And Autobiography is a lot of a bit much — nearly 500 pages, with tiny margins and no index. So instead of flipping around looking for "Boorer, Boz" or "busses, double-decker" or "Bowie, David, argument over fruit-salad buffet in 1992 with," you have to jump in. There are great moments everywhere, including that breakfast with Bowie. "David quietly tells me, 'You know, I've had so much sex and drugs I can't believe I'm still alive,' and I loudly tell him, 'You know, I've had so LITTLE sex and drugs I can't believe I'm still alive.'"
(rob sheffield, from "morrissey's autobiography: the dream is gone but the book is real")
Showing posts with label bowie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bowie. Show all posts
09.10.17
01.14.16
you spread a towel across the floor; you fill two plastic litter pans with warm water and epsom salt and set them a foot apart on the towel. you test the water temperature with your elbow, you can't get a good feel for the heat through surgical gloves. you fold and roll a second towel and place it between the pans. D throws a towel over the swan's head and brings her, swaddled and thrashing, to the roll. when she's seated, you grab the swan's right ankle and force her foot into an epsom bath; a friend mirrors you on D's left. D sets her phone's timer for ten minutes and kicks it across the lobby, out of the splash zone. D is wearing jewelry, and you trade stories of songbirds unraveling friendship bracelets, of beads lost to canada geese, of the time a pigeon's cage ripped a favorite earring right out of your head. when D's phone chimes, you and the friend lift the swan's feet out of their baths. they're flat and black, huge, like moldering leaves; pink patches of new skin bloom in the spots where the swan's bumblefoot scabs have fallen off. you swipe up a tablespoon of udder balm from a pot on the floor and massage it into the swan's right foot, you swipe up a tablespoon of udder balm from a pot on the floor and massage it into the swan's left foot. the smell is the cloves, D says. you release the swan's left foot and remove the towel from her bowed head; she erupts from D's lap and the little girls in the lobby window are vowels.
a dotty-but-harmless, harry-dean-stanton-fallen-on-hard-times fellow met me at the counter at ye olde charity bookstore cafe yesterday; we chatted about the weather and how every time a big white truck parks on crosby at the front window i assume that we've been snowed in. he reappeared an hour later and told me, slowly, that i reminded him of a girlfriend he'd once had. that my sequined top was, that i was, liza minnelli, he trailed off and i didn't know what to do; he tipped forward and went blank and i didn't know what to do. his coffee cup fell to the floor.
he's a client, D said. (ye olde charity bookstore's D is a man, o shame—when i didn't know what to do i summoned a man from the basement.) D roused the fellow, offered him a gentle shoulder, and guided him outside. he just had his methadone, D said, those are the nods. the worst is when they get the nods right on the stairs.
i walked home through an alley between crosby and lafayette and pretended i hadn't meant to pass the memorial offerings outside david bowie's new york apartment. a girl played the last thirty seconds of "heroes" on her phone, and a tall man whispered the details of angie's divorce settlement to a friend at his side. everyone says hi.
a dotty-but-harmless, harry-dean-stanton-fallen-on-hard-times fellow met me at the counter at ye olde charity bookstore cafe yesterday; we chatted about the weather and how every time a big white truck parks on crosby at the front window i assume that we've been snowed in. he reappeared an hour later and told me, slowly, that i reminded him of a girlfriend he'd once had. that my sequined top was, that i was, liza minnelli, he trailed off and i didn't know what to do; he tipped forward and went blank and i didn't know what to do. his coffee cup fell to the floor.
he's a client, D said. (ye olde charity bookstore's D is a man, o shame—when i didn't know what to do i summoned a man from the basement.) D roused the fellow, offered him a gentle shoulder, and guided him outside. he just had his methadone, D said, those are the nods. the worst is when they get the nods right on the stairs.
i walked home through an alley between crosby and lafayette and pretended i hadn't meant to pass the memorial offerings outside david bowie's new york apartment. a girl played the last thirty seconds of "heroes" on her phone, and a tall man whispered the details of angie's divorce settlement to a friend at his side. everyone says hi.
09.23.11
craft cabin update: a year after his gallery debut, the david bowie i sketched and embroidered is finally part of the granny cluster in our living room. i should take up my sewing again, it being the first day of fall (in weather like this, i could drink cider and pick out embroidery floss all day) and all. it's intensely satisfying to festoon the apartment with things one's made.
speaking of taking things up, i've been thinking of hosting a book chat this fall; i'm fond of and will keep going with THUNDERTOME, but it's so lovely to discuss books when one's company is, you know, on the same page. might you be interested in reading lev grossman's the magicians and meeting back here to break it down? i hadn't even heard of it until reviews of its sequel, the magician king, started popping up at the end of august; it sounds promising, though. from "the badly behaved wizards of lev grossman's the magicians," a q&a with the village voice:
craft cabin update: a year after his gallery debut, the david bowie i sketched and embroidered is finally part of the granny cluster in our living room. i should take up my sewing again, it being the first day of fall (in weather like this, i could drink cider and pick out embroidery floss all day) and all. it's intensely satisfying to festoon the apartment with things one's made.
speaking of taking things up, i've been thinking of hosting a book chat this fall; i'm fond of and will keep going with THUNDERTOME, but it's so lovely to discuss books when one's company is, you know, on the same page. might you be interested in reading lev grossman's the magicians and meeting back here to break it down? i hadn't even heard of it until reviews of its sequel, the magician king, started popping up at the end of august; it sounds promising, though. from "the badly behaved wizards of lev grossman's the magicians," a q&a with the village voice:
VV: Reviewers have described The Magicians as an amalgamation of other books. It's Jay McInerney meets J.K. Rowling, or it's Less Than Zero plus Harry Potter. What's your own amalgamation description?could be interesting, no? i'm thinking we could plan to have the magicians under our belts (as it were) by halloween, which is both easy to remember and several weeks away; we could then meet back here around the first of november and talk wizards. and, like, waugh. what do you think?
LG: You can't really leave out Rowling or C.S. Lewis, but the other main presences are Evelyn Waugh, particularly Brideshead Revisted, and Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Waugh takes young characters out of their sort of adolescent idyll and projects them into a very harsh and disorderly world—and just watches them flounder and sink. As they look for, you know, meaning and happiness and other things. God, I guess. And that's the structure of The Magicians, pretty much wholesale.
[...]
LG: I love Harry Potter, and it's a great fear of mine that The Magicians will be seen as a criticism or even an attack on Rowling. But I wanted to . . . test him. To test Harry. Or a Harry-like figure. To see what would happen if he was, say, having sex instead of snogging, or drinking real beer instead of butterbeer, if . . . his friends didn't have a Voldemort in their universe to tell them who's good and who's evil, to give them something to fight against.
VV: And what happens?
LG: Well, the story becomes less about fighting evil, using magic to fight evil, and more about trying to figure out . . . what the fuck magic is for.
07.21.11: the dirty dozen {twelve youtube comments on the original "space oddity" video}
01 I heard this song in an English class in MEXICO
02 I'm 13 years old, I'm from Canada, and I love David Bowie. I feel like I should have been born in another time era.
03 This song is #1 of the top 13 songs about space travel.
04 that's not david bowie.. this looks homemade. i detect a trololo
05 1:13-1:20 I think the camera guy insisted on more and more crotch. David handled it well with that little maneuver.
06 Ground control major thong.
07 Is it cold in space Bowie Do you want to borrow my jumper Bowie
08 ocarina schmocarina
09 the cat power version is way better
10 It's too literal and far too low budget.
11 damn it, how i want that helmet!
12 good float man
01 I heard this song in an English class in MEXICO
02 I'm 13 years old, I'm from Canada, and I love David Bowie. I feel like I should have been born in another time era.
03 This song is #1 of the top 13 songs about space travel.
04 that's not david bowie.. this looks homemade. i detect a trololo
05 1:13-1:20 I think the camera guy insisted on more and more crotch. David handled it well with that little maneuver.
06 Ground control major thong.
07 Is it cold in space Bowie Do you want to borrow my jumper Bowie
08 ocarina schmocarina
09 the cat power version is way better
10 It's too literal and far too low budget.
11 damn it, how i want that helmet!
12 good float man
09.01.10
101 in 1001 {II}: 011 contribute work to a gallery show [completed 08.31.10]
once upon a time, i heard of a contest; it involved tearing across the city to secure a blank tote bag, spending a week reimagining said tote bag, and potentially ending up in a gallery show. i just love tearing across the city for random things (as the people who saw joe and me switching shoes to race across williamsburg could tell you), and i finally had time for a nice and complicated project; i was on this. two fridays ago, i took a cab down to the school of fashion at parsons and grabbed my blank bag.
on saturday i sent esb a rambling email about bags and textile portraits and technique and laura palmer and fashion and david bowie. bowiebowiebowie, she said, and who am i to argue with that? on sunday i got advice and a bunch of linen thread from the ladies at purl soho. on monday i picked up contact paper and blew out a bowie-photo at kinko's for a rough template; by monday night i had a viable source sketch and was a little one-woman sweatshop. a word of advice to you, internet: should you find that you have to embroider a tote bag at some point in your life, go through the extra step of taking said bag apart. i didn't, so i had to do the whole thing upside down and have a lovely pointillist bowie on my right thigh.
