Peace on earth, can it be?

I'm in St. John's, Newfoundland, enjoying some time off with my hubby's family. Yesterday as we were driving out to a town called Paradise, Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy came on the radio. I've heard it before, of course, and I have a case of the humbugs this year, yet it was kind of a magical moment, watching the hilly, wild scenery fly past the car window while listening to Bowie and Crosby banter on about Christmas traditions in their households. 

If I was with my own family tonight, we'd be having a dinner of homemade spaghetti and meatballs, and invite the aunts, uncles and cousins over for drinks and treats. They'd all stay quite late, and we'd play cards and watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation together. Then the aunts, uncles, and cousins would head home, and we'd open up our gifts Christmas Eve, so that we can all sleep in tomorrow morning. 

This year, I'll be partaking of a different tradition. As I type this, my in-laws are out sourcing lobsters for tonight's Christmas Eve feast. When dinner is finished, we'll sit around the table and drink Lew's homemade blueberry wine and tell stories of Christmases past, with neighbours and family dropping in throughout the evening. 

Tomorrow morning, we'll open presents and then Chad and I will venture out into "the gut" of Quidi Vidi village, our flasks filled with Irish whiskey. We'll traipse through The Battery and hike up to the top of Signal Hill, overlooking the harbour. Our whiskey walks have become one of my favourite things -- our own little Christmas Day in St. John's tradition.

For now, it's time for coffee (I'm still recovering from Tibb's Eve). I'll be back soon with my Heathen journey, but today, I just want to wish you a very Merry Christmas!

I can't see the water for the tears in my eyes.

This post was supposed to be named "Down in space it's always 1982".

I was really excited about this one. But here's the thing. I need to just throw it out. I started listening to Toy in mid November. The first day I started listening to it, Toronto had its first major snowfall of the season. Life felt airy and sweet and Christmassy, with pine, cinnamon, and the tinkerbell giggles of sweet little children on the wind. Combine that with the sounds of Bowie covering his own early songs, singing about things he cared about when he was a lad, I was filled with a kind of anticipatory holiday joy. Toy felt like an unexpected Christmas gift. It transported me to Christmases from the past.

I was going to write about that joyful journey through old Christmases. But now I can't. Because something terrible happened while I was listening to this album. Someone who is so much a part of all my past Christmases decided to take himself out of the physical world.

And now another Christmas is about to happen, and my dad is not going to be there. The joyful journey upon which Toy was taking me has come to an abrupt end. I've been trying to get it back, but it's just gone. Sadly, I think Toy may have become an emotional bookmark for some of the worst pain I've ever endured. So I'm sorry. In order for me to move on with this project, I just need to give you the album to listen to on your own, with no magical, mystical interference from me. 

So here it is.

*****

Toy was recorded in 2000-2001, but it was never released. It exists in the public realm because someone leaked it onto the Internet in 2011. 

All's well; twentieth century dies.

You may have noticed that this blog went on a wee hiatus over the past few weeks. Or maybe you haven't. Regardless. I had a life thing happen that demanded my full attention. Can't exactly say it's over or done, but I am anxious to return to some sort of normalcy, and this post is just the ticket to that, I think. There will be no fantastic voyage or brilliant adventure today. Just a round-up of the myriad miscellaneous "other" endeavours that Bowie got up to in the 80's and 90's.

I apologize in advance if my mind wanders as I write this. I'm sort of a space cadet at the moment, with an approximate 10:1 ratio of zoning out versus time spent on earth. Also, because you have access to Wikipedia and IMDb too, this post will feature what I think are the highlights. Feel free to consult those sources yourself for the exhaustive collection of works.

Broadway, baby

So by 1980, David Bowie had pretty well established that he had a decent set of acting chops. Mmm, chops. Wait... what? Oh yeah. Bowie took on the role of John Merrick in the Broadway production of The Elephant Man, and apparently nailed it, earning some high praise from critics and audiences. The cool thing about Bernard Pomerance's play is that the actor playing Merrick doesn't wear any makeup or prosthetics to illustrate his disfigurement -- the audience is meant to imagine his appearance by the way in which the actor moves and speaks, and by other characters' reactions to him. That is a pretty avant garde approach to theatrics, which I think is probably what attracted Bowie to the role.

It would have been so cool to see him perform on a Broadway stage. Alas, I was but a small child at the time. Luckily, the play has made it back to Broadway, and I'm super excited to be heading to New York in January to see Bradley Cooper as John Merrick! Mmm, Bradley Cooper... oh, shit. Sorry.

Stop, collaborate and listen

For the first time in his career, in the early 80's Bowie took a few years off from recording his own music to focus on acting and collaborating with other artists. The story goes that in 1981, he happened to be in the neighbourhood when Queen were recording their album Hot Space, and as a result ended up singing on a track that evolved from a previous jam session with the band. That track came to be known as Under Pressure.

Yeah, that's the official video, which is meh. So here is the live performance of the song by Bowie and Annie Lennox at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, which is way more awesome to behold.

That same year, songs from his Berlin period were used as the backdrop to the German film Christiane F., which I blogged about here.

