David Bowie died last Sunday at the age of 69, and the past week has been long and sorrowful, compounded by the fact that Alan Rickman (and others) also died. But if you've been listening to Bowie non-stop like us, then you might be interested in a few screenings of his work this weekend.
The Film Society at Lincoln Center will host a free screening of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence today at 6:30 p.m. and a free screening of The Man Who Fell to Earth at 9 p.m.—both screenings will be at the Walter Reade Theater.
Then the Paley Center For Media will host screenings of David Bowie: Sound & Vision retrospective for the last three weekends in January (Jan. 16 & 17, 23 & 24, 30 & 31). The five-part screening series, which was originally shown in 2002 there, was culled from archives around the world as well as Bowie’s own library, and features tons of TV appearances, live performances, music videos and more. You can get the full information about those screenings, including times of screenings, at their website here.
In addition, there will be two Bowie tribute concerts later in the spring, including a show on March 31st at Carnegie Hall and a show April 1st at Radio City Music Hall. Musicians participating include Michael Stipe, Laurie Anderson, Cat Power, the Roots, Jakob Dylan, the Mountain Goats, Cyndi Lauper, Bettye LaVette, Perry Farrell, Robyn Hitchcock, Ann Wilson of Heart and more. The Carnegie show is already sold out, but there may be tickets left for Radio City Music Hall still—check here.
And here's a nice moment from a week ago—longtime producer Tony Visconti calling Bowie during a Holy Holy tribute show to wish him a happy 69th birthday.
And a couple other neat things: here are some rare photos of Bowie from the Thin White Duke era; you can get his only video game, Omikron: The Nomad Soul, for free until Jan. 22nd; an my favorite random anecdote, which concerns Bowie's efforts to avoid attention in public around NYC:
The decade of our loose continuity connections ended in New York shortly before Bowie’s 60th birthday. It was at a party in a Tribeca hotel. As I arrived I saw Bowie stepping out of a yellow cab and paying the driver. Greeting him and vaguely surprised to see him in this form of transport I asked him if he ever had any problems moving around the city. Not at all, he said, he happily used cabs and subways. “I just carry one of these,” he said, and held up a Greek newspaper. People think: that’s David Bowie, surely? Then they see the Greek newspaper - no, can’t be, just some Greek guy who looks like him.
It was a brilliant idea, I thought. So simple, so efficient - and somehow effortlessly cool and stylish: an act both quotidian and bravura, entirely typical of this fascinating man. So we can add another category to the long list of achievements that Bowie carried off so memorably and with such unique poise and brio. Not just an unforgettable songwriter, performer and musician but also an actor, an artist, a writer, a publisher, a shrewd financial operator and - it turns out (though we shouldn’t be at all surprised) - a master of disguise.