Playing Favorites: Bowie & Anthony Powell

This second “Plying Favorites” is just that – play, possibly of entertainment to no one but myself, a variation of Six Degrees of Separation. Anthony Powell is the author of a novel in twelve volumes, A Dance to the Music of Time, which I believe is primarily about how our minds make narratives of our […]

Playing Favorites: Bowie-Yentob-Pullman

Other than being two of my favorites, David Bowie and novelist Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials, The Book of Dust) have nothing much in common beyond having been born in post-war England within a few months of each other (1/47; 10/46). That, and having interesting minds and reading widely. Now I find that BBC One, […]

Philip Hoare’s RisingTideFallingStar. David Bowie, Islander

David Bowie was an islander, born in England, died in Manhattan, his ashes scattered off the island of Bali. He had a lifelong interest in another island nation, Japan, and homes in Australia, Mustique, and Bermuda. Like Thomas Jerome Newton, his avocation could easily be described as Traveler; his moniker on his website was […]

Philip Hoare’s RisingTideFallingStar: David Bowie, Cosmos-politan, 2

David Bowie died during the evening of January 10, 2016 in New York City, but much of the world was sleeping, and so woke to the news on the 11th, the news traveling like a cross-continental comet. He was cremated, according to the death certificate filed with his will, on January 12 in New Jersey; […]

Philip Hoare’s RisingTideFallingStar: David Bowie, Cosmos-politan, 1

“He looks like a comet, his flame-like hair slicked back on entry into earth’s atmosphere.” Philip Hoare, on the fall to earth of alien Thomas Jerome Newton, aka David Bowie. RisingTideFallingStar (130) After a brief meditation on the fall of Icarus (this book is about risings and fallings and risings of tides and stars, and […]

Philip Hoare’s RisingTideFallingStar: Frock Coats and the End of Empire

Bowie on Outside in 1995 interview with Larry Katz: “Outside is set at the end of the millennium. What are your thoughts about what’s in store?” Bowie: “‘I’m very positive about it. …What Brian and I are trying to do is develop a series of albums that trace the last five years of the ‘90s. […]

The Vale of Soul-Making. Philip Hoare’s RisingTideFallingStar

RisingTideFallingStar, the best book about Bowie I expect to read, the one I hope his daughter Lexie has, does not, within its text, include the word Bowie. I don’t read reviews before I read or write about books, so I don’t know if others see how gratifying this book is to Bowie people. Dustjacket flap […]