In 1982-83, Bowie exercised his aforementioned acting chops in a BBC television production of Bertolt Brecht's Baal, a vampire movie called The Hunger, and a Japanese-American film project entitled Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, which I have to say is probably my favourite of Bowie's film roles that I've seen thus far.

All we need is music

This has nothing to do with anything: I work with a girl who knows shockingly little about pop culture. Like, she grew up in Toronto in the 80's and 90's and yet just the other day found out that there is a song called Dude Looks Like a Lady, and that Led Zeppelin isn't the name of a guy. Astonishing, right? So one day we were having a Skype conversation that went thusly:

She: I'm listening to a playlist on Songza called 80's and 90's Guilty Pleasures.

Me: That sounds super fun!

She: It is! I just finished listening to a song called No Rain by this band Blind Melon.

Me: I love that song! But I'm surprised it's considered a guilty pleasure.  I always thought that one was a classic that stood the test of time.

She: Yeah! Like Cotton Eye Joe!

She's not fucking with me. I need to make that absolutely clear. That facepalm-worthy conversation is just one among many in which I've learned that apparently Lionel Richie is a reggae artist, there is a band called Fine Young Cannibals (gasp! noway!), and the lyric "Ziggy played guitar" is from Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams. Am I being smug? Okay maybe a little, I admit it. But she tells me I know so much about music and I haven't the heart to tell her I only know the stuff that everybody knows.

Anyway, around the same time the Cotton Eye Joe incident occurred, this was brought to my attention.

And I'm only showing you that because A) I have the concentration of a squirrel on meth right now, and B) you're already familiar with the original. You've seen it, right? Please tell me you've seen it.

Things that happened in 1986

Bowie had a small role in the 1986 movie Absolute Beginners. It's a British rock musical that apparently didn't do very well commercially. Bowie plays an advertising executive named Vendice Partners. I haven't seen it in its entirety, but I did watch the clips showcasing Bowie's brief appearances, and they are the reason why I have no intention of watching the rest of the movie. But in case you want to satisfy your curiosity, here is his musical number.

Of course, 1986 also gave us Labyrinth and its Bowie-begotten soundtrack. I'm not going to discuss Labyrinth now, because I already did that here. Also, my cat is walking across the keyboard which makes it really hard to type.

Acting chops, smothered in mint jelly

I'm a bad Bowie fan. No really, I am. While I've stayed the course musically, I've let my Bowie film-watching fall by the wayside. I mean, I'm pretty sure I've seen The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), but by "seen", what I mean is that it was on in the background on Easter at a family gathering  several years ago and I wasn't really watching it. So it doesn't count. So I'm not just a bad Bowie fan, I'm a bad movie fan, too. Lock me up.

Here he is as Pontias Pilate:

You know what else I haven't seen? Fire Walk with Me (1992). Which also makes me a bad Twin Peaks fan.  Bowie played FBI Agent Philip Jeffries, American accent and all. And yeah, this is a bizarre clip but that's okay because Twin Peaks.

Trapped in the flipside

I remember renting Cool World and watching it at my boyfriend's house back in high school circa 1992. I also remember having this completely unfounded expectation that it was going to be a super cool, Brad Pitt-ified  version of Kidd Video (my favourite Saturday morning cartoon when I was a youngling), and then it really wasn't like that at all. So disappointing. Anyway, the song Bowie did for the movie's soundtrack lives up to the first two words of its title. I love its Black Tie, White Noise period vibe.

***Several hours later***

Thank the stars I live in a world where there is a thing called the Internet which has a thing called YouTube on it that lets you watch Saturday morning cartoons from your childhood. Now THAT was a trip to the flipside. Where was I? Oh, right.

Andy Warhol doesn't like beer. WTF, Andy?

I like Andy Warhol. Maybe not so much as a person, but I sure dig his art. Everything I know about Andy Warhol as a person I learned from watching shows in which other people are playing him as a character. So really all I have to compare Bowie's interpretation of him to is Guy Pearce's interpretation in Factory Girl, and Tom Meeten's intepretation of him in NoelFielding's Luxury Comedy (which, as awesome as it is, probably doesn't count because he's a housekeeping Andy Warhol robot). Bowie actually knew Warhol, so it's entirely possible that his interpretation in the 1996 film Basquiat (about the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat) is the most authentic.

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango.

Well, darlings... I've spared just about all the energy and focus (what focus?) I have for today. Major life-event triggered ADD is tolerable enough on the weekend but tomorrow I go back to work. Fingers crossed this post has helped me to try and get my brain back into thinking about non major life-event things. I'll try to be back again in two weeks' time with a new twenty-first century Bowie adventure. So tune in next time: Same Strong Bad time, same Strong Bad channel.

I've got seven days to live my life.

It's a cold evening. Winter is approaching, and with it, the end of another year - a year that seems to have passed within a matter of hours, not days or months. They say that the older you get, the faster the clock seems to tick. Here we are in the eleventh hour of this day called 2014, and yet it doesn't seem so long ago that I kissed midnight a frosty hello.

The year... my life, in fact, has flickered by like an elusive dream, where moments meld into one another almost nonsensically to form a memory that only fleetingly tells the truth.

