Seven Days of Bowie: Day 7 - Cracked Actor (Live 1974)

 

I thought I'd end with something older since, this time, I focused so singularly on the later period of Bowie's work for most of the entries. That was, of course, intentional: I personally have always been drawn to the latter years more than the early ones, and it was through my appreciation of some of those later albums that I worked backward. Not to say I didn't dig Ziggy Stardust or Diamond Dogs when I was initially exposed, but I didn't get them as complete albums until later. The singles always wowed me, but I often didn't understand how they 'fit' into the context of the larger album they arrived on. 

---

---

---

Watch:

The trailer for Season Three of The Mandalorian dropped last night:

Mando season three doesn't look like much based on the trailer, but it goes without saying that, as someone who grew up with but has disowned Star Wars but created a complicated caveat for my love of this show (and the Boba Fett show), I'm all-in until proven otherwise, which I doubt will ever happen.

---

---

---

Playlist:

They Might Be Giants - Miscellaneous T

K's 70s Playlist

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Taping into the power of something bigger than myself will lead to a solid foundation from which to proceed. I can't help but read this as alluding to my current writing projects, but... oh, wait. I think I just got it. Now let me put this out of my mind so as not to taint the result. I'll confirm here later on if this means what I think it means.

Seven Days of Bowie: Day 6 - Sue

I had not even heard of this track's extended version or the accompanying 'film' before Saturday night. I love that I'm still discovering things about Bowie now, seven years after his death.

---

---

---

Watch:

Continuing my own personal seven days of Bowie, I watched Francis Whately's documentary David Bowie: The Last Five Years on HBO this past Saturday night. Really great film; I've never made any bones about saying that Bowie's last few albums are among my favorites of his (2003's Reality is my favorite, to be exact), so this one was sure to strike a chord with me.

 

The film begins by setting the stage with the Reality Tour, where Bowie first fell ill, and then moves backward and forward through his career to give the proper context to Reality, 2013's The Next Day and finally, his final album, Black Star.

 

---

---

---

Read:

I finally started David Lynch's autobiography Room to Dream this past weekend. About 85 pages in, it's every bit the balm I knew it would be. 

Actually a hybridization of bio/autobio, the book is a collaboration with writer Kristine McKenna. McKenna interviews an enormous cross-section of people from Lynch's life - she's talking to childhood friends in the first few chapters! So one chapter is her speaking to these folks, the next is Lynch reading and reacting, filling out what others have said about him. The technique is genius, in my opinion, and makes for marvelously joyous reading. But then, it's David Lynch - no artist I know of makes me happier.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

M83 - Oceans Niagara (single)

Ministry - Animositisomina

G Love & Special Sauce - Yeah, It's That Easy

Frank Black - Live at the Utah Hotel Saloon

David Bowie - A Reality Tour

David Bowie - Nothing Has Changed

Lustmord - Hobart

Metallica - Kim 'Em All

---

---

---

Card:

Just a quick one from my trusty Thoth deck:

Off-the-cuff reading - "Applying Will to Wonder in order to learn and grow."

This gels. I'm poised at a position where I've done some deep reflection on my own ins and outs, motivations and hangups, and I find that I have a short attention span - I want to start and finish projects within a very brief time, or they give me anxiety, and I avoid them. The only place this is not true is in writing, although my mileage varies there, as well. Hence, I need to address this, and the one big elephant in my room that I am 100% aware of but avoid like the fucking plague is returning to Meditation. I really think applying my Will to restarting that practice will reap huge benefits, I just have to do it.

Seven Days of Bowie: Day 5 - Strangers When We Meet Live 1995

 

I love this song, and I love this version of this song. 

---

---

---

Psyched:

Yellowjackets Season Two releases on my Birthday? Wow, thank You, Universe. 

I won't be watching anything else leading up to this. I'm overjoyed to see Elijah Wood join the cast, especially spending time opposite Ricci's Misty. 

---

---

---

Watch:

Well, I tried.

K and I went to our local theatre to see Kyle Edward Ball's Skinamarink last night. We made it about twenty minutes in and bailed; if I'd been by myself, I probably would have stayed just to see if what I interpreted as the gimmick of the film - constant static shots of the ceiling, childhood detritus on the floor, the upper right corner of an antiquated television, the upper right molding on a door, ever evolved. I'm pretty damn open-minded, and I tend to like and accept art on its own terms, but as I watched Skinamarink, I couldn't help dismissing the film as 'art school nonsense.' I'm not saying I'm correct; when we left, we didn't ask for our money back - I wouldn't take money out of the pocket of an indie creator, and I'm all for doing something different with Horror. I just don't think this concept can sustain a runtime of 100 minutes.

