"We are gathered here today to get through this thing called life"
What I posted elsewhere upon first hearing of today's terrible loss:
And now I have to find a quiet private space where I can cry over losing someone I never met but who mattered enormously. I already did that once this year.
God. Damn. It.
I'm not even sure we DESERVED all that Prince gave us.
Follow up:
My earlier post was a personal reaction, a reflection of what Prince was to me musically and as an avatar of individuality and coolness.
My Twitter feed has been reminding me of all the ways in which he was truly revolutionary: in music production, distribution & rights-holding; in breaking down color barriers on radio and in videos; in his experimentation with a variety of media, performance styles & expression; in his rejection of a rigid model of masculinity, particularly black masculinity, and his modeling of how broadly gender could be expressed.
And it's really important to me to state my admiration for these things and my recognition of how important they all are, and why losing Prince isn't only about the music and the performances, but because he was every bit as vital to our culture as Bowie, and thus why losing him is just as staggering.
We were listening to KEXP on the way home, which has gone all-Prince for the day. They played "Sign o' the Times" and that was when I finally started sobbing.
I wasn't even wearing purple today.
And now I have to find a quiet private space where I can cry over losing someone I never met but who mattered enormously. I already did that once this year.
God. Damn. It.
I'm not even sure we DESERVED all that Prince gave us.
Follow up:
My earlier post was a personal reaction, a reflection of what Prince was to me musically and as an avatar of individuality and coolness.
My Twitter feed has been reminding me of all the ways in which he was truly revolutionary: in music production, distribution & rights-holding; in breaking down color barriers on radio and in videos; in his experimentation with a variety of media, performance styles & expression; in his rejection of a rigid model of masculinity, particularly black masculinity, and his modeling of how broadly gender could be expressed.
And it's really important to me to state my admiration for these things and my recognition of how important they all are, and why losing Prince isn't only about the music and the performances, but because he was every bit as vital to our culture as Bowie, and thus why losing him is just as staggering.
We were listening to KEXP on the way home, which has gone all-Prince for the day. They played "Sign o' the Times" and that was when I finally started sobbing.
I wasn't even wearing purple today.