As I sit contemplating the year and all that has happened, the plans that never materialized into actions, and the unplanned events that took on a life of their own, I feel the room growing colder. Frost appears on the windows, and the cats huddle together for warmth on the cushion.

I check the thermostat, but oddly, the temperature reads a balmy 22 degrees Celsius (that's nearly 72 Fahrenheit for anyone who swings that way). The room just keeps getting colder and I dive onto the couch and wrap myself up in the fleece blanket. What I wouldn't give for a fireplace right now! If it gets any colder, I may have to burn something.

As if on cue, a fireball appears above me, hovering in the air between the walls of my living room. I let out a high pitched shriek, and the cats are not having any of this nonsense, so they scamper frantically up the stairs. I'd consider making a run for it myself, if I wasn't sort of a deer caught in the headlights.

The fireball melts the frost on the windows and I realize that I'm no longer cold, so I shed the blanket. Burning cyclically through a rainbow of hues in their established order, and pulsating rhythmically, throwing a beam of light around the room like a lighthouse,  the pulsar in my living room seems to be trying to manifest into some other kind of form. The fireball goes supernova, and in the process I begin to feel myself being pulled toward it, its gravity nearly ripping me apart as it draws me up and in...

I land bluntly on the floor with a thud. I glare up in the fireball's direction to find that it has transformed into what I can only describe as an angel. I don't believe in angels, so this is a bit mind-blowing. But hovering before me is an ethereal, androgynous, human-like figure displaying enormous glowing wings. As far as I know, there is nothing else that fits the description, so angel it must be.

The angel speaks. It's voice (yes, I'm calling him or her an "it") is like nothing I've ever heard before, like a cacophony of musical instruments all playing at once, an orchestra of random notes in bizarre repetition. And yet somehow, through this noise, I am able to understand the angel's "words" perfectly.

The angel tells me that I'm being given the opportunity to go back to seven key decision points in my life and make a different choice - go in the other direction to see what might have been. After I've seen the alternative outcome of all seven decisions, I will be able to choose which of those seven lives I want to stay in permanently, and live out the rest of my life as though I had always made that decision.

This seems to me like a power that shouldn't be placed in the hands of a fool such as myself, but I decide that I would be an even bigger fool not to take the angel up on this tantalizing, once in a lifetime offer. It is once in a lifetime, isn't it? I don't suppose I can sleep on it and let it know in the morning? No, it bellows with a dissonant clatter. I didn't think so.

Alright then, let's do this.

My heart dislodges from its preferred location and begins to travel at near light-speed throughout my body as I hurtle back in time with the angel to Thursday, December 4, 1975, approximately 11:40 PM. This is the moment of my birth. Holy fucking shit. I feel like a character from a Dickens novel. I am present in the hospital room as my mother gives birth to me.

I turn to the angel and tell it I shouldn't be here. This is one of those things I shouldn't have the privilege of seeing. I can't watch. In that instant, the angel and I are hurtling through time and space, and I'm watching my life unfold before my eyes, from infancy to toddlerhood through kindergarten and beyond, all in a matter of seconds until we stop again. I am 14 years old. I'm watching myself tease my bangs sky high in my bedroom mirror, dousing my head with too much hair spray. I'm wearing my burgundy and grey plaid St. Mary's uniform. I have no idea how to apply makeup, and my iridescent green eye shadow screams it loud and clear. This is the first of my key decision points.

Not whether to tease my bangs or wear amateurishly applied eye shadow. Those are small things. And while certainly each decision causes our lives to split off into a new direction, I'm hardly concerned with the outcomes of other hair and makeup decisions. No, I know where this is going.At nearly 39 years old, I'm still terrified of getting on that school bus.

I always thought my decision to leave St. Mary's was a good one. Yes, I ran away from my tormentors, but I found a better, happier life in the public high school among people who more like me. What's wrong with that?

Clearly the angel has other ideas. What if, instead of running away to another school, I stayed and faced the music. Owned up to and apologized for the deed that got me shit-listed. Stood up for myself instead of hiding in the bathroom. Took charge of the problem instead of letting myself become a victim. What would have happened then?

As it turns out, as I watch myself right the wrong and try to make amends, things actually do get better. Not immediately, and it's certainly not the end of my bad times. The bullies and I never become friends, and that is as it should be. But eventually, the fear and the hate dissipate. I buckle down academically and my grades improve. I don't graduate valedictorian or anything, but I graduate with a greater sense of self esteem and far less anxiety about who likes or hates me.

Well isn't that something.

But I don't get to admire the green grass for long. We are on the move again laterally through space this time, and we wind up in my final year of high school - in the timeline I actually lived. Like I said, once I escaped the misery of life at St. Mary's, the remainder of my high school career went rather nicely.  I made good friends, got good grades, participated in the theatre department, and enjoyed school more or less.

Then at the very end of my graduating year, I went and wrote that stupid story for the city newspaper about how my school looked like a cheese factory, and my reputation tanked. It was supposed to be comical homage; instead, a student rebuttal in the school newspaper made me a social pariah. All of my favourite teachers turned on me. And instead of taking the opportunity to respond the way a real journalist would, what did I do? Nothing.