i actually didn't start listening to records as i sewed until thursday night; on friday morning, for my last three hours of satin stitches, i played low (twice), heroes, and the first half of changesbowie. i tub-dyed the whole thing friday morning (per jamie and one of our fashion editors), hid it from steve overnight, and climbed up to the roof to take submission photos on saturday morning. on saturday night i kept grabbing joe's arm. i want to win, i hissed.
yesterday i won,
and yesterday evening joe and amanda and i had semi-cold cans of beer at the gallery show. and tiki drinks at painkiller. and banh mi and pho at an choi.
{full project set here}
101 in 1001 {II}: 011 contribute work to a gallery show [completed 08.31.10]
once upon a time, i heard of a contest; it involved tearing across the city to secure a blank tote bag, spending a week reimagining said tote bag, and potentially ending up in a gallery show. i just love tearing across the city for random things (as the people who saw joe and me switching shoes to race across williamsburg could tell you), and i finally had time for a nice and complicated project; i was on this. two fridays ago, i took a cab down to the school of fashion at parsons and grabbed my blank bag.
on saturday i sent esb a rambling email about bags and textile portraits and technique and laura palmer and fashion and david bowie. bowiebowiebowie, she said, and who am i to argue with that? on sunday i got advice and a bunch of linen thread from the ladies at purl soho. on monday i picked up contact paper and blew out a bowie-photo at kinko's for a rough template; by monday night i had a viable source sketch and was a little one-woman sweatshop. a word of advice to you, internet: should you find that you have to embroider a tote bag at some point in your life, go through the extra step of taking said bag apart. i didn't, so i had to do the whole thing upside down and have a lovely pointillist bowie on my right thigh.
i actually didn't start listening to records as i sewed until thursday night; on friday morning, for my last three hours of satin stitches, i played low (twice), heroes, and the first half of changesbowie. i tub-dyed the whole thing friday morning (per jamie and one of our fashion editors), hid it from steve overnight, and climbed up to the roof to take submission photos on saturday morning. on saturday night i kept grabbing joe's arm. i want to win, i hissed.
yesterday i won,
and yesterday evening joe and amanda and i had semi-cold cans of beer at the gallery show. and tiki drinks at painkiller. and banh mi and pho at an choi.
{full project set here}
12.04.09
the dirty dozen, part II {twelve seasonal things}
pneumonia, she is an adventure in self-discovery. in the past few days, i've learned that my disdain for hypochondriacs has made me the worst sort of stoic: i ignore serious shit (like, you know, coughing blood*) in service of this weird lady-machismo*** that impresses no one. it's the same sort of impulse that led me to eat a handful of semi-raw habaneros on my honeymoon in london: just weird, and i suffered for it. per doctor's orders, i'm stuck at home until tuesday and on three kinds of antibiotics (and a self-prescribed bowie-on-vinyl cure; predictably, low is the best soundtrack for being in a room you can't leave). no stoicism in 2010!
05 on bowie, i read a rather entertaining take on his life (marc spitz's bowie) a few months ago. it's imperfect (though spitz mentions blade runner a few times, he doesn't mention that the note bowie sent with flowers to his brother's funeral is a quote from the movie), but it's full of excellent anecdotes, including the following, from when bowie and brian eno were recording low at a château in france:
06 i have a weakness for themed christmas trees (see: the war on christmas, harrison ford in the cupboard), and i realized as i was falling asleep the other night that the new apartment might need a princemas tree this year. decoration research led me to the purple store ("for people who love purple and those who shop for them,") and i'm going to go ahead and declare their 6.5 foot, pre-lit purple palm tree the acme of western civilization. that might be the azithromycin talking, but can you be sure?
07 i also finally got around to reading black postcards, better known as That Memoir in Which Dean Wareham Shits on Everyone. i like dean wareham the musician (both galaxie 500 and luna were fine bands) very much, but i went back and forth on whether or not i wanted to support his snark; happily, used copies of black postcards are cheap these days. the book isn't as vitriolic as i'd expected it to be (wareham's biggest enemy is a bad hotel), but it did yield a few amusements.
that last one was a bit of a cop-out, but the pestilence tires me, internets. forgive.
so, princemas tree: yea or nay?
pneumonia, she is an adventure in self-discovery. in the past few days, i've learned that my disdain for hypochondriacs has made me the worst sort of stoic: i ignore serious shit (like, you know, coughing blood*) in service of this weird lady-machismo*** that impresses no one. it's the same sort of impulse that led me to eat a handful of semi-raw habaneros on my honeymoon in london: just weird, and i suffered for it. per doctor's orders, i'm stuck at home until tuesday and on three kinds of antibiotics (and a self-prescribed bowie-on-vinyl cure; predictably, low is the best soundtrack for being in a room you can't leave). no stoicism in 2010!
