shewhomust: (ayesha)
shewhomust ([personal profile] shewhomust) wrote2016-01-12 09:19 pm

Loving the alien

Not for the first time, I seem to be out of step with what the news media tell me I am feeling. Here on LJ my f-list is full of personal reactions to the death of David Bowie, of explainations why he was important to the writer personally, and that's fine. But I'm beginning to twitch at the wall-to-wall coverage: when the Guardian has a full-page photo on the front page, plus a pull-out supplement with another full-page photo on the front (in addition to a double-page obituary and any number of opinion pieces); when the presenter of the Tosay programme (Radio 4 at its most conservative) feels obliged to preface an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury by asking what Bowie had meant to him* - well, I begin to think that the state funeral can't be far behind. It's not that I don't think he deserves it, it just feels inappropriate, a category error.

There's more, but beyond this point I just write things and delete them. So I will stop here, and get back to writing a long-overdue post about Peter Dickinson.




*To be fair to Justin Welby, he managed a perfectly sensible answer about having listened to a lot of Bowie in the seventies. If this had anything to do with his ending up in a job which requires him to wear very elaborate frocks for much of the time, he didn't say so.

[identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com 2016-01-12 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Feeling kind of the same.

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 10:41 am (UTC)(link)
That's reassuring!

[identity profile] vschanoes.livejournal.com 2016-01-12 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Just read that Jerry Hall is engaged to Rupert Murdoch, which also seems like a category error, although one of a more humorous kind.

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 10:42 am (UTC)(link)
As in: 'What do Rupert Murdoch and Mick Jagger have in common?' No, it makes perfect sense to me!

[identity profile] karinmollberg.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 03:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Am afraid I am agreeing...and at admitting for a lot (as in allitterration) as Monty Python would have said on group things such as mass hysteria about whom to love&hate (the Romans, was it); I am also afraid, I did not know this. About Rupert&Jerry. Yet. The News! At least this time, they're hilarious. Time to take a cigarette. She appeared as Spring for one of the Queen's birthdays, did she not? Courtneying (as in curtseying but I'll stop Mollberging for now...;)

sad that we have to vie for the stage even at death..

[identity profile] pigshitpoet.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 01:38 am (UTC)(link)
for me it's more about cancer and being 69

i'm wondering when will it be time for madonna? she's only 57, but age takes its toll these days.. mind you, she spent some time with jesus, and that should buy her some time i would think)))

; '
Edited 2016-01-13 01:40 (UTC)

Re: sad that we have to vie for the stage even at death..

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 10:43 am (UTC)(link)
for me it's more about cancer and being 69

Trying not to think about that!

Re: sad that we have to vie for the stage even at death..

[identity profile] pigshitpoet.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 06:07 am (UTC)(link)
ok

[identity profile] weegoddess.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
*To be fair to Justin Welby, he managed a perfectly sensible answer about having listened to a lot of Bowie in the seventies. If this had anything to do with his ending up in a job which requires him to wear very elaborate frocks dor much of the time, he didn't say so.

::adoration for this::

(apologies for the deleted comment; somehow I'd hit the wrong button and it replied to another. Whups.)

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 10:43 am (UTC)(link)
You're welcome!

[identity profile] karinmollberg.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 05:57 am (UTC)(link)
well, I begin to think that the state funeral can't be far behind. It's not that I don't think he deserves it, it just feels inappropriate, a category error.

Thank you. I was hoping for someone to mention this circumstance about the most important occurrence before the second coming, incidentally I just pre-posted something on the annexe hut we are preparing for that one but who knows, who really is Inside the space shuttle but I only do that to promote the Dee I feel everyone needs to read because Great Gates is it good... Then I'm an interested listener to what you will say on Dickinson.
A he, is he?

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 11:02 am (UTC)(link)
A he, is he?

Well, that's always the question, isn't it? This was the first time I saw Bowie:



The only time I ever saw him live was as a mime (https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/tag/the-mask/).

[identity profile] karinmollberg.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 02:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I never saw him live, I wasn't that kind of a fan as I didn't even know yet what that was but my sister owned this record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTKNH_hAB5s&list=PLZFdx7kNIhEMYt-ZeL_yrRqzQbbE7Tb8o

(one has to love Sally;=) but I also need to link here and or steal that mass movement idea about longhaired men, heh!

that I loved and so, at the age of twelve, I think it was, I was allowed to go with my elder sister to see Sparks in clogs and thus began the downfall of my upbringing. I must admit, I still love these songs, though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFvYX3QWre0&list=PLZFdx7kNIhEMYt-ZeL_yrRqzQbbE7Tb8o&index=2
Edited 2016-01-13 15:13 (UTC)

[identity profile] lil-shepherd.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
At least it doesn't quite reach Michael Jackson coverage - the difference being that I thought Jackson completely untalented and an idiot to boot, while Bowie wasn't either.

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 10:45 am (UTC)(link)
I hadn't registered that as being comparable - but possibly, since Michael Jackson didn't interest me in the slightest, I just found it easier to blank out!

[identity profile] lil-shepherd.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 12:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I was listening to the radio through the night a lot at that point and for two nights solid there was quite literally NOTHING ELSE on 5!Live and very little else on the World Service. Yes, it was news, but there to be almost nothing else for two whole days...

[identity profile] durham-rambler.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 01:05 pm (UTC)(link)
It's reached a new level with petitions being launched on Change.org Here are a few of the most popular petitions from fans so far:

  • Simon is asking the Bank of England to feature Bowie on the new £20 note.

  • Natalie would like the Royal Mail to feature David Bowie on a stamp.

  • Liz believes the International Astronomical Union should name the next star after David Bowie.

  • Daniel wants Mars to be renamed after David Bowie.

I’m just hoping that the last one is a piss-take. I fear not
Edited 2016-01-13 13:06 (UTC)