A Gift of Sound and Vision

David Bowie influenced me in both big and little ways.  His album Hunky Dory remains my favorite of his (a recent Google search tells me it was also released on December 17 - my birthday day!!), with the utterly perfect "Life on Mars" to the all-around life-anthem "Changes."  I semi-bonded with my high school sophomore English teacher when he asked where I got the Heroes concert tee I was wearing, to which I embarrassingly answered "eBay."  When I created my League of Legends account a few years ago, I came up with "Case Oddity" as my username, which I thought was a clever homage and pun at the time, but no one really ever gets it.

Anyway, a ton of people have written more eloquently and more poignantly about David Bowie than I could ever have.  Although I, and many other of his fans, have never met him, it's obvious that he reached out to us through his art in ways that personally affected us.

Here's a few of my favorite David Bowie things from the internet.

"Dancing in the Street" - David Bowie and Mick Jagger

The dance moves.  The outfits.  The great "IDGAF" dynamic between this duo of famous rockers.  So delightfully cheesy and up-lifting.

"Pictures of David Bowie Doing Normal Stuff"

Often times when you think of David Bowie, you think of Aladdin Sane or Ziggy Stardust or perhaps another one of his louder personas.  This neat compilation of David Bowie doing "normal things" is a cute look at David Bowie being...normal?!

Analyses on David Bowie's Bulge

Many viewers report that David Bowie - specifically, his crotch - as Goblin King Jareth in the movie Labyrinth was responsible for their sexual awakening.  Which is hilarious, noteworthy, and very understandable.  I would kill to be in Jennifer Connelly's place.

Amber Humphrey's blog Nostomanic is full of quality posts such as her ratings of U.S. presidents.  One post that particular stuck with me was her open letter to Jareth about his infamous and noticeable bulge, and how it can be more efficiently utilized to hold other items because of its size.

Also, there exists a web page wholly devoted to his "area" as well.  It includes a purity test that exactly captures the thoughts and struggles that Bowie Bulge fans have always internalized.

David Bowie's 1983 MTV Interview

MTV recently uploaded a portion of their interview with Bowie from 1983, in which Bowie asked the interviewer, Mark Goodman, a very important question - "Why are there so few black artists being featured on MTV?"  Goodman tries his best to answer Bowie in a PC way, but it was apparent that Bowie had pointed out a glaring issue in the mainstream music industry.


RHCP's Flea getting a Bowie tattoo

And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds.
Posted by Flea on Monday, January 11, 2016

Not only did Flea write a really touching Facebook post about David Bowie, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist also got a tattoo in his honor, shown in a video on his Instagram as "Fill Your Heart" plays in the background.

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Thank you, David Bowie, for showing us to be unafraid in our own pursuits to self-discovery.  The very act of reinventing ourselves - whether small or large - is essential to our own growth as human beings - and perhaps the best way to respond to and investigate a world we're still making sense of.