These are posts I made to social media (with links) after the news broke about David Bowie. While they are fragments, I hope they tell a story. I’m based both in NYC and in the Hudson Valley.

January, 11 at 12:42pm

Always dapper, he was beautiful with elegant aging, at the same restaurant or on that porch, passing by, elbows almost touching, yes, within that distance, I felt that he was completely electric or did I imagine, while pretending not to notice. But I remember. In the country, just knowing he was nearby created a momentum, a shimmer.

Having lived near where he was changed me. I know that sounds crazy but it did. I felt like that in NYC, too, but, his influence in the country was unexpected. The contrast of his body of work and persona, which in its polish and experimentation was definitively urban, existed, for me, in stark relief to knowing he lived down the road, in the curve of the mountains. It was fascinating.

January 11, 1:06pm

Yesterday, sitting upstairs at the Golden Notebook in Woodstock, NY, for a wonderful reading, I watched the mountain turn to dusk through the windows and thought about how so many people are pulled to its magic. The diverse readers, all of us there, the artists. I thought of Bowie. One reader read poems of deserts. The mountain sparkled with drying rain.

January 12, 9:03am

This is so worth a listen. Thoughts on how the Internet will transform art and audience.

January 12, 11:27am

“I don’t think I would be able to cope with the celebrity lifestyle at all. The idea of an entourage is anathema to me…People here are very decent about their interactions with well-knowns. I get the occasional “Yo, Bowie,” but that’s about it. ” ~Bowie

Bowie’s Reflection On Being A New Yorker:
http://www.vulture.com/2016/01/david-bowies-reflection-on-being-a-new-yorker.html

The Concert for New York City

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=984_1315755315

January 13

This piece references 9/11 NYC and ends with Woodstock. I always say both places are examples of extremes, sometimes wonderful, sometimes difficult. Around Woodstock and several other Hudson Valley towns, artists, writers and musicians comprise the norm—we’re not considered some unimportant subculture. Fame isn’t more important than doing the work. Maybe that’s what lures, or maybe it really is the mountain.

On the Hudson Valley:
“These performances also reminded music lovers all over the region how lucky we are to live in a place that holds its artists and musicians in such high regard.”