"There's an inspiring and wacky solemnity in these organizations--high values reinforced through pageantry and performance in an ecumenical social setting--which deep down must also have been a whole lot of fun. Now it's as if that foundational Other America, that underpinning of the America we know, has gradually eroded, and here we remain, living in a world that is a mere shell, a movie set, of the world that made our world manifest, that brought it into being, and all we have left are these perplexing masks, banners, and costumes to puzzle over."
--David Byrne, from the...