Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #189 - Ellis on Bowie - Morning Computer

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #189 - Ellis on Bowie - Morning Computer


Hi Mom,

I am frequently reading Warren Ellis' delightful MORNING COMPUTER broadcasts, which transmits some mornings from his fortress home on the Thames Delta.

Once again, I have fallen behind on the blog, and so I will just share this, his recent remarks on David Bowie, which I think are well put (as I expect them to be) and capture one of the aspects of Bowie I wanted to capture as well, this idea that he is the pioneer, he is blazing new trail, he is showing us the way.

The image above is from Bowie's 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), which I think exhibits what Warren echoes of my own feelings that Bowie was always "ahead of everyone and everything else." This album still sounds ahead of its time.

I join Warren Ellis in thanking Bowie for his contributions to our world and to my life.

Here's Warren's remarks verbatim, though with credit. The specific link for this bit is here:

WAITING IN THE SKY.

WAITING IN THE SKY

I’m sure the internet is still rammed with takes and tributes and thinkpieces and all the other stuff, and on one level I feel lousy about adding to them. But I grew up with David Bowie’s work, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about his work, and eventually I’m going to have to get it all out on a screen somewhere. It’s still too much to process, this impossibly full and magnificently concluded working life. It humbles me. I grew up with his sound and words, and its levels were revealed to me as I got older – bear in mind that when “Life On Mars” was released as a single I was five years old, so forgive me for not getting all the references. I just need to write down, for myself as much as anything else, how he always seemed so far ahead of everyone and everything else, and how even his perceived failures were instructive and rammed with new thoughts and experiments. Everybody is going to be picking over his bones over the months and years to come – the hagiographies and the clickbait takedowns and all the other things. I, personally, need to balance my desire to explicate my fascination with the man’s work with the sure knowledge that that pile doesn’t need to be added to.

Perhaps it boils down to just needing to say this: for me, David Bowie was always waiting in the sky, one flight ahead of me, showing that it could all be done. And if I could ever have spoken to him, I like to think that I would simply have said thanks for everything, and left him to get on with the art of his next spacelaunch.

Thanks for everything.

My weekly newsletter can be subscribed to at http://orbitaloperations.com.

PS: Warren, I think the Internet is always capitalized... just sayin'.

Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.


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- Days ago = 191 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1601.12 - 10:10