Bowie and Art

Story 1

Story 2

David Bowie Tribute #2

Flight of the Conchords:

And more on Bowie's influence on COMIC BOOKS.

A Tribute to David Bowie #1

Today, like every other day, a life vanished. This life left a legacy both complex and contemplative, shared with viewers, listeners, readers, and dreamers.

Here are a few thoughts from Tilda Swinton:

The image of that gingery boney pinky whitey person on the cover with the liquid mercury collar bone was - for one particular young moonage daydreamer - the image of planetary kin, of a close imaginary cousin and companion of choice
...
We are -
And you brought us out of the wainscotting like so many
Freaky old bastards
Like so many fan boys and girls
Like so many loners and pretty things and dandies and dudes and dukes and duckies and testicular types
And pulled us together

Full speech HERE

And Bowie's answers to Proust's questionnaire:

Neil Gaiman's The Return of the Thin White Duke can be found HERE

And on his insistence that his Lucifer figure be based on Bowie HERE

And some lyrics:

But the key to the city

Is in the sun that pins

the branches to the sky

I'm sinking in the quicksand

of my thought

And I ain't got the power anymore

Don't believe in yourself 

Don't deceive with belief 

Knowledge comes

with death's release

"Eight Line Poem"

The tactful cactus by your window

Surveys the prairie of your room

The mobile spins to its collision

Clara puts her head between her paws

They've opened shops down West side

Will all the cacti find a home

But the key to the city

Is in the sun that pins

the branches to the sky

Bone Records

All you need to know HERE

The Music of Alchemists

And another, with full instruments:

This is from Michael Maier’s 1617 Atalanta Fugiens

Halloween!

It's almost that time, so here is some music to consider for your playlist:

And a non-classical, pretty obvious one:

Maurice Ravel's Bolero and Brain Decay as a Creative Catalyst

http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/jun/18/unraveling-bolero/

More Halloween Music Videos

For indie, here's Matt Pond PA:

For alt country, here's Ryan Adams:

For punk, here's some Misfits:

For classical, here's Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain as visualized by Disney:

And for a romantic piece by Camille Saint-Saens redone by Bela Fleck:

The Photographer

Edweard Muybridge is quite the character. In honor of the 182nd anniversary of his birth, Google put up a Doodle that animates his famous series of pictures proving that racing horses do, in fact, lift all their legs up at once.

This is what he's best known for -- serial photography that is now thought of as essentially the predecessor to film. But it's weird that he's still famous for his photography even though he killed another man in cold blood.

Such a story inspired Philip Glass to produce an opera called The Photographer (1982).

But what always interested me (obviously) are his body studies. He made people strip nude and move in certain ways so that he could record how the body looked in motion.

Muybridge, Woman Walking Down Stairs, 1887.

And Muybridge was also [according to some] the inspiration for one of the coolest paintings ever, Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending Staircase, N0. 2, 1912.

Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending Staircase, No. 2, 1912. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Waits for me!

And my favorite Tom Waits song: