Let’s Dance was released the spring before I started high school and it was not long into my grade nine year that my locker was plastered with pictures of David Bowie taken from music magazines.

I can’t say now, more than thirty years later, what it was exactly that drew me to that album, but I loved it and I listened to it with the same compulsiveness that I had previously played Revolver (still my favourite Beatles album) and Shaun Cassidy’s first album.

Perhaps one of the things that was different about Let’s Dance was that it was one of the first albums that I chose completely of my own accord. Revolver was a hand-me-down from my uncle (along with a larger collection of late 60s 45s) and I found my way to Shaun Cassidy through my longstanding love of The Hardy Boys (the books, of course).

But, at 14, I was going out and buying records on my own (mostly downtown at Sam’s). I was trying to establish an identity for myself (it was around this time that I was going to anti-Cruise missile demonstrations and started buying philosophy books).

Bowie was different and fascinating and a little terrifying in his ability to be provocative. Which is perfect when you’re 14 (and, quite frankly, still is when you’re 46).

Several years later, I saw the Glass Spider tour. You can watch the video on YouTube. It was pretty awesome (and still is).

 

What I am reading

Still reading The Treacherous Net by Helene Tursten. I’m about half-way through and it is a thoroughly excellent book so far.

I’m also reading (since I got stuck without the Tursten book) Bitter Harvest by Sheila Connolly, a in many ways typical cozy mystery about a woman running an apple orchard. However, so far (and I’ve only read the first fifty or sixty pages) the writing is good and the characters more nuanced than is sometimes the case with these sorts of books, so I will continue with this one.

What I am watching

More Poirot (it is so good). We watched The ABC Murders the other night and it is just excellent. We have also been re-watching The Office (US version) with the kids. It is just so, so funny in it’s horrible way and a pleasure to re-watch. Without the kids, we’ve gone back to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which we watched the first few seasons of a while back), which is so much more horrible than The Office and so good as a result.

We went to see Spotlight on Friday and I completely appreciate why it was nominated for various Academy Awards. The story — based on the true story of the Boston Globe’s investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic priests and the local hierarchy’s attempts to hide that abuse — is deftly told, with enough detail for it to be appropriately powerful, but at the same time, avoiding being salacious or unnecessarily sensational. Centered around the investigative team at the newspaper and their new editor, the story unfolds as they interview lawyers and survivors and various reluctant Catholics. The ending in particular was well handled (there can be no truly ‘happy ending’ for a story like this and it is nice to come across a film that acknowledges that).