Tell me you don’t see something a little Pans Labyrinth-y in David Bowie‘s appearance in this “Lazarus” video, a cut off his final album, “Blackstar.” How many people are buying/downloading “Blackstar” right now? (I’m one of them.)
David Bowie has been right down inside me since the early ’70s, but never so profoundly as during a moment at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. A no-big-dealer that became a kind of wake-up and a comfort blanket. I was standing on a small, sloping beach outside a party that was starting to slightly settle down, and the DJ played “Fashion” and suddenly it all came together — the night, the mood, the tempo of the times, the shallow-ironic cultural attitudes of ’92 — and began to make my blood feel a bit richer and livelier.
David Bowie saw and touched and assimilated just so. He seemed to get the whole equation like no one else. These and other thoughts were swirling around in my head that night, at that very moonlit moment, and I whispered to myself “Wow…so awesome to have Bowie with me now.”
A riff on living in New York City by David Bowie, posted in New York magazine on 9.18.03: “These days my buzz can be obtained by just walking, preferably early in the morning, as I am a seriously early riser. The signature of the city changes shape and is fleshed out as more and more people commit to the street. A magical transfer of power from the architectural to the human.
“I’m here most of the year now. I leave only if work demands it. (I’ve read the rumors about how I have houses elsewhere, but this is it.) I am not a secretive guy, but I am quite private. I live as a citizen pure and simple. I don’t go for the disguise thing — I’ve never found it necessary, at least not since my real hair color grew in years ago. I suppose wearing jeans is the nearest I get to confounding expectations.
“People here are very decent about their interactions with well-knowns. I get the occasional ‘Yo, Bowie’ but that’s about it. My only rule is to avoid tourist areas. But if I weren’t known, I’d still avoid ’em. In London, the saying goes, life takes place behind doors. Here it’s on the street.” — written by David Bowie, posted in New York magazine on 9.18.03.
