Billy & Bowie

Since I can't put all my music musings about Bowie in the (already planned before his death) animation column in mid-March anyway, I'm just musing now with the rest of the world after B-day 10 01 2016. After all, see the cover of Heroes come up quite often in the media. That black-and-white photo where he is captured in a sort of marionette-like pose. That cover is here in the house, sans inhoud, and has been on the mantel for years. There is a story attached to it.

As a Bowie fan (though I think my fanship was somewhat waning at the time), I was bored to death during an IKEA shopping day with my parents and sisters. No doubt we were rummaging among the cupboards when my eye fell on cupboard stuffing. Fat chance it was a Billy. Billy stuffed with Bowie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgcc5V9Hu3g

There stood the cover. Not one but tig Heroes covers. Dommage. I knew a better place. A place where that cover would shine. My room! Next to the homemade mobile with pictures from Bowie's Pop picture as soldier, Bowie as Ziggy And a very thin Bowie with bags (the thin white duke).

Since the cover was just window dressing anyway, I put it in my bag. I didn't even think about the guards who were there at the time (estimate late 1980s) anyway. At the box office, though, I hesitated. Walked through.... and was stopped. Bag check. Gulp.

What all was said then I really don't remember. Remember no strategically deployed tears, certainly no police. What I do remember is a red head. Apparently my Bowie fanship was enough to grant me this window dressing. So since then, Heroes just moves along nicely.

After De Kiel, Groningen, Arnhem, it has now been in The Hague for years. Heroes for always and everywhere!

Only very recently did I see red Bowie threads running through my life. He (unconsciously) gave me nudges in all sorts of directions as an adolescent:
as a booster in the field of (multidisciplinary) creativity, as an inspiration in terms of his (almost) 'holistic' approach to life-work-life. As an androgynous daredevil.

Grande merci to Bowie.

A suivre!