05 on bowie, i read a rather entertaining take on his life (marc spitz's bowie) a few months ago. it's imperfect (though spitz mentions blade runner a few times, he doesn't mention that the note bowie sent with flowers to his brother's funeral is a quote from the movie), but it's full of excellent anecdotes, including the following, from when bowie and brian eno were recording low at a château in france:
The château was wired with an elaborate and clunky bank of synthesizers collected by Bowie and [producer Tony] Visconti. Eno would saunter into the main room, pick up a small keyboard, and begin pressing buttons. Occasionally he'd ask Visconti what these instruments were meant to do. One, the Event Harmonizer, he was told, "fucks with the fabric of time." Eno grinned and loudly declared that they must use it as much as possible.
06 i have a weakness for themed christmas trees (see: the war on christmas, harrison ford in the cupboard), and i realized as i was falling asleep the other night that the new apartment might need a princemas tree this year. decoration research led me to the purple store ("for people who love purple and those who shop for them,") and i'm going to go ahead and declare their 6.5 foot, pre-lit purple palm tree the acme of western civilization. that might be the azithromycin talking, but can you be sure?
07 i also finally got around to reading black postcards, better known as That Memoir in Which Dean Wareham Shits on Everyone. i like dean wareham the musician (both galaxie 500 and luna were fine bands) very much, but i went back and forth on whether or not i wanted to support his snark; happily, used copies of black postcards are cheap these days. the book isn't as vitriolic as i'd expected it to be (wareham's biggest enemy is a bad hotel), but it did yield a few amusements.
Every French interviewer asked us about the Pixies. They figured that since we were from Boston, we must love the Pixies. Nonsense. We had no love for the Pixies.08
Sometimes Galaxie 500 got lumped in with this whole shoegaze movement (we were later dubbed protoshoegaze), but we had nothing to do with it. We didn't listen to Ride, Chapterhouse, Lush, Slowdive, Moose, or even the Jesus and Mary Chain (who were derisively known as the Jesus and Money Chain back home in our world).
All the bands hung out in this amazing backstage area, enjoying the barbecue and the sun and the scenery. All except the Ramones, who stayed in their trailer and had pizza sent up from town. This was very punk rock of them.
And what about the Edge? What was he, ten years old, calling himself the Edge?
What if I decided I wanted to be called Cool Breeze?
"The Edge is cool," said Sean [Eden].
"The Edge is not cool," I said. I don't think U2 is cool. Remember that awful video from Red Rocks, where Bono prances around with a big flag, singing, "All I have is this guitar, three chords, and the truth"? I have not forgotten.
I have a theory: If you put four monkeys in the studio for a year with [Daniel] Lanois and Eno and [Steve] Lillywhite, they would make a pretty good record, too.
that last one was a bit of a cop-out, but the pestilence tires me, internets. forgive.
so, princemas tree: yea or nay?
*which, incidentally: way less attractive than baz luhrmann would have you believe it is.** i have never looked less like nicole kidman in my life.
**i really hated moulin rouge!.
***not marianismo, mind you; that sounds lame.
07.14.09
happy bastille day, folks. for reasons that could only be explained in the most convoluted way, i need to create a hierarchy of cultural figures named david whose surnames begin with b. thus far it's been determined that david beckham trumps david blaine, for instance, and bowie is tops, of course, so we've got
david bowie
david beckham
david blaine
...but where does david boreanaz go? what about the amazing version of david boreanaz from "smile time," the angel episode in which he turns into a puppet? and david brancaccio - i just don't know. i need judgment calls, and i need davids. help a sister out, would you?
happy bastille day, folks. for reasons that could only be explained in the most convoluted way, i need to create a hierarchy of cultural figures named david whose surnames begin with b. thus far it's been determined that david beckham trumps david blaine, for instance, and bowie is tops, of course, so we've got
david bowie
david beckham
david blaine
...but where does david boreanaz go? what about the amazing version of david boreanaz from "smile time," the angel episode in which he turns into a puppet? and david brancaccio - i just don't know. i need judgment calls, and i need davids. help a sister out, would you?
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