On Monday morning I was rolled up in my blankets, all of my extremities icy, waiting on the motivation to get out of bed. It was in this state that I shut off my phone alarm, looked through my missed texts and learned that David Bowie had died.
Between that moment and now, countless articles have been written about him. I’m going to spare myself and everyone else yet another piece about the man’s life, legacy, what all of it meant to me and how it all came crashing down in the Monday morning cold. Only then did I understand David Bowie actually was a being of flesh, capable of dying.
Serendipitously, Monday is karaoke night at the Back Yard Bar downtown. Naturally, my friends and I decided to do what we assumed the freaky old bastard would have wanted: namely, get trashed and scream his music at the frigid stars.
On our way downtown, we stumbled across a design spray-painted onto the concrete sidewalk. It was viral marketing for “Blackstar,” Bowie’s final album that had been released on his birthday only two days before his death. The album, as well as its accompanying imagery, is now easy to interpret as a farewell from the singer to his fans.
In the wake of his death, the meaning of the “Blackstar” graffiti has completely changed from the week before. For a while, they served as advertisements; now, the black stars on the sidewalks of downtown Gainesville are testaments to his life and legacy.
As much as I would like it, it wouldn’t be appropriate or affordable for Gainesville to erect a monument to Bowie’s legacy. Perhaps the city could dynamite the Confederate memorial and place a statue of Bowie atop the rubble, eliminating all the trouble of removing Confederate memorabilia and replacing it with something awesome in one swoop. Given the current political climate, I can see why city administrators would be reluctant to replace a monument to the “Lost Cause” with a piece honoring a bisexual British pop star. For some reason, I don’t think that one would go over very well at all.
Yet, the degree to which David Bowie influenced our lives deserves to be acknowledged. Bowie got his start as a rock musician, yes, but he became an icon beyond replication, a figure who created not only music, but also images and entire personalities that permeated pop culture at every level. Bowie gave iconography and inspiration to masses of youth previously doomed to be weird, gave them pride in their uniqueness and transformed the word “normal” into what you call someone who’s boring.
Sadly, this wasn’t completely clear to everyone until we found out he was gone. This appears especially pertinent in Gainesville, where, for whatever reason, a disproportionate number of residents are in mourning. I believe this is reflected in the choice of Gainesville as a marketing target for the “Blackstar” campaign — how many other cities of our size were chosen?
Instead of appropriating new funds from the city coffers or stoking a new wave of neo-Confederate agitation, Gainesville should preserve, not wash away, these mementos. The time, energy and money needed to create a totally new memorial would be too much to ask for. All I’m asking Gainesville to do is neglect the monuments that already exist. Doing so would eulogize a great artist and add yet another artifact to Gainesville’s disproportionately vivid cultural scene.
Alec Carver is a UF history junior. His column appears on Fridays.