I also feel like, had I done some of the research on the film and on Ball in particular, I might have 'gotten' it more. I still wouldn't budge on the runtime being excessive, and the proof is, after reading this interview with Ball and then poking around on his youtube channel Bitesized Nightmares, I found the short film that served as a sort of Proof of Concept for Skinamarink. It works A LOT better as a thirty-minute short.

This is the goal of creators uploading content like Ball does to his channel, and I don't blame Ball for rolling with the opportunity. Watching a succession of these Bitesized Nightmare films, I'm definitely going to attempt to watch Skinamarink again when it hits Shudder. I'm also interested in seeing what he does from here on. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

G. Love & Special Sauce - Yeah, It's That Easy

David Bowie - Outside

David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant

Marnie Stern - This Is It and I Am It and You Are it and So Is...

Idles - Joy as an Act of Resistance

Jucifer - I Name You Destroyer

---

---

---

---

Seven Days of Bowie: Day 4 - Tin Machine Live!

 

From the relatively recently released Tin Machine: Live at La Cigale, Paris, 25th June 1989. I never felt like Tin Machine's studio album captured their sound. Not that I ever saw them live, but I distinctly remember their 1991 appearance on SNL, where they performed Bowie's "Baby Universal" and what a little research now shows me was Roxy Music's "If There Is Something" (neither of which I was familiar with at the time, and there's no youtube clip of that second performance online). 

It was that performance, to a 15-year-old stoner who had only the most fledgling radio understanding of David Bowie, that imprinted something on me that would be called upon later in life when I became a full-fledged fan. In fact, Tin Machine was all over Chicago's Loop 97.9 FM rock radio at the time (not sure what song), and I have a  tiny memory of the disconnect between the kind of lackluster energy the track had compared to what I'd seen on SNL. 

Years later, I picked up the group's 1989 eponymous record, and again, felt like something was missing. It's a serviceable record but just does not present the band the way I remembered them from that performance. Then, in 2019, this live album surfaced, and it's perfect. 

Perfect. 

---

---

---

Watch:

Here's a trailer for the new film from Christopher Smith:

Reminds me - I still need to watch The Banishing, and Black Death has been on my unrequited radar forever; I love Triangle.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Talking Heads - Fear of Music

Brian Eno & David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

David Byrne & Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

David Bowie - Black Tie White Noise

David Bowie - The Next Day

Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts

Godflesh - PURE Live

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

My recent forays into emotional stability (via re-engagement with yogic discipline) will bolster a partnership and push me further away from the dogmatic thinking that can set in when a routine develops. 

Routines are good and bad. I have definitely established one since moving across the country; however, recently I've become aware that the routine is too entrenched and would benefit greatly from a pattern interrupt. Based on this, earlier in the week I began practicing yoga again. This is something I've flit in and out of over the last twenty years. I use it until I don't need it anymore, move on and eventually come back. However long I stick this time, in just four days, the practice has worked wonders for my body and mind. I can feel things clearing up and my everyday life, absolutely a partnership with K, has become a lot lighter. 

One of the things I initially told K concerned me about our plan to buy a house out in the country (relatively we're not on green acres or anything) was not letting it inadvertently become a prison. We left a lot of friends in L.A. The good news is my Chicago people are only 6.5 hours away, but that still leaves the day-to-day spent primarily in the house, where we both also work from home. So you see how quickly our retreat could become an agoraphobic processing center. 

Maybe this is paranoid, but I'm always on the look out for what I call "Life Traps." People maneuver themselves into situations that look good when juxtaposed with their current circumstance, the good in which they've probably grown blind to due to repetition and routine, and they take steps without considering the long run. In our veritable frenzy to get out of LaLaLand, I became hyper aware of the possibility we might be jumping into just such a trap. The good news is, just being aware of this stuff usually helps to mitigate it. 

But diligence is required. 

Thus, I'm looking at shaking up the small routines in favor of creating a bigger picture. To quote Special Agent Dale Cooper:

"I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. And I've started to focus out beyond the edge of the board. On a bigger game." 

Today's Pull definitely makes me feel as though I am moving in the right direction.

Seven Days of Bowie: Day 3 - Sex and The Church

 

From the criminally under-referenced The Buddha of Suburbia album Bowie released as, in his words, "a quasi soundtrack" to Roger Michell's series adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's novel, neither of which I am familiar with. I LOVE the Saxophone on this album, especially this track. Little considered fact: Bowie plays all the Sax on this record. Granted, there are some Bell Biv Devoe-style beats on this one (South Horizon, I'm looking at you!) but they work! Overall, it's a marvelous record.

---

---

---

Watch:

Many thanks to Heavenisanincubator for reminding me Nicolas Winding Refn's Copenhagen Cowboy recently dropped. 

 

 I blew through the entire six episodes this past Tuesday. If Refn's previous foray into sequential streaming Too Old To Die Young left you a bit cold, fear not, I found Copenhagen Cowboy a considerably easier ride (that said, applying the adjective "easy" to Refn's work is a bit misleading. You still have to work for it here, too, only this time, the contents don't make your skin crawl so much).

