Everything

Losing David Bowie in One Note

There’s a scene in “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” by Steve Martin in which Picasso asks Einstein what his book is about and Einstein replies, “Everything.”

I spent most of Friday, January 8, 2016 listening to Blackstar. I played it again and again, went back to bits I thought interesting, played it through another time.

But on the first time through, there was one sound that caught me and made me sit quiet with my head tilted and hands still. It pushed its way into my attention and would not leave.

That sound was the last note of the last song on the album.

There is a finality to that note that made me say to myself, quietly, wordlessly, “That’s it.”

I didn’t like this, and so I kept it to myself. But I did go back, and listen again. And again.

And then early Monday morning, everything flew together.

I don’t know how you convey that much information in a single note. There are a handful of places where I have encountered this. Perhaps it is a cumulative effect of having been tuned in to someone’s work for a long time. Of that artist having been making art for a long time. Or a combination of the two.

Beethoven wrote the universe and life itself into his late string quartets. You can hear life in there, arms spread wide. There it all is. He is taking music apart at the seams.

There is a painting that I visit almost every year. I am so close with it that in my family we just call it “Painting.” For me, it contains all of life in one canvas. A painting made late in the artist’s own life. It is exuberant, and complete.

I can’t explain it any better than that.

Every once in a while, I run into one of these little universe windows, and look through. And there everything is, a tiny piece of art encompassing existence and summing it up.

Maybe this is unique for each person. Or maybe it’s universal.

That last note on Blackstar was not something I wanted to hear, but I heard it. Clearly. It was resolute, and final, and yet full of life at the same time. Existence, in one note. Like a voice saying everything, pulling a lifetime of expression into one moment, and reminding me to listen.

So on Monday I was quiet. No radio, no social anything, no playing of albums or photos of decades of ticket stubs or t-shirts. Stories of how the first gift my husband of 25 years ever gave me, before we were even dating, was a Bowie cassette. Or how this Christmas my teenaged daughter gave me two things: Blackstar on vinyl, and a drawing she made of the eyes of people I most admire. The top pair are Bowie’s.

Just, attention. People who knew me well knew I wasn’t going to say anything.

I’m grateful for that final note, and all the notes and songs that came before it, and for whatever force that is that pries open the lid on the universe a crack. And for the artists who are able to work, and work, and get close and far enough to send back to us that momentary view of everything. For me David Bowie was one of those people. He made me promise to listen, and I did. And I will.

Betsy Streeter is a novelist and artist and cartoonist and she helps people make ideas into things you can see and read. Also she draws things with bird heads.