12/18/2023 0 Comments Gran torino crossword nytimes![]() Bowie got to me, as he got to so many of us. Since then it really does feel like people are spitting on children who try to change our world. I’m not alone in feeling like the world cracked a little when it happened. “ Millions weep a fountain, just in case of sunrise…” -David Bowie, “ Aladdin Sane”, 1973 Just like that bluebird-ain’t that just like me?” he sings in the track “ Lazarus.” “ This way or no way, you know, I’ll be free. He instead stayed put in New York and left a living will, the benefit-a last work of music. Most people who discover they have a terminal illness will go into bucket list mode. ![]() His death from cancer was announced two days later, surprising even long time friends and collaborators like Brian Eno. It feels very much like something surrounding us in the ether, rather than floating above us in space as before. It sounded different this time, though, eerier, more dystopian, more omniscient. The record explores familiar, dark terrain, once again through the lens of an alien-like being observing and judging society. His final album, Blackstar, dropped on January 8, 2016, his 69th birthday. That’s how fucking good David Bowie was at being David Bowie. He simultaneously mastered being a huge celebrity and an active New Yorker without making a big deal of it. I know plenty of lucky people who did spot him, and typically in very mundane settings. As a New Yorker, I’m disappointed that I never saw my “neighbor” in the wild, although you probably would have had to scrape me off the floor or pavement if it happened. He seemed to be a constant light, a continuous source of productivity, imagination and art, even if only from the sidelines. After a health scare in the early 2000s, he went into what was assumed to be retirement, only to release a surprise record a decade later (so much for never doing anything out of the blue, right?) and impress us all over again by writing a Broadway musical. H e showed up in movies and TV series, dropping snark like he’d invented that variety of humor. He maintained a productive recording and touring career and helped forge new ones for other talents. He was a role model for people around the world who felt like they were on the fringes, and provided a community to let that freak shine in whatever manifestation it needed to. His crossed sexual and racial boundaries like regular people cross the street. He is known for his character transformations, from Dorky Space Oddity to Ziggy Stardust to Thin White Duke to Crossover Funk Bloke In Tweed to Tanned Blonde Hunk to Industrial Hipster (yes, before it was cool) to Gracefully Aging Rock God. The Brits may not have made the best voting decisions of late, but one thing they did correctly decide in 2018 was that David Bowie is the greatest entertainer of the 20th century.īorn David Robert Jones (changed to Bowie in the 1960s) on January 8, 1947, he had a career that spanned four decades, during which he recorded 27 studio albums, starred in as many films and released over 100 singles, while also touring, acting on stage, painting, becoming a successful tech entrepreneur, investing in meaningful causes and raising a family (he has a child from each of his marriages to Angela Barnett and supermodel Iman). Someone took the time to compile it because he was just so freakishly exceptional that it’s hard to believe he ate, drank, pissed and slept in the same realm as the rest of us. One of my favorite links of all time is this collection of photos of David Bowie doing normal things. After dabbling in decades of public ambisexuality, in his middle age, he married someone who is inarguably one of the most beautiful women to ever walk the earth. It didn’t help that he was able to pull off such alien-like features-the pale (almost light green) skin, thin nose, eyes of different colors with their funky stretched almond shape, sparse eyebrows, snaggly teeth (although those were later fixed), sinewy body-and make it look HOT, even as he reached his 60s. ![]() He was so insanely artistic, talented, charismatic and stylish that he made any person who wasn’t David Bowie look bad. It sometimes doesn’t seem possible that he could have been human. Sordid details following…" - David Bowie, “Ashes to Ashes ”, 1980 Hot tramp, we love you so! Bowie-inspired drink recipes from around the world to close out January, his birth and death month. ![]()
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