David Bowie's Top 100 Books -

I've always liked David Bowie's songs, movies, and his whole personality, so I'm distressed that it was only today I learned he once provided an interviewer with a list of his top 100 books.

Evidently, Bowie actually did read books. That list is not some airhead celebrity book club thing. And I think there are some surprising choices, especially along kinda cultural conservative lines.

Start with the number three choice: Room at the Top, the 1959 novel that kicked off an 'angry young man' wave of British novels with working class heroes rebelling at the social hierarchy. We have an overload of alienated young men again today, only today they don't seem to be producing quality literature. 

I'll overlook the Howard Zinn dishonest embarrassment because RATT and some of the other picks are just that good.

You expect to see classics like 1984 and The Iliad, so no surprise there. But Faulkner's As I Lay Dying? How did a modern English guy develop a taste for Southern Gothic? 

Seeing The Master and Margarita makes we wonder if there might be a Mick Jagger tie-in, since that book inspired The Stones' Sympathy For the Devil, the most historically literate rock song of all time.

Lolita is another one that might have a backstory. Most people who have heard of that book have no idea it has a political subtext. If you're one of them, then I highly recommend the memoir Reading Lolita In Tehran, or just watch this interview. 

Darkness at Noon, The Waste Land, and The 42nd Parallel are works of the political and cultural right, hands down. Really, Bowie was risking social banishment by including those on his list. Good for him.

Rebel Rebel, you continue to surprise and delight. 

  

Fall of the Wall Anniversary

The UK Daily Telegraph is not giving President Obama a pass for declining Angela Merkel's invitation to attend the ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall: Not enough about him? Barack Obama skips Berlin Wall ceremonies. Ouch!

At least Hillary went.

The ceremonies sounded like lots of fun. I loved the idea of having Lech Walesa push over the first of 1,000 big dominoes (photo above) set up where the Wall once stood.

Personally, I have been marking the occasion by playing the old David Bowie song Heroes. That might seem an odd choice, but the song was kinda sorta inspired by the Wall and it's got an appropriately triumphant sound.