plasticity of Anderson's filmed world, completely hermetic and constructed but with actors, "real" places and situations, it was as though the reality of the living, breathing actors had the effect of limiting the imaginative completeness of the movie taking flight.

Here, in a movie that was not just a constructed set, but literally an entire world that is made, to the smallest detail, in the service of Anderson's vision. And it is utterly delightful. It is as though only with literal puppets is the story that Anderson has always been trying to tell finally able to come fully to life.

Everything, and I mean everything about the movie was just about pitch-perfect. The voices, the characters, the sets, the soundtrack -- a collection of tunes and genres, from Ives to the Rolling Stones (and especially, to Toby's and my delight, the Beach Boys) that seemed to be waiting to be collected and put to this film.

I know I'm gushing, but I simply loved this movie. See it.