Angel, you have given me a gift.

I watch excitedly as 18-year-old me drafts a carefully worded response, clarifying my original intention and pointing out all of the flaws in logic presented in the student's rebuttal. I regain my status as a well-liked student just before graduation, and my editor at the city newspaper is so impressed with my poise and gumption that he offers me an ongoing feature gig while I'm at university and then eventually a full time journalist role upon graduation.

As promised, the angel takes me to other key decision points in my life...

...instead of studying English at Laurentian, getting my Bachelor of Fine Arts at Brock, leading me into a career as a graphic designer.

...instead of moving out while my boyfriend was away on a family trip, waiting until he returned to face him and tell him the truth, leaving him with grace instead of cowardice, enabling us both to heal faster and stronger.

...instead of leaving my job at the library after one year to go backpacking, keeping my job and working my way up to a librarian position, enabling me to take an even bigger and better overseas adventure a few years later.

...instead of spending all my money on a plane ticket to Australia, catching the train from Brussels to Berlin and finishing my European backpacking adventure.

...instead of holding out for my current job, accepting the first one that was offered to me at that teensy-weensy software startup.

Finally, the angel and I fly through space and time to arrive back at the current moment, here in my living room, mid-November, 2014. I have had the spectacularly unique and singular chance to see how my life would change had I made other decisions. Now I have one more key decision to make: which of those decisions would I like to activate? Which of those versions of my life would I like to be living right now?

This is perhaps the most difficult decision I've ever been asked to make. I've had so many callings in life... artist, journalist, librarian. I've left some wonderful loves behind. I have an incurable travel compulsion. And I've made my own bed, on more than one occasion.

I wish I had time to live them all. I still want to be an artist, a journalist, and a librarian when I grow up. I still want to finish my European backpacking adventure. I want to erase the damage I've done to good hearts. I want to stand up for myself and show everyone I'm not a victim. I want forgive those who have hurt me, giving me the strength to move beyond that pain.

Having the chance now to live out one of those lives, I, ever the fool, tell the angel that I think I will just stay where I am. I have lived the life I was always supposed to live. I am who I am because of my mistakes, because of my choices, because of my turn-on-a-dime adventures. I can't say I've no regrets, but my regrets make me thankful for the blessings.

And besides, I'm a vindictive bitch. Suck it, mean girls from St. Mary's.

*****

Can I just say that I'm really not a vindictive bitch? I think the only  act of retributive justice I ever committed was when I was 8 years old and my bratty little cousin, whose family we were sharing a house with at the time,  went into my room and  ransacked my toy closet, so I used my brand new birthday gift of painty markers to deface her toys. I permanently lost my rights to those painty markers, but it was so worth it. Every stroke I painted on her stuff filled me with an evil joy I've never experienced since. I subsequently learned to control such impulses.

'Hours...' is not my all-time favourite Bowie album. It's pretty alright. It has a few very good songs on it. As a whole, its listenability improves dramatically if I skip Thursday's Child. I'm so bummed about that song. Being an actual Thursday's child, I had high hopes for it. With a different approach, it could have been so good, but as it is, I think it's just terrible. Vocally, it sounds like it was recorded after a long bad day of being caught in the rain and then exhibiting the early symptoms of a vicious cold. And the nails-on-a-chalkboard backing vocals make me want to stab myself in the ears. I think this may be my absolute most despised Bowie song. Well, there was always going to be one, I suppose.

The album seems to have done what it was supposed to do though... it took me on a voyage through my life; it certainly sounds like that's what Bowie is doing himself. Don't we all look back and pinpoint moments we wish we could change, make a different choice, do over? I certainly have my share, as demonstrated in the above story, which is based on true events and true dreams.

Nowhere. Shampoo. TV. Combat. Boyzone. Slim tie. Showdown. Can't stop.

I'm sitting in a packed theatre. The show is already in progress, and I have no idea what it is that I'm seeing on the stage. Just one man, two empty chairs, and a microphone. Around me, the audience is laughing and clapping, telling me the mood is light. So he's a stand-up comedian, perhaps?

 

Then suddenly, a spotlight is blinding me, shining right down on me, and the man on stage is calling me up.  I'm reluctant to obey, having no knowledge of what was said in the minutes and seconds before I was transported to this seat. I'm quite certain I didn't volunteer for anything.

He calls me again though, and informs us all that my seat number matches the number he's just drawn from his coat pocket. The large monitor behind him shows the seat number 649 on a piece of paper in his hand. I barely have time to check my seat number to make sure it's not some mistake before he sends beckons someone from backstage to come and get me. In my pocket, feel a piece of paper that turns out to be a ticket stub, with the seat number 649 printed on it.

I am guided to the stage by the man's assistant, clutching my arm firmly in case I should decide to flee; I would if I could.

As I climb the stairs to the stage, the man with my seat number in his hand points to one of the two chairs which sit facing each other. I think I have a feeling where this may be going, and I'm not one bit pleased. Perhaps I don't know enough about hypnosis to make an informed judgment about it, and certainly if someone claims to have been helped by it, then I'm happy for them. But for entertainment purposes, I don't believe for a second that I'm capable of going under. I won't give up the wheel without a fight - it's just my nature.

