Velvets Fan

I've read a few bios of Bowie and I always find them fascinating. Bowie is famous for re-inventing himself constantly and this bio does a good job of sketching out the various phases in his career. It seemed to rely a bit too much on the obvious touchstones and anecdotes of his life, so there wasn't much new in the book. Even so, it was an enjoyable read and it got me enthralled once again in Bowie's creativity and constant searching for the new.

As the author points out several times in the book, very few people can *be* Bowie. For a start, most of us don't have the awesome hair that Bowie had! While that sounds shallow, the fact is that his looks and great mane of hair were key parts of his success - can you imagine a bald Bowie in the 70's? Of course not. The point is, Bowie pretty much had it all as a rock star in the 70's: talent, extreme creativity, a nose for the new before it became mainstream, an explorer's sensibility, sex appeal, great hair, good skin, lithe almost alien body, masculinity, femininity, etc.

What the rest of us can take from Bowie is the inspiration of his always searching creativity and (ironically perhaps) that he found himself while projecting many personas. The personas were stage, performance, theater. But he found himself and his place/impact in the world -- or more accurately he keeps searching for that.

All of us have an "inner Bowie" and this book was a solid reminder of that.