David Bowie has passed.

[Mrs Mangel]

http://www.davidbowie.com/news/january-10-2016-55521

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/david-bowie-dead-legendary-artist-854364

[HorseTears]

This one hurts.  An absolute giant whose greatness and influence cannot be overstated.  I'm still processing the  beautiful, dark new album, but now it's clear he had death on his mind while making it.  

[songanddanceman2]

Just awful and heartbreaking. RIP to a legend 

[tazber]

oh my god.

 

I'm in utter shock.

 

I can barely comment because I need to process this.

 

R.I.P.

 

 

[Jane2]

devastated. Unable to even type his name and dead in the same sentence.

[The Glenbuck Laird]

Liverpool Empire 1977, mascara all over the shop. Seems like yesterday.

What a back catalogue Bowie left for us.

[Jane2]

Here's my encounter with this amazing man.

 

It was at the Jane St. Theater, the show was Sandra Bernhard's "The Love Machine." Word got around that Bowie was coming to the show. I don't usually get excited at the thought of celebrities but Bowie was god and I got very nervous and excited. Just by chance, I was collecting tickets that night. Sure enough, on the line waiting their turn with every other man on the street, were Bowie and Iman, actually blending in. As they got closer to me, I saw a guy try to cut in front of them and hand me his ticket first. I looked at Bowie with an apologetic shrug, but he just said, touching my arm, no no, take him first. Then as he was about to enter the house, he said "Oh, yeah, this is where Hedwig was." We shared a few words about it, as Bowie had been interested in producing Hedwig in LA.

 

The best thing about this man was that he slumped completely down in his seat, so as not to be seen. I took it as a generous gesture towards Bernhard, as it was her show, and Bowie didn't want any of the attention.

What a human being we've lost. I can't get over it.

[HorseTears]

Jane, that's a lovely story.  How wonderful to have that memory.  I was keeping it together today until I saw the the videos of hundreds of people gathered in Bowie's birthplace of Brixton for a spontaneous sing-a-long.  Something about that beautiful, collective experience gave me such chills and made me tear up for the first time today.  

 

 

[HorseTears]

And Buzzfeed has collected dozens of international newspaper cover pages from yesterday and today.  It will apparently be updated with additional covers as they are published.  Amidst the grief and shock, it's quite lovely to see this true genius receive this global send-off.  

 

 

[Jane2]

thanks Horse. It's finally sinking in that he died.

[HorseTears]

Conan remembers Bowie... 

 

 

[FindingNamo]

The Saddest Are These: It Might Have Been

 

Bowie was incredibly prolific but spouted out more ideas than he could have possibly seen to fruition.  A lot of them had to do with theatrical presentations.  From a 1995 New York Times article on the eve of release of "Outside," (a dark song cycle about a child murderer, because of course) Bowie shared some of his visions for his sound:

 

IF THE 90'S ARE ALREADY Proving more inspiring to him, however, it may be for one simple reason: the fin de siecle. Above all, the ominous fact of the millennium seems to have engendered the gruesome story of "Outside." "All this imagery just started to make sense in light of the stereotypical behavior that happens toward the end of the century," he said. "A vague desperation sets in. Morals become a great issue. I just sort of ran with it." 

 

In fact, Mr. Bowie is so invigorated by this millennial sang-froid that he imagines the narrative of Baby Grace Blue's murder continuing through his next four albums. One a year. Until, well, December 1999. "The idea of documenting the last five years of this millennium is something that I just cannot miss doing," he said. And then? "Then what I would like very much to do is present it as a stage piece, maybe over two or three days. As a piece of monumental, epic theater."

[CarlosAlberto]

I'm reading reports that sales have soared for Bowie's last album after his death.

 

Hmmm....I wonder how many of those people would have actually purchased it if he was still alive.

 

 

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Quite a few, if the healthy sales of The Next Day are anything to go by, not to mention the rave reviews - but Blackstar could be his first US No.1, which would be great. Who cares why they're buying it, anyway? It's only natural after such publicity. It's not an exclusive club! All welcome.

[CarlosAlberto]

True. Hopefully more people will get exposed to his brilliance and that is a great thing! 

[SNAFU]

I have to say, his passing has touched me. He has always been there in the world. Though I worked on this film, alas it was in the NY shop and didn't get to meet him. At true artist and so much apart of present day life!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvyNOg4jSRg

[FindingNamo]

Me too, SNAFU.  The Ziggy Stardust album was there in ways that most of my family of origin were unable to be.

 

Just so you know CA, I worked in a record shop when Lennon was shot.  People bought Double Fantasy in droves after that.  If people feel a connection to an artist, or are moved by the artist's death, what difference does it make if they "would have" bought the art before they died?  It's that sort of "purity" and "authenticity" Bowie worked against his entire career.  

[SNAFU]

By buying his music, his art, and inadvertently sharing it with others, for whatever reason, only keeps his art, his vision, alive.

[sabrelady]

The Road Not Taken-  R. Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;        5

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,        10

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.        15

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

[SNAFU]

Little Edie, is that you?

[sabrelady]

La la lala la!

[NYadgal]

Love this.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/why-those-who-were-teenagers-in-the-70s-will-feel-the-loss-of-da/

[sabrelady]

Found this interesting quote about the DAVID BOWIE IS  from Geoffrey Marsh, the curator of the travelling retrospective David Bowie Is, about the Bowie archive: walking into the Bowie archive, housed in a nondescript building in Boston, for the very first time.:

"I can’t say where it is. I can say he’s had this archivist working on it for four years and it’s beautifully documented - to museum standards in fact. There are pictures of him as a baby - a photograph of Little Richard that he had on his bedroom wall as a little boy which is in the exhibition. The first thing we actually saw were the costumes. And the strange thing about costumes is that when they’re sitting in a box, folded up, they don’t look like much. But then you conjure this image of them on stage and weirdly, they’re like freeze frames of how he saw himself at that moment - even more so than album covers that could take more than a year to come out. The costumes were something that were probably designed only months, sometimes days, in advance. 

"It’s like having a film of his career. Some of them have become so iconic – for instance the Pierrot costume from Ashes To Ashes. Looking at that you think, what’s all that about? Where did that come from? And I think the thing that got me - my Bowie moment, if you want to call it that - was when I realised that he had made all the drawings for the original designs himself. We have the felt tip pen sketches he made in the show.

"Also in the exhibition we have his original designs for Hunger City for the Diamond Dogs tour. He actually got as far as trying to turn it into a film. We have the storyboards he made for it so we’re animating them in the show. If you think that he was doing this when he was just 26 or 27-years-old it's incredible. There’s a big difference between going to see Judi Dench in Cabaret and a couple of years later thinking I’m actually going to put on a full scale musical myself. He never lacked ambition! But all we see (as fans) are the tips of the icebergs of the things he was working on that actually got through…”

[FindingNamo]

That's practically what I was saying about him being an endless font of ideas.  But I didn't know about the building in Boston!

[HorseTears]

Bowie: agent of ch-ch-ch-changes (this only makes me love him even more and I didn't think that was possible):

 

 

David Bowie accusing MTV of racism in '83: Read the interview transcript

[FindingNamo]

I remember that.  Nothing beats East Coast programmers blaming their racism on the midwest.