My Letterbxd entry on this one lives HERE.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues

Death - ... For All the World To See

Jucifer - I Name You Destroyer

David Bowie - Scary Monsters

David Bowie - Station to Station

Tin Machine - Live at La Cigale, Paris, 25th June 1989

Bigg Doggett and His Combo - All His Hits

Lorn - Rarities

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Completion of Will requires a partnership or collaboration that will ultimately balance my somewhat topsy-turvy confidence. Could be good news, I have a couple of possible collaborations in the near future.

Seven Days of Bowie: Day 2 - Slip Away

 

Seven Days of David Bowie continues, celebrating the life and music of the Alien, called away seven years ago yesterday. The world is a markedly less interesting place in his absence. 

"Slip Away," taken from the 2002 album Heathen. 

---

---

---

NCBD:

Here are my picks for the second Pull of the year!

We're inching closer to the close-out of Dark Web, and overall, this is probably my favorite "Event" I've read since, well, the other two Infernos. I guess I just really dig events titled Inferno, or in this case, Dark Web, which I'm pretty sure is just Inferno spelled sideways. Interesting, that while the 80s Inferno is the template for this current Spider-title/X-Books crossover - a pretty good combination to begin with, if for only having afforded us a brief reunion of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, hahaha - that the other Inferno I allude to there was Hickman's and had nothing to do with Limbo, demons, or Maddie/Ilyana. I guess there's just something in a name. 

This book really skirts on the edge of being a full-out Horror book, with definite 90s, Clive Barker/David J. Schow vibes at times. Yet it flexes that wonderfully visceral Horror muscle but doesn't quite commit to it. I can still feel where the book pulls back. I'm assuming that's editorial guidance, but let's say it out loud: Embrace the blood shed already. You can only dance up to and around it for so long. 

So, the Vampires are all taken care of? What's next? 

We come to the end of the first arc of this new Marvel Predator franchise. Looking forward to seeing Theta bag the Predator of her nightmares.

This one is heating right the f*ck up! Glad I jumped on when I did. Cutter is nasty.

Consistently the headscratcher each month, and I love Ten Thousand Black Feathers for it. 

Not really sure where we're heading now that the previous arc settled, but I'm in regardless. 

---

---

---

Watch:

Kang! 'Nuff said:

It's probably been a while since I posted a Marvel Movie trailer here. My interest wanes, at best. I'll always be keeping up on the Big Picture of the MCU, but the individual films can feel like work.

Not here though. Because here, we have Kang and Jonathan Majors playing him, no less. I'm all in, with one little caveat - I still have yet to see Ant-Man one or two. I'll be remedying that soon, I guess. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

David Bowie - Earthling

David Bowie - Heathen

David Bowie - The Buddha of Suburbia

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium; Undreamable Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Death - ... For the Whole World to See

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Exacting global systems change (i.e., me, overall) by the transformative experience of actually listening to my own and others' emotions. I think this is just an overall "good practice" for life, really. Funny, the new year incites change and repositing/strategizing regardless of whether we do the resolution gambit or not. There's a feeling of renewal built into us as a society, I think, and so it's similar to how I wake up at 8:00 AM now whether I set my alarm or not. My body has learned the pattern. Maybe that's why this particular pull on this day; reminding me to embrace the small changes I've made in the last week-and-a-half purely because I felt like changing, not because I was aware or coerced into thinking I needed to make them.

RIP David Bowie - Seven Years Away From Tibet

 

The Alien has been gone from this world for seven years. Damn. I still remember that day. Thus begins my annual Seven Days of David Bowie, and I thought I'd start with "Seven Years in Tibet," from Bowie's 1997 album Earthling.

---

---

---

Watch:

The first trailer for Ari Aster's third film Beau is Afraid dropped:

Wow. I'm not even sure what to make of this one other than A) I won't be watching any more trailers, and B) I'll be there opening day.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Talking Heads - Fear of Music

Talking Heads - Remain in Light

Iggy Pop - The Idiot

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

Ministry - Moral Hygiene

Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

Skid Row - Eponymous

Talking Heads - Big Country (single)

The Flamingos - I Only Have Eyes For You (single)

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose

Kaiser Cheifs - I Predict A Riot

Sylvaine - Nova

Sylvaine - Atoms Aligned, Coming Undone

The High Confessions - Turning Lead Into Gold with the High Confessions

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

---

---

---

Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Transformations of both Emotional and Proprietary merit can be achieved by applying the appropriate degree of Will to the correct avenue. I'm not entirely certain how to actually apply this, yet, because on one level this drawing seems to hold the same vagueries most do, while something here is picking at me that perhaps if I sit and contemplate this one, a more specific epiphany may arrive.