Why do I even post here anymore?
I finally saw "The Hours" this Friday. I identified rather a lot with Virginia Woolf. Except that in my case, the voices have recently left me alone. For this whole past week, I've been entirely sane.
It's such a refreshing feeling, and almost a surprise. Each morning I wake up expecting the same confused mess inside my head, the murky shapes, the noise, and yet each morning I find my mind clear and light. It's like someone did an enthusiastic round of spring cleaning, and swept all the phantoms away, leaving open windows and fresh air and sunlight.
I've near forgotten what it's like to have my head all to myself lately. Or even what "myself" was. So strange, to be able to sort through my thoughts, and have nothing to stand in my way: no suffocating shadows, no contradicting whispers. There suddenly seems such a space, such a freedom!
I wonder how long it will last.
On a lighter note, I've just been watching the Best of Bowie DVD… my goodness, but he really is wonderful! *laughs* I haven't been listening to his records much lately--well, I within the last few weeks I did listen to Hunky Dory and Diamond Dogs, and did a run through of "Heroes", plus some Young Americans and Aladdin Sane stuff, and oh yeah, my Early On/Love You Till Tuesday collection of his 60's songs… but except for the last one, I wasn't really paying attention, I just had it on as background noise.
So I've sort of forgotten exactly how great he was. And yet, how could I? I watch his Ziggy-era concerts and am just amazed. The bright red hair, the face paint, the eyeshadow and lipstick, the outrageous outfits that border on the ridiculous, yet approach the sublime… And this was popular! And this was mainstream! For a while in the seventies, the biggest sensation was this skinny, pale young man with a spiked mullet haircut, without eyebrows, dressed in platform boots and quilted pajamas/knitted leotards/silk kimonos, who did mime and simulated fellatio with his lead guitarist on stage. As Glitterbot said, I can't believe stuff with lyrics like "keeps all your dead hair for making up underwear" was in the top 40. (This isn't actually what she said, but I decided to provide an example.) It's not even that the lyrics are nonsense--they aren't--but they're just plain *weird.*
Hm. So much for social progression, or social acceptance, or whatnot. When I look at his videos, I really can't imagine it being accepted today. If someone like him were to pop up now, he'd cause just as much shock, if not more, as Bowie did back then--and probably would still be considered too "bizarre" to gain mass popularity.
Sadly, after the 80's, he was never quite the same. Even if some of his mid-nineties stuff was really good, he just… eh. I think the problem is, he's lost interest in the music scene right now in general (and who could blame him, really?). He does his best work when… well, either when he's on coke, or when there's something that gets him really excited, makes him want to play with ideas. Right now it seems he's just putting stuff together because he has to. He needs outside inspiration: his genius consists not so much of originality, as of combining existing elements in creative ways with fresh ideas. He needs to hear something that makes him go, "Wow, I want to try that! But I want to change several things here and there…" The final product then strikes one as something entirely new and ahead of its time, but it's built of things of the time. And there's just no good building material around today.
It should say something that so many new bands are turning to a retro sound.
It's such a refreshing feeling, and almost a surprise. Each morning I wake up expecting the same confused mess inside my head, the murky shapes, the noise, and yet each morning I find my mind clear and light. It's like someone did an enthusiastic round of spring cleaning, and swept all the phantoms away, leaving open windows and fresh air and sunlight.
I've near forgotten what it's like to have my head all to myself lately. Or even what "myself" was. So strange, to be able to sort through my thoughts, and have nothing to stand in my way: no suffocating shadows, no contradicting whispers. There suddenly seems such a space, such a freedom!
I wonder how long it will last.
On a lighter note, I've just been watching the Best of Bowie DVD… my goodness, but he really is wonderful! *laughs* I haven't been listening to his records much lately--well, I within the last few weeks I did listen to Hunky Dory and Diamond Dogs, and did a run through of "Heroes", plus some Young Americans and Aladdin Sane stuff, and oh yeah, my Early On/Love You Till Tuesday collection of his 60's songs… but except for the last one, I wasn't really paying attention, I just had it on as background noise.
So I've sort of forgotten exactly how great he was. And yet, how could I? I watch his Ziggy-era concerts and am just amazed. The bright red hair, the face paint, the eyeshadow and lipstick, the outrageous outfits that border on the ridiculous, yet approach the sublime… And this was popular! And this was mainstream! For a while in the seventies, the biggest sensation was this skinny, pale young man with a spiked mullet haircut, without eyebrows, dressed in platform boots and quilted pajamas/knitted leotards/silk kimonos, who did mime and simulated fellatio with his lead guitarist on stage. As Glitterbot said, I can't believe stuff with lyrics like "keeps all your dead hair for making up underwear" was in the top 40. (This isn't actually what she said, but I decided to provide an example.) It's not even that the lyrics are nonsense--they aren't--but they're just plain *weird.*
Hm. So much for social progression, or social acceptance, or whatnot. When I look at his videos, I really can't imagine it being accepted today. If someone like him were to pop up now, he'd cause just as much shock, if not more, as Bowie did back then--and probably would still be considered too "bizarre" to gain mass popularity.
Sadly, after the 80's, he was never quite the same. Even if some of his mid-nineties stuff was really good, he just… eh. I think the problem is, he's lost interest in the music scene right now in general (and who could blame him, really?). He does his best work when… well, either when he's on coke, or when there's something that gets him really excited, makes him want to play with ideas. Right now it seems he's just putting stuff together because he has to. He needs outside inspiration: his genius consists not so much of originality, as of combining existing elements in creative ways with fresh ideas. He needs to hear something that makes him go, "Wow, I want to try that! But I want to change several things here and there…" The final product then strikes one as something entirely new and ahead of its time, but it's built of things of the time. And there's just no good building material around today.
It should say something that so many new bands are turning to a retro sound.