Vale, Man from Mars (...)

Rolling Stone February cover - photo credit: Anton Corbijn/Getty Images
Article: David Bowie's Final Years
(click to enlarge)
For more recent Rolling Stone articles about DB click here.

At your newsstand: this recent TIME publication.
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Along with so many people, I've been grappling with the death of David Bowie - America's resident alien - since Monday of last week. I think it's amazing just how many of us, all over the world, were not merely saddened or surprised by his death, but truly devastated. That is, we took it personally.

For the past few days I've been struggling to put into words the various ideas that have begun running through my head regarding this transformative event in our collective consciousness, but "words" seem increasingly inadequate. If a miracle occurs and I can finally gather my thoughts into something comprehensible, I'll post again. But, don't hold your breath(s). Meanwhile, I found this charming little video clip from Charlie Rose's 1998 interview with David, that I'll post here... and I'll be replacing the Bowie tunes on the sidebar with some others. At this moment, it's the best I could do.

Bliss to David, and peace to you all.

___________________________


"A pair of wings, a different respiratory system, which enabled us to travel through space, would in no way help us, for if we visited Mars or Venus while keeping the same senses, they would clothe everything we could see in the same aspect as the things of the Earth. The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do, with great artists; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star."

- Marcel Proust. Quote lifted off yesterday's Daily Grail news page, along with this announcement.

As it happens, I've just located a number of applicable quotes by Proust on the Goodreads pages. Here's another:

“Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces.”

"And the rain sets in
It's the angel-man
I'm deranged

Cruise me, cruise me, cruise me, babe"




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"Barnbrook loved working with David Bowie, he was simply one of the most inspirational, kind people we have met. So in the spirit of openness and in remembrance of David we are releasing the artwork elements of his last album ★ (Blackstar) to download here free under a Creative Commons non-commercial share alike licence. That means you can make t-shirts for yourself, use them for tattoos, put them up in your house to remember David by and adapt them too, but we would ask that you do not in any way create or sell commercial products with them or based on them.
Any questions or commercial licence usage please contact us."

(The Blackstar image above is my own modification of the download. Click to enlarge, and feel free to grab it for your personal, non-commercial use.)

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For those interested, Reality Sandwich has DB's natal astrology chart online. Interestingly, he, like myself, was born with his Capricorn sun in the 12th house. Unlike myself, he had a lot of fire and air in his chart, which is reflected by his incredible charisma and success as a performer.

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(May 4, 2016) This just in: Apparently a fan discovered that the Black Star gatefold inside the interior of the DB's (vinyl) Blackstar album is not solid black after all. When held in the sunlight, a starry view of the night sky appears. I wonder if it's a real photo, and what area of the galaxy it is. Maybe he was trying to tell us something... ;-)