Mourning David Bowie

Inspiration

David Bowie was a man of class, grace and exceptional talent. The last few months of his public life were focused on the release of his final album Blackstar, and the opening of the off-Broadway show Lazarus, rather than the cancer he fought privately.

He lived his separate lives, as ever-changing performer David Bowie, and in private as David Jones. I mourn the man who was shared with us, the artist. The beautiful thing about Bowie is that his music will remain. We have fifty years of music to savor and enjoy. Above all, we must remember that we are not his loved ones. A light has gone out in our world, but in theirs it is one that burned more brightly.

Bowie’s legacy shows a true artist, a chameleon who worked and created until the very end. Blackstar is a remarkable album, combining Bowie’s love of jazz and his unique vocals with a profound meditation on mortality. It’s a harsh yet elegant end to his brilliant career.

David Jones may have passed from this world. David Bowie has ascended to the stars, to live on as a legend.

“Oh, I’ll be free, just like that bluebird”

  • David Bowie, “Lazarus”

Beginning Samizdat

Comics, Samizdat

In the beginning, there was a joke. A ‘literary vigilante’ who is a Batman for the written word. Stopping bad poetry in its tracks, correcting split infinitives and terrifying those who dared submit to a literary magazine without a cover letter. As the editor and art director for literary magazine Far Off Places, Annie Rutherford and I had seen it all and longed for a force to at least make sure prospective writers included a cover letter.

But from that joke came the inkling of an idea, of a female driven comic book adventure we have titled Samizdat, after the Russian underground newspapers. Written and illustrated by women, starring women as the heroes and villains, this endeavor would give us the stories we wanted to see. Intelligent women using their brains to solve problems, with a literary bent. Drawing inspiration from the Kindle deleting 1984, from the ‘death’ of print media, and the closure of mom and pop bookstores, we developed the basic premise for Samizdat. Such is our love letter to stories, to adventures, to Edinburgh.

Hello internet, my old friend

Edinburgh Expeditions, The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

My my my. I guess I have left She Thinks Too Much pretty silent. Nothing written since mid-2013! It doesn’t, however, mean that my life has been anything other than interesting.

The boyfriend I mentioned in my last post? Now my husband. The Englishman is happily settling in to life in the Northeast. Given that he’s lived through a couple of blizzards already, we can happily term him an almost-New Englander.

Far Off Places, the wonderful little magazine that I co-founded with a group of friends while still living in Scotland, continues to flourish. I actually made a trip to Edinburgh to speak at the Scottish Poetry Library. Annie (our fearless editor-in-chief) and I discussed how we started the magazine, how the hell we manage to keep it all afloat when none of us live full time in the same country, let alone continent or timezone, and what we look for in submissions. The evening included some great poetry readings by Niall Foley and Finola Scott.

Also on the Far Off Places front, we co-founders were interviewed for the University of Edinburgh alumni newsletter, Enlightened, in the early fall. It was my first time being interviewed about a project, which was very exciting. If you so desire, you can read the interview “Going places.” Tying in with this was our fantastic and shiny new website and look, designed by myself and our Q, Trevor Fountain. In addition, we’re also accepting submissions for our sixth issue, The Epistolary Edition.

On top of all this, I’ve worked for a Boston-area university, since July 2013. I’m still amazed that I’ve been there that long, it feels as though I’ve just started working.

Here’s to more adventures, and my remembering to blog about them!