Turn and Face the Strange
By Turlough
- 1212 reads
Turn and Face the Strange
Paperback, hardback, posh leather-bound
Dog-eared, well-thumbed, maybe slightly browned
A brief inscription, words of love profound
Lurking in between the leaves, a random bookmark found
Aladdin Sane and Hunky Dory
Bowie’s works in all their glory
On vinyl discs from years before they
Made a digital world become mandatory
The high street banks are off the map
To spend a penny we need an app
That ‘I promise to pay the bearer’ chap
Has lost his job, deserves a slap
Technology has us by the balls
So in a thousand years when duty calls
Historians discover that sod all’s
As good as what’s on cavemen’s walls
They’ll never see what we have seen
On our ninety-nine-inch TV screens
Only microchips and polythene
Fill the hole where civilisation’s been
This worldwide web is all the rage
You’ll find all you need on our homepage
But culture’s gone, it’s left the stage
As we’re welcomed along to the New Dark Age
Image:
My own photograph of my own vinyl copy of David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album that I bought from Scene & Heard Records in Fish Street in Leeds on the day of its release which was Thursday 19th April 1973 when I was fifteen. I’m now sixty-six and it hangs in a glass frame in pride of place on my Bulgarian living room wall. The record sleeve’s appearance was enhanced when I pasted on to it the ticket stub from when I went to see the man himself in concert at the Apollo Theatre in Renfrew Street in Glasgow on Monday 19th June 1978, the night before my Ship Stability & Stress exam at Glasgow College of Nautical Studies. Miraculously, I passed the exam but the highlight of the week, and the 1970s, was the gig. There is nothing that is produced in the world today that could ever be as precious to me as this record.
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Comments
Your final line reminded me of the black out in Blade Runner
2049 a worldwide crash and virtually all records were lot because it was digitalised --- no paper It maywerll happen in the not so distant future
All those thousands of photos we can take for free on smartphones and digital camera --- where are they? No one is printing them now family lives of millions lost on lost chips
Photographs on paper ----- the new antique collectables 2055
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The two films blade runner
The two films blade runner and blade runner 49 are a bit of an aquired taste. The first leads on to the second but strangly the second takes more from the book (imo) tge films were made about 30years apart
the book the films are taken from is called
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick
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"Aladdin Sane and Hunky Dory
"Aladdin Sane and Hunky Dory
Bowie’s works in all their glory.."
A pensive, thoughtful poem. Speculative is good. Makes us all think so nicely done, Turlough.
I like the sound of ninety-nine inch TV screens. The footie would look awesome.
A remarkable man - Bowie. Saw him live in Cardiff once - Glass Spider Tour. Took some mates and drove there from Birmingham in my yellow Morris Marina Estate. It fell apart a few weeks later. I'm sure it was the trip to Wales that led to its demise.
[Blade Runner is one of my favourite movies. Ridley Scott at his genius best.]
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Reminds me of Julia or Sarah
Reminds me of Julia or Sarah - maybe both. Julia had the vinyl copy for sure. Bowie and wife 1 lived a street away from where Sarah lives now.
Those were the days pre the advanced technology we struggle with in the 21st century.
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All this technology which is
All this technology which is supposed to make life easy is leaving us incredibly vulnerable. There's something comforting about vinyl, you can hold it like a photograph and money too. The replacement of the physical with the virtual makes us feel less real and more powerless. I'm sure David would have something wiser than me to say about it.
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prophetic
From your poem, “Historians discover that sod all’s as good as what’s on cavemen’s walls". The poem is prophetic but I think the final end will be long before that..
The Dark Ages may return on the gleaming wings of Science – Churchill
(Not a Bowie man myself, just the knife, yes that is a work of art).
Keep well & Nolan
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Ah - but without all this
Ah - but without all this technology, you wouldn't be able to give us the pleasure of hearing you read on May 18th (without an expensive flight and a lot more faff). I will send the ABCTales carriage next time if you prefer though?
David Bowie was and is one of my heroes and I also still have that album tucked away somewhere - what a chameleon he was
there's a really interesting book about the time Bowie lived in ..Beckford? Haddenham Hall? (can't remember exactly) - he had a little army of local teenage girls who used to hang around there and he sort of adopted them - one of them grew up to be an author - it's a good read and one you might enjoy!
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You hit the nail on the head
You hit the nail on the head with this poem Turlough. Well I think you know my feelings on the subject of technology.
I saw David Bowie at the Colston Hall in Bristol in the very early 1970s. He just sat crosslegged on the stage playing his guitar, wearing loons and a teashirt...all very simple back then. I still listen to my Hunky Dory vinyl and think of that night.
I still write with pen and paper and keep books of my writing. I still also use pen and paper when writing to people too. I don't send e mails unless I have no other option. I do so struggle with this ever changing world, where learning is so difficult to keep up with. I just wish it would all slow down.
I'm just so glad I was there in the 50s 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Those incredible memories may not be remembered by the future generations, but I will take them happily to my grave.
Great read Turlough.
Jenny.
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ah, memories. I never quite
ah, memories. I never quite got the Bowie thing. But hey, he's had his day in the sun. Now he's in Bulgaria, hanging on a wall.
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