2017: Panic In Detroit
"Panic In Detroit" (Aladdin Sane)

. . . Iwang joined them in the dark red robes and conical winged hat of a Tibetan monk, indeed a lama of the highest distinction. So the presenters were as impressive as their presents . . .
- Bahram, in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt (Book Four: The Alchemist: Better Gifts for the Khan)

Updating my current image for the first time in six years:

On the left is how I looked in 2011, six years ago (I was an idiot back then), and on the right is how I now look (why so serious?). Older than what I long regarded as old (but I feel just like I did when I was 20 for some reason). I'm pretty sure my skin colour hasn't changed, I guess lighting and camera response can make that much of a difference. I don't have any hair now - it was annoying me while swimming, so I shaved it all off. Then my head felt exposed (especially in the wind), so I had to wear something instead of hair, but what?

Looking to my hero for inspiration, I remembered this image of David Bowie (which I first saw at Chris O'Leary's blog here):

And I liked the look. At the time (not looking closely), I thought that was a beret, so I decided to wear a beret in lieu of hair. A black beret. I went to a hat shop looking for one and found they didn't have any berets, so I got the next-best thing and wore it back-to-front. Most people think it's a beret, so it does the job. Bowie looks so content in that shot, and I'm quite content myself.

Maybe the novelty will wear off eventually, but for now that thing is glued to my dome. If I take it off at this point, people might not recognise me! Most people (including those who stop me in the street to say 'I like your hat') seem to like it, or are polite enough to say they do. Someone said I look like a Russian, which I sometimes get anyway for being a Eurasian. But no-one thinks I look like Che Guevara, so I fail at that, I'm still the wannabe, and this is my "Panic In Detroit" look.

What I like best is that it didn't stop SCU Sydney from putting me on their facebook page (so it can't be too bad?) or from putting me in front of 175 students:

If I'm a cross between the two, at least my plan for world domination will be hilariously-innocuous****.

EDITS (inspired by commentary from friends): I've realised that I almost make it look as though the crowning achievement of my year is the hat. Of course it isn't really (more like enjoying my work more than usual is), but I guess it's kind of symbolic. For a variety of reasons, I do feel "back in black". Additionally, I like how wearing this the wrong way seems to work out, like all the wrong ways I do everything. A metaphor for my life, really. A little like Leonard in Memento. He does everything so wrong, but somehow things work out for him.

One commenter suggests "Where Did You Get That Hat?" as a hat-themed song. There's also Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On", but no-one wants to see me do a striptease here.

In other news, I might have finally decided what my favourite Bowie songs are. It depends on how many I'm allowed to choose. If just one favourite, it's "The Dreamers" ('hours . . .'; Omikron: The Nomad Soul longer version).

If I'm allowed to pick ten, they are (in chronological order):
    "Cygnet Committee" (Space Oddity)
    "Sweet Thing / Candidate / Sweet Thing (Reprise)" (Diamond Dogs, iSelect)
    "Station to Station" (Station To Station)
    " "Heroes" " ("Heroes"; also covered nicely in Lazarus)
    "The Motel" (1. Outside)
    "Something In The Air" ('hours . . .')
    "The Dreamers" (Omikron: The Nomad Soul longer version from 'hours . . .' Expanded Edition)
    "New Killer Star" (Reality)
    "Love Is Lost" (The Next Day Extra EP; full version (10:25) of the Hello Steve Reich mix. After The Next Day's version)
    "Dollar Days" (Blackstar)

