david bowie | Valya Dudycz Lupescu

Like so many people, I’m moved by the passing of David Bowie. When the kids woke up, I was listening to his music and weepy. I tried to explain it to them.

“Was he your friend?” my youngest asked, knowing how many of my favorite artists are friends or acquaintances.

“He wasn’t,” I replied. “I never had the chance to meet him, but his music was important…to me and to the world.”

“You still have that,” my twelve-year-old replied sagely over her breakfast. “You can listen to it any time you want.”

She’s right, of course. His memory, his music, lives on.

One of the most important books I’ve read in the last few years is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. (It’s brilliant; you should read it.) In it he writes about surviving the Holocaust with those cherished things—no, cherished ideas—that kept him alive. He writes about the memory of his wife which largely motivated him to keep going.

While in the camps, Frankl reflected upon their time together and his love for her. He writes, “A thought crossed my mind: I didn’t even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing—which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self.”

The memory of loving her helped to give his life meaning when he was surrounded by death and despair. The power of memory—of having loved, of being moved by encountering someone or something—is a touchstone. This is true even of someone we may not know personally, like David Bowie, because their work (their music or art or words) touches us so deeply that it shapes the way we understand and experience the world. The memory of that encounter continues to resonate.

Always.

Viktor Frankl also writes:

“In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. To be sure, people tend to see only the stubble fields of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity. From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past—the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized—and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.”

What a beautiful way of looking at the gifts of age–all those treasures to cherish.

There is sadness and loss (my heart goes out to his friends and family), but thankfully we still have David Bowie’s music. And our memories. How beautiful and telling it is that today so much of the world is sharing both.

Here’s one from a young Bowie.

“Tell them I’m a dreaming kind of guy,
And I’m going to make my dream.
Tell them I will live my dream.
Tell them they can laugh at me,
But don’t forget your date with me,
When I live my dream.” ~David Bowie, “When I Live My Dream”

He lived his dream, and our world is better for it.

Last night I had the pleasure of listening to Neil Gaiman read a story he had begun in 2004 and finished last year, “The Return of the Thin White Duke.” Neil was originally asked by artist Yoshitaka Amano to write a story to accompany Amano’s sketches for a fashion spread featuring David Bowie and Iman, but only the first half was published in 2004. Neil completed the piece for his upcoming short story collection TRIGGER WARNING (to be released in February 2015).

The inaugural reading coincided with the closing of the David Bowie exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. I had the opportunity to view the “David Bowie Is” exhibit a few weeks earlier when Brooke Bolander was in town, and it was wonderful–provocative and inspiring.

David Bowie Is at MCA, Photos by Evan Hanover for MPR

While I have always enjoyed Bowie’s work, I had not previously encountered the full scope of his creative vision. Taken from his personal collection and accompanied by corresponding Bowie songs, the exhibit included storyboards and relics, books and sheet music, videos and photographs, and so many exquisite clothes.

All of them came together to create a portrait of a man who seems to delight in creating new experiences for his audience–reinventing himself, challenging expectations and norms, using his persona and music to affect change.

Neil’s reading closed out a steady stream of Bowie admirers and cultural icons who have graced the MCA stage over the last four months to celebrate Bowie and his influence.

Neil Gaiman reading from "The Thin White Duke" at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, on the closing of the David Bowie Is exhibit. — Neil Gaiman reading from “The Thin White Duke” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, on the closing of the David Bowie Is exhibit.

I adore Neil’s writing, and his short fiction in particular. He is a master storyteller. Whether set in primeval oceans, Elizabethan pubs, wolf-infested walls, or alternate dimensions, the worlds Neil creates are vivid and populated with characters who feel authentic. When Neil reads his work aloud, it all comes crashing into life, words like waves washing over an audience who will raptly follow him anywhere.

During the Q&A, Neil talked about the challenges of writing historical characters that remain “true” to the reality of the person, in particular those who are still alive. In “The Return of the Thin White Duke,” Neil has captured something of the enigmatic yet almost archetypical essence of David Bowie. Rich with the “fantastic,” yet grounded with carefully selected real-world details, “Thin White Duke” feels like something that could easily exist in one of the multiverses of Bowie’s mind, snaking its way into his songs and sketches.

Neil talked about how when he was young, Bowie’s songs presented him with doorways that in turn, led Neil to new information and ideas, things that inspired him. Interesting that while standing in line and waiting in the auditorium, I heard the same thing said of Neil and his work. So many people talking about the influence that Neil’s fiction and tweets and blog entries and comics have had on their work, their art, their lives. Neil, like Bowie, presents us with doors. It’s a creative continuum: ripples from artist to audience, and artist to artist, and so on.

Sometimes a story provides us with a welcome escape; sometimes it opens the door to a new world; and sometimes a story gives us exactly what we need to hear.

“The Return of the Thin White Duke” is a beautifully crafted Neil Gaiman story inspired by another risk-taking artist who continues to challenge us to “turn and face the strange.”

I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I will say it is a story about transformation and sacrifice, a story about the ways we reinvent ourselves when we try to get back in touch with our heart–and these things at this moment in time resonated with me in a way I did not expect. It was a gift of serendipity, and another kind of door opened.

“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need.”

Rolling Stones, You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Tag: david bowie

David Bowie: His Memory Is a Blessing

You just might find, you get what you need