So I suppose I have nothing to worry about, and I relax as I take my seat. The man with my number introduces me as The Person in Seat Number 649, everybody! and the rest of the audience applauds my luck... or theirs. Finally, he asks me my name and I tell him, which he relates to masses.

Now Shelley, have you ever been under hypnosis before? He asks. I simply say no, deciding not to tell him about that time when an amateur practicing friend tried once and failed to crack my resistance. He informs me that it'll be quick and painless, that soon I'll be under, and he promises not to cause me to do anything that might injure me physically. He says nothing about how I might come out of this socially, however. Do I have his consent?

Sure, I tell him, obstinate in my belief that he will not be successful. Not that I wish to embarrass him or anything, I simply am too in control of my mind to...

Nowhere. Shampoo. TV. Combat. Boyzone. Slim tie. Showdown. Can't stop.

I'm sitting on the stage in a chair facing a hypnotist who has just managed to lull me into a trance. I'm here, but I'm not really here. I can't really describe it. I'm a passenger inside my own mind, here for the ride, but not driving. I thought I'd feel violated, angry. But I'm surprisingly okay with it.

The hypnotist tells the audience that he's going to scramble my thoughts and my words - that what I'm saying will make perfect sense to me, but will sound absurd to everyone else. He asks me to tell him a story - something from my life, a recent event.

I begin to tell him about the time I was dancing on a slippery floor at a friend's Hallowe'en party, me in my Special Agent Dana Scully costume, and I slipped in such a way that my feet slid in opposite directions and I did the splits involuntarily, tearing the ligaments in my knee in the process, and then going home with borrowed crutches. I hear the words coming out of my mouth and they sound just as I've described it to you. But all the audience hears is:

"Stinky weather, fat shaky hands, dopey morning doc, grumpy gnomes.  Big screen dolls, tits and explosions, sleepytime, bashful but nude. Intergalactic, see me to be you. It's all in the tablets, sneezy Bhutan. Mars happy nation, sit on my karma, Dame meditation, take me away".

The audience laughs and applauds, and I think to myself "Yeah, I really hurt my knee, but I guess it was pretty funny the way it happened".

The hypnotist hushes the crowd and tells me that he is unscrambling my words. He asks me to tell the story again and I do. This time, the right words come out and in the right order. I'd be amazed if I wasn't, you know, incapable of amazement with him steering my thoughts.

Next, the hypnotist says that he's going to ask me to enter the place in my mind where my memories stretch back to a previous life, or lives, however far back I can go. He tells me to search that place and describe a memory - anything that comes to me, whatever stands out.

I tell him about my life as a Tibetan peasant in the mid 1940's. I want to be better than what I am, but my faith is shaky. I want to believe, but I don't. I try, but I fail, repeatedly, at forcing myself to feel something other than my corporeal self bumbling through the world. I cast off my possessions, only to regret it and acquire new ones. The battle within me rages for the full extent of my life on earth.

What the hypnotist doesn't know is that I made it all up. I didn't really mean to. I told him the story of my past life in earnest, because it felt true, all while the memories seemed to come from some other place, not from inside my brain, but from outside, like some unseen entity feeding them to me. I have no actual recollection of any of the events I have just described.

The hypnotist is content to believe my story. Actually he seems quite pleased with himself. But I can't tell him it's all lies, because he hasn't asked me. And even if he did, he's got control, so I would only be able to tell him what he wants to hear.

The hypnotist knows how to structure his show. With my past life regression out of the way, he decides to lighten the mood. He implores me to do perform a medley of dances: first, a waltz. He may be sitting in the chair, but he's taking the lead, and I follow dutifully, though I've never actually waltzed in my life. Next, I'm doing a foxtrot, then a tango, all at the hypnotists command. For my final number, he calls out the moves to a bizarre line dance, that he calls the Dead Man's Walk. Without any kind of guidance on what the moves should look like, I complete each "step" with a fluid grace:

Gone, gone, gone spinning slack through reality
Dance my way, falling up through the years
Until I swivel back round then I fly, fly, fly
Losing breath underwater well I'm gone, gone, gone
Spinning slack through reality
Dance my way, falling up through the years
Until I swivel back round then I fly, fly, fly
Losing breath underwater when I'm gone, gone, gone
Spinning slack through reality

The audience loves it. I sit back down and await further instructions. The hypnotist addresses the audience and tells them that soon he will wake me. When he does, I will be unable to recall anything that has happened here tonight. I will lose the events of this evening to the part of my brain that holds forgotten dreams.

But before he brings me back to consciousness, he has one more stunt for me. He asks me my nationality, and I tell him I'm Canadian. He asks me if Canada has always been my home and I tell him yes. Then he asks me if I like Americans, and I tell him I do. He replies "Not anymore. You're afraid of them".

And suddenly, just like he said, I'm afraid of Americans. This room contains hundreds of people, and any one of them could be American. My heart starts beating like it's going to burst from my chest, and I feel cold. I have to get out of here. What will they do to me if I stay?

