It feels so typical of David Bowie that he died when he was already on all of our brains, not only because of his birthday but because he’d just released an album that inclined us to especially celebrate his birth. He had a beautiful–and increasingly elusive–knack for keeping relevant through his art rather than his personal life. A few times I saw him out and about in New York, once by himself and once with Iman, the one woman who could so graciously overshadow him. Each time it was like glimpsing a ghost who would never entirely pass over, which is a fact I cling to today. We’ll miss him terribly but will have all the blueprints he gave us for as long as we listen to music alone and together. As usual, he said it best: “It’s the darkest hour and your voice is new.”
It feels so typical of David Bowie that he died when he was already on all of our brains, not only because of his birthday but because he’d just released an album that inclined us to especially celebrate his birth. He had a beautiful–and increasingly elusive–knack for keeping relevant through his art rather than his personal life. A few times I saw him out and about in New York, once by himself and once with Iman, the one woman who could so graciously overshadow him. Each time it was like glimpsing a ghost who would never entirely pass over, which is a fact I cling to today. We’ll miss him terribly but will have all the blueprints he gave us for as long as we listen to music alone and together. As usual, he said it best: “It’s the darkest hour and your voice is new.”