If I'm allowed to pick thirty, they are (in chronological order):
    "Cygnet Committee" (Space Oddity)
    "Queen Bitch" (Hunky Dory)
    "Time" (Aladdin Sane)
    "Sweet Thing / Candidate / Sweet Thing (Reprise)" (Diamond Dogs, iSelect)
    "Win" (Young Americans)
    "Station to Station" (Station To Station)
    "Golden Years" (Station To Station)
    "Art Decade" (Low)
    " "Heroes" " ("Heroes"; also covered nicely in Lazarus)
    "Teenage Wildlife" (Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps))
    "Loving The Alien" (Tonight)
    "Jump They Say" (Black Tie White Noise)
    "The Mysteries" (The Buddha of Suburbia)
    "Untitled No. 1" (The Buddha of Suburbia; now why can't every song be this good?)
    "The Enemy is Fragile" (Leon; 'Would you like something really fishy?')
    "Hallo Spaceboy" (version featuring the Pet Shop Boys, various compilations; after the version on 1. Outside)
    "The Motel" (1. Outside)
    "Little Wonder" (Earthling)
    "Something In The Air" ('hours . . .')
    "Survive" ('hours . . .')
    "The Dreamers" (Omikron: The Nomad Soul longer version from 'hours . . .' Expanded Edition)
    "No One Calls" ('hours . . .' Expanded Edition)
    "Slip Away" (Heathen)
    "Slow Burn" (Heathen)
    "New Killer Star" (Reality)
    "Bring Me The Disco King" (live from A Reality Tour)
    "Love Is Lost" (The Next Day Extra EP; full version (10:25) of the Hello Steve Reich mix. After The Next Day's version)
    "Heat" (The Next Day)
    "★" ("Blackstar") (Blackstar)
    "Dollar Days" (Blackstar)

My favourite album is Station To Station. My favourite ten albums are***:
    Aladdin Sane (1973)
    Station To Station (1976)
    Low (1977)
    "Heroes" (1977)
    The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
    Leon / 1. Outside (1995)
    'hours . . .' (1999)
    Heathen (2002)
    The Next Day (2013)
    Blackstar (2016)

**I was going to show this comic but thought better of it. Why do I care about keeping it clean here? Isn't this my website where I can do whatever I want?

***can't I just enjoy stuff without making these stupid lists? No, absolutely not. As these other lists amply demonstrate.

****comics from xkcd

2016: Blackstar
"★" ("Blackstar") (Blackstar)

What has mattered are the moments of exposure in every life, when habit is no longer enough, and choices have to be made. That's when everyone becomes the great man, for a moment; and the choices made in these moments, which come all too frequently, then combine to make history. In that sense I suppose I come down on the side of the masses, in that it has been a collective process, whatever else it is.
- Zhu Isao, in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt (Book Ten: The First Years: 3. Writing Burmese History)

The problem with vocal music, and a large part of why I did not listen to it, is that the music must bend to fit the lyrics. And if music truly means without words, much of its potential to move is lost. But what if a vocal artist had the skill to write lyrics flexible enough to leave the music as unbent as possible? If that artist could bend the lyrics to fit the music instead? I've decided that this is the strength of Bowie's abstract lyrics: that he is not constrained to literal exposition - and there are further possibilities allowed by this approach.

Goodbye David Bowie - heroic artistry, right to the very end. I'm not a musician, but if there is anyone I wish I could be like, it's you - it's the spirit of what you did. I'm your dreamer. Perhaps even your blackstar, in my own way.

EDITed to add: I later figured out what my favourite Bowie songs are - look above, or below, depending on how these posts are organised.

2015: Untitled No. 1
"Untitled No. 1" (The Buddha Of Suburbia)

For the first time in a long time he was not perpetually hungry, and he felt as if he was coming out of a fog or a dream, waking up more each day. Of course now he was a slave, but he wouldn't always be one. Something would happen.
- Bold, in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt (Book One: Awake To Emptiness: Three)

EDIT: Returning to write this up more completely in 2018. Above is what I said back then, essentially a token post to check that the mic on this place was working. Returning to consider what song would work with my 2015, "Untitled No. 1" (The Buddha Of Suburbia) is a prosaic choice in a way - I'd just established this personal site, and as all new things do, it started as an uncarved block, an Untitled No. 1. But of course, starting this place wasn't the achievement of my 2015.

It was one of many indications of things starting to fall together, as I imagine the elements of this wonderful, swirling river of a song might have done. But while I won't get into specifics (which is the style of this place - I learned from the master), this was also a difficult year ('Please heal these tears').

I suspect that most normal people would find the kind of solitude in which I endured the worst of my 2015 really awful. But perversely, I don't know how I would have coped if I hadn't been on my own at the time. I needed the solitude, to reflect on what I'd just been through, to rebuild and start to dream ('maybe I'll live my lies alone'). So I was coming out of a difficult experience, but this was a beginning of sorts.

Anyway, new website? Cool. I can say anything. Does it have to make sense? Not really, as long as it sounds cool. Great. So 'Shimi Kapoor'.

Other songs I considered for my 2015: "Sound And Vision" (Low), "Survive" ('hours . . . ')