With abject terror, I leap down the stairs from the stage and sprint as fast as I can to the door. The hypnotist calls out for the ushers to keep me contained, but it's too late, I'm already through the door and out in the lobby, running faster and faster as I realize that anyone around me could be American. I stop at the door that leads to the street with the realization that it's not safe for me out there. I tremble with fear and search the lobby for a quiet corner.

The hypnotist bursts through the theatre doors and finds me cowering in the corner. As he approaches I tell him to stay back. How do I know he's not American?!

With the word "stop", I become still. He tells me that on the count of five I will wake from my trance and remember nothing that has happened since my seat number was called. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1.

And here I am, back in the realm of the conscious, wondering what on earth I'm doing sitting on the floor in the corner of the lobby. The hypnotist turns and walks away from me without a word. Confused, I leave the building.

As I make my way to the subway to go home, I find I have the sudden urge to dance. Not just an urge, but a compulsion. I descend the stairs to the subway platform. I'm the only one there... so I dance my way, falling up through the years, until I swivel back round then I fly, fly, fly, losing breath underwater and I'm gone, gone, gone, spinning slack through reality.

*****

Earthling is a super fun album and a much-needed pick-me-up from the disturbed darkness that was Outside. I didn't find it particularly profound, just a really cool fusion of several different kinds of music, cleanly stitched together with Bowie's own unique thread.

I'm totally obsessed with Looking for Satellites. It actually does put me in kind of a hypnotic state; I get totally lost in it, and when it's over I'm sad. The repetition of the words Nowhere...  Shampoo... TV... Combat... Boyzone... Slim tie... Showdown... Can't stop... do something weird and wonderful to my brain, like I'm getting an intra-cranial massage or something.

And Seven Years in Tibet... come on. Way to bring the glam back in such an unexpected way. And Dead Man Walking, with its otherwordly "line dance" called out underneath the main chorus lines. This album has given me a few new favourites for sure.

Upon the first listen, I actually realized I've heard this album before - I'm Afraid of Americans on the radio, for one. But I also remember hearing several of songs from Earthling in the dorm at my university. It was nice to sort of have a wee little tingle of familiarity with it. I'm just glad that now I'm able to appreciate it.

It was definitely murder — but was it art?

Greetings Earthlings! Guess what I've started listening to... Ah, but no, I'm not quite ready to tell you about that just yet. I've barely come in from Outside. Which brings me to the reason I'm back again so soon. At this time I'm pleased to bring you a Bowie Project first: a Special Guest Post by my longtime friend and self-confessed music geek, Dave Miner. Dave and I agree that Outside deserves a little extra special treatment. So without further delay, give it up for Dave! 

*****

It was definitely murder — but was it art? 

Special Guest Post by Dave Miner (@daveophonic)

Please forgive me if this post is long and self-indulgent.  Given the topic, such structure might at least be considered thematically appropriate.

I want to tell you about David Bowie's "Outside", because I kind of want to tell everybody about David Bowie's "Outside".  It's a long-standing favourite.  It's one of my desert island discs.  But it's also an under-appreciated and divisive album - Allmusic's tepid 3-star review hails it as Bowie's "most satisfying and adventurous album since Let's Dance", but also calls it "severely flawed", where standout tracks are "buried under the weight of the mediocre material".

The album is seconds shy of the 75-minute mark.  It flirts with the abrasive textures of industrial music.  It intersperses songs with soundscapes and narrative interludes.  It's a concept album that explores art as murder, and is the first and only episode of a seemingly abandoned trilogy.  The story is therefore all setup and no payoff, and plot details within the lyrics and liner notes are scant and cryptic. 

I can understand why people wouldn't like this record, particularly from the David Bowie who gave us "Young Americans" and "Life on Mars".  Did that audience want an industrial concept album  from The Thin White Duke?  (Let me please be clear - I don't mean that in a dismissive "you just don't get it, man" way.)  This album was a risk, even if you listen back and hear the seeds of it on "Black Tie, White Noise" or "Tin Machine".  

Bowie has always been one of my very favourite artists.  I love work from all his phases, from early folkish jangle through Ziggy Stardust-era bombast, from the Berlin trilogy through his electronic/industrial/jungle phase, and even through to today.  I suspect many of his fans appreciate his gift for experimentation and reinvention.  In that regard, I think the album can be considered a tremendous success:  this doesn't seem like a contrived attempt by an established artist to reach a Gen-X audience or experiment with trendy new sounds.  There's an integrity to the album that has kept me hooked from the first listen.  I just happen to dig nasty guitars and electronic textures.  Mix in Bowie's vocals and songwriting?  Yes, please.

There were spans of months where I would listen to the album, end-to-end, at least twice a day.  I wanted to pull out its secrets and solve its mysteries, and most of all, I wanted to lose myself in those songs and sounds.

Here's the background:

The full name is technically "1.  Outside", but the rumoured followup albums - "2.  Contamination"  and "3.  Afrikaans" - never materialized.  However, an extra 20 hours of recording were evidently created during the Outside sessions that could yield the building blocks necessary to create the trilogy.  I would love to think a project like that might coincide with the album's upcoming 20th anniversary, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking.

