January 11.
Last night I woke up at about 3 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Usually I try to meditate when that happens but for some reason unknown, I picked up my phone and checked in and saw the news. Unbelievable. There was someone I never realised would actually die. He hovered over our childhoods and our teen years in Australia, a superlative human, part alien (all too convincing), fantastic planeteer.
I saw The Man Who Fell To Earth when it came out with some of my teenage siblings at Huskisson Theatre which doubled as a Church on Sunday mornings. Sitting in a little old rickety cinema with wooden seats in a tiny coastal town in Australia we were transported into the seemingly ‘Bowie Universe.’ We were intrigued, mesmerized, captivated; and it was hard to doubt that Bowie was actually from another planet. Nearly impossible to separate the man who sang Starman from the character in the film, especially when you are a kid whose imagination is attempting to brim over and get loose.
Throughout the 70s, Bowie shifted and transformed and could do no wrong. He was made to be a star and handled it better than just about anyone. He was fearlessly and brazenly unconventional. His inspiration was limitless, his imagination was unencumbered.
Over the past month, as it so happens, I’ve been revisiting Low and Hunky Dory. Low – that depressed, stoner album – can make me feel as weird as I used to feel when I listened to it all those years ago, like an ethereal flashback to a past nightmare dream of darker, more wintery times. Happier is Hunky Dory, the elvin Bowie hasn’t completely thrown off his hippie whimsy on this wonderful album. We have loved so much of him and will keep on at it. Wow, Mr. Jones. Just “Wow!” xo
