Ground Control reports, with deep regret, definitive loss of contact with Major Tom. He will forever orbit Earth outside his tin can, having shown us very different-looking stars.

It is funny how David Bowie’s first utterance on vinyl can serve as his obituary. He was a brilliant role-player, up to and including self-parody, and writing one’s epitaph is the ultimate genre of self-parody, isn’t it? But a self-parody that other people can read themselves into, this is achieved only by the Laforgues and Corbières of this world.

I landed in college in the late 1970s. Duke was, if not a party school, at least a school where parties occurred. You could tell by the music what kind of party was going on and whether it was worth knocking on the door. Some of the more frequent correlations observed were:

Steely Dan = might be an ok party, but if anyone is wearing pastel bermudas, no.

Bruce Springsteen = probably not, though there might be a lot of free beer. Billy Joel = fuggedaboudit.

Smokey Robinson = definitely good party.

David Bowie = the kind of party where you might stay until sunrise if other conditions were right.