If you're interested in learning a bit more of how the record was created, I recommend reading "A Year With Swollen Appendices:  Brian Eno's Diary", which talks a bit about his role in the project, and the strategies he used to try and help the musicians get into a headspace to fully explore this new creative direction.  ("You are the disgruntled member of a South African rock band. Play the notes that were suppressed.")

For the completionists, there are also some bonus tracks available on international versions of the album.  I'm aware of  "Nothing to be Desired" and "Get Real", which you can check out here.

Here's what I think I know about the story:  Detective Professor Nathan Adler is assigned to investigate the murder of 14-year-old Baby Grace Blue, and rule if her death and the exhibition of her body is legally acceptable as art.  Leon Blank is accused of the murder, but may have been manipulated by Ramona A. Stone, his ex-lover, while the real killer (The Artist/Minotaur) continues his work.  

And now we begin. 

The album commences with "Leon Takes Us Outside", a soundscape where fragments of dialog - years, months, dates - bubble up from waves of synthesizer and Reeves Gabrels' meandering guitar.  The bass drops, and we segue perfectly into the title track.

"Outside" invites you into the album - it's a classic Bowie croon with gentle harmonies and those perfect swells.  I don't want to say it's a safe song, but I think no Bowie fan of any vintage would have been surprised to hear him release this song in 1995.  Then "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" hits, and everything changes.

There were several points of pop-culture entry into this album.  "Hallo Spaceboy" may be better known from its Pet Shop Boys remix than for the original album cut.  A version of "I Have Not Been to Oxford Town" was covered for the soundtrack of Starship Troopers, Paul Veroeven's 1997 adaptation of the Robert A. Heinlein novel.  "I'm Deranged" played over the credits of David Lynch's film "Lost Highway".  But I first heard the music of "Outside" during the closing credits of Se7en, when "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" provided a perfect accompaniment to the scratched text slithering down the screen in the wrong direction.  

Whereas "Outside" sounded like updated Bowie, "Filthy Lesson" sounds like new Bowie - jagged guitar lines streaking the skies above pulsing bass and a insistent drum loop, creating a palpable air of menace.  When the song pauses to ask "Paddy - who's been wearing Miranda's clothes?", something implies the answer will be terrible. A piano comes in not as orchestral grandeur but as a blunt instrument, percussively slamming out low-register runs.  Even the instrumentation, we learn, will be warped and perverted and used in ways we don't expect.  Nothing is sacred.  The song seems to gasp for air before we lurch into the home stretch, with Bowie's vocal majesty, concluding with the ominous admission:  "Oh Paddy - I think I've lost my way."  The song fades out with the repeated observation: "What a fantastic death abyss - tell the others."  Is this a reaction to the terrible exhibit of what is left of Baby Grace?

We then move into "A Small Plot of Land".  Rapid cascades of piano notes might distract from a steady two-note pattern in the background around which the rest of the instruments collect and congeal as Bowie tells the story of a poor soul who learns that "prayer can't travel so far these days" - a haunting line that I think perfectly captures the fin-de-siecle anxieties Bowie so deftly tapped on this album.  Reeves Gabrels' frantic solo on this album is one of my favourite things that has ever been done with a guitar.  The song builds and builds and builds until you're almost claustrophobic, caught in the sheer density of sound, and then it's time to meet Baby Grace Blue.

"Segue:  Baby Grace [A Horrid Cassette]" is the first of several narrative sections, with each character voiced by Bowie with some combination of processing to help the characters stand out.  Bowie gives a great pitch-shifted performance, tripping over words as Baby Grace records what are possibly the final words of her short, unhappy life.

"Hallo Spaceboy" begins with an explosion, a lull, and then another explosion of drums and guitars as we launch into the song proper.  The song would serve as a fitting soundtrack for a dance party at the end of civilization, but its bombast stands in stark contrast to "The Motel", which follows.  Sung from Leon's perspective, it's a slow, ethereal dirge that muses "there is no hell like an old hell". Beautiful, virtuosic piano runs build to a euphoric crescendo with titanic slashes of electric guitar and a gentle fade.

"I Have Not Been to Oxford Town" bubbles and bounces, but the playful music belies the grave lyrics:  "Baby Grace was the victim.  She was 14 years of age.  And the wheels are turning, turning, for the finger points at me."  Imprisoned, is Leon trying to establish an alibi?  Prove his innocence?  Or trying to remember what happened in the first place?  "Outside" can be a frustrating puzzle, since most of the pieces are missing, buried in unwritten chapters.  With that in mind, it's almost comforting that the characters themselves are confused and powerless, which suggest's Leon's innocence.  After all, we have yet to hear from the Minotaur.  And, as Leon runs down the ways in which he wishes his life was different, we realize that we still have yet to meet the mysterious Ramona A. Stone.

"No Control" seems like a variation on the same theme, but presented with a driving, urgent menace.  Bewildered by the crimes he's investigating, Adler feels powerless in the face of a deranged world.  As I write this, I wonder if the music tells us something else - simple and cheerful, "Oxford Town" might underscore Leon as a hapless victim of a machination he doesn't understand.  He is powerless and wastes away while hoping somebody will help him.  Nathan gets it - he sees the horror and knows he must act, yet feels powerless because he understands the scale of the madness he faces, and the scope of challenging it.

