Must hurry – otherwise will miss press preview of Dr Doolittle 2, which I’m am reviewing for the BBC. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get someone to come with me including e-mailing everyone I know in the world and posting it on Barbelith. But the thought is too much for all my friends. Hence I will make them suffer if they want to go see Moulin Rouge or Planet of the Apes at a preview with me…
Tom’s Top Twelve Bowie tracks:
12) Fascination [Young Americans]
“Every time I feel fascination, I just can’t stand still, I’ve got to use her, Every time I think of what you pulled me through, dear, Fascination moves sweeping near me.”
11) TVC15 [Station to Station]
“One of these nights I may just jump down that rainbow way. Be with my baby, then We’ll spend some time together.”
10) Big Brother / Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family [Diamond Dogs]
“We’ll build a glass asylum, with just a hint of mayhem.” “Someone to claim us, someone to follow, someone to shame us, some brave apollo, someone to fool us, someone like you, we want you Big Brother.”
9) Let’s Dance (Live) [Bowie at the Beeb]
“If you say run, I’ll run with you. If you say hide, we’ll hide. Because my love for you would break my heart in two. If you should fall into my arms and tremble like a flower.”
8) Golden Years [Station to Station]
“Don’t let me hear you say life’s taking you nowhere, angel. Come get up my baby. Look at that sky, life’s begun. Nights are warm and the days are young.”
7) Black Country Rock [The Man Who Sold The World]
“Some say the view is crazy but you may adopt another point of view.”
6) Ashes to Ashes [Scary Monsters]
“They got a message from the Action Man,’I’m happy, hope you’re happy too I’ve loved all I’ve needed to love. Sordid details following.'”
5) The Man Who Sold The World [The Man Who Sold The World]
“We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when. Although I wasn’t there, he said I was his friend. Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes. I thought you died alone, a long long time ago.”
4) Fashion [Scary Monsters]
“There’s a brand new dance but I don’t know its name. That people from bad homes do again and again. It’s big and it’s bland full of tension and fear. They do it over there but we don’t do it here.”
3) Starman [Ziggy Stardust]
“Look out your window I can see his light. If we can sparkle he may land tonight.”
2) Beauty and the Beast [Heroes]
“Something in the night, something in the day. Nothing is wrong but darling, something’s in the way.”
1) Andy Warhol [Hunky Dory]
“Put a peephole in my brain. Two New Pence to have a go. I’d like to be a gallery. Put you all inside my show.”
Honourable mentions to: Sound and Vision [Low], Boys Keep Swinging [Lodger], Heroes [Heroes], It’s No Game (Parts One and Two) [Scary Monsters], Queen Bitch [Hunky Dory], Life on Mars [Hunky Dory], Let’s Spend The Night Together [Aladdin Sane], Jean Genie [Aladdin Sane], Sorrow [Pin Ups], Lady Stardust [Ziggy Stardust], Fame [Young Americans]
Big Blogger: “Nobody has a clue what the National Anthem of Barbados sounds like but Tom says it’s a bit like Dancing Queen.”
I’m feeling tremendously positive after half an hour lying in the sun, three episodes of Angel and lots of bread and houmous. I have a sudden transformative feeling, as if I were shortly to be emerging from madness.
Tremendously unsettling experience: talking about your problems with a friend on AIM and then discovering that you weren’t actually talking to said friend at all, but to someone involved in the whole problem, albeit indirectly. Suddenly feel crushingly exposed.
LA Barbelith regulars may remember me in this particular outfit when I met them outside a café in February: What the Mirror Project Found.
I’m weirded out. Max is sodding off abroad in a week. Which weirds me out. Don’t normally talk about him here, but I’ve decided this is different. Maybe it’s not. He might send me an e-mail I suppose – telling me it’s not different. Hmmm. In which case I shall take it down. He probably won’t send me an e-mail though. Have a nice time, old chap.
It’s official. Jeffrey Zeldman officially kicks fucking arse. As another expensive online project folds, so the little man takes a stand:”The Web is not in trouble. Big businesses are, when they think they can own or master it. Bye-bye, Big Content. Adieu, global agencies. Thanks for stopping by. Now step away, and let those who’ve always understood this medium
take it where it needs to go.” [the rest of the article] [the godlike Mr Z]
How can I go forward when I don’t know which way I’m facing? How can I go forward when I don’t know which way to turn? How can I go forward into something I’m not sure of?
How can I give love when I don’t know what it is I’m giving? How can I give love when I just don’t know how to give? How can I give love when love is something I ain’t never had?
You know life can be long, and you got to be so strong and the world is so tough sometimes i feel i’ve had enough.
Today on Barbelith: The Death of Pop – “More than anything else, this is what’s killed pop – a self-consciousness has crept in, a knowingness that’s half decadent and half neurotic.”