The theme of powerlessness continues with our second vignette, "Segue: Algeria Touchshriek".  Algeria is a seller of curiosities of seemingly questionable legality.  He is also a broken man, rejected by the world.  Desperate for company, he tells us he's considering leasing a room above his store to another broken man.  We don't hear from Algeria again, but the next song is sung from the perspective of The Artist/Minotaur, suggesting Algeria's lodger will be the worst possible tenant.

"The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)" begins with a pleasant cycle of guitar, and a gentle vocal refrain.  "Turn and turn again", sings Bowie, which seems like an innocuous lyrical confection, but the words are recast in the second verse as Mintoaur tells us "The screw is a tightening atrocity; I shake for the reeking flesh is as romantic as hell".  It seems as though we've found our killer, as he assembles his exhibition before calling it a day.

And now, it's time for us to meet Ramona.  She delivers a short, seething rant, and although her connection to the other characters is not quite clear, there's something in the way that she says "We'll creep together, you and I" that suggests she is the axis around which the entire affair turns.  Ramona and her acoyltes then sing "I Am With Name", which is more chant than song.  

"Wishful Beginnings" shifts back to the Minotaur's perspective as he works, apologizing to his victim all the while.  The song is a modern dirge, punctuated by slow, deliberate kick drums and a synthetic accent that sounds eerily like a dead laugh.  The arrangement is sparse and the low end is crucial.  Notice how the bass elements drop out in the middle, and the strange catharsis when they come back in, repeating over and over again.  He stops apologizing.  All that is left is the work.  This is the album at its darkest.

"We Prick You" is sung from the perspective of the Members of the Court of Justice; presumably we're at Leon's trial as the administration tries to get the confession they want, seemingly by any means necessary.  Next is a segue from Nathan, explaining how some of the pieces fit together.  "Oh wait," he says.  "I"m getting ahead of myself.  Let me take you back to where it all began."

We go back to The Minotaur for "I'm Deranged", and a seeming freely-associated stream-of-consciousness admission that may reveal nothing about the killer except as a callback to Nathan's "No Control" - Nathan is right, and the killer is completely insane.

Up to now, the album may have been a dark, difficult listen, and I must admit that it's at this point that I've almost completely lost the plot.  I'm only tentatively sure of the arc to this point, but I'm not sure how to put the final songs in context.  However, whether you're invested in the narrative or not, the album concludes with two of my absolute favourite Bowie songs ever.  "Thru' These Architects Eyes" is sung from Leon's perspective, and it's tempting to explore the architect metaphor.  Has Leon been freed?  Was Nathan able to convince the Court of Justice that Leon was a pawn of Ramona?  Is she the architect whose designs Leon can now understand?  Or is it possible that, now freed, he can admit that he played a greater role in the fate of Baby Grace Blue than his jailhouse prayers would have us believe?

Musically speaking, I love this song, and if you've never taken a time to notice how much a bass guitar can enrich a song, then I urge you to please pay attention to Gail Ann Dorsey's brilliant playing here.  Instead of simply holding down the root notes of the chords, she contributes melody after melody that support and enhance the song.  Such elements are all over this album, and are testament to the gifted musicians with whom Bowie surrounds himself, but I find it's most evident here.

Adler interjects with a segue before the final song, revealing to us that evidently Ramona and Leon were lovers, and that Ramona had broken off an engagement.  Why?  And what is the significance?  For the answer, we'll have to hope that the "Outside" project is resurrected.

The only hint is the beautiful "Strangers When We Meet", which closes the album.  Sung once again from Leon's perspective, it seems like a post-breakup song, with Leon seemingly relieved that he and Ramona are truly nothing to one another anymore.  

The liner notes for the album (AKA "The Diary of Nathan Adler, or, The Art-Ritual Murder of Baby Grace Blue") ask "It was definitely murder - but was it art?"  This kicks off the album's narrative arc, and is an interesting question to ask as the 20th century dies and we seem to grow increasingly numb.  What does it take to shock us?  What does it take to inspire us?  

It's also an appropriate question to ask of the album itself.  By reinventing himself yet again as an industrial/electronic experimenter (which Bowie would successfully continue on his excellent follow-up album, 1997's "Earthling") Bowie arguably killed many pre-existing conceptions of how his music did and should sound.  To judge his success - is it art? - is subjective.  I can only say that I think he came sincerely to the genre and created a compelling album that can appeal to fans of both classic Bowie and new electronic music.  Certainly, reinvention is Bowie's game, and we all love those ch-ch-ch-changes.

It's not a perfect album.  There's a case to be made that it's too long, too jagged, too dark, too unfocussed, too far removed from Bowie's most iconic material.  If, like me, you want to know how the story ends, you might share my frustration upon reading a page at the recent "David Bowie Is…" exhibit which suggested the narrative was never intended to be clarified, and was deliberately left vague to inspire interpretation.  Still, I love this album because it tries something bold.  I love it for its many successes, for inspiring my curiosity and wonder, and for giving me some of my favourite songs ever.  I hope you might be inspired to give it a listen, either for the first time or with new ears.  The music, after all, is outside.