An icon of the boomer generation, David Bowie, has died

When I talk of the music of the baby boom generation, I don't think of music listened to by baby boomers. Simply listening to music does not make a generational claim on that music. I'm a baby boomer and I, and many of my friends, like Beethoven and Chopin but that fact does not make their music the music of the baby boom. I believe most folk would agree.

But refer to the music maker Chuck Berry and the argument changes. In this case, many would argue Berry wrote the music of the boomer generation. If you believe that I believe you are wrong. Chuck Berry was born a couple of decades before the baby boom. Beethoven was born in 1712; Chopin was born a century later in 1810. Chuck Berry arrived in 1926. More boomers may have listened to Berry but, as we have already agreed, listening to music by a generation is not enough to allow a claim on that music by the generation. More is demanded.

David Bowie           Photo by: Adam Bielawski Aug. 8, 2002

Which brings us to the late David Bowie. Bowie was born in 1947. He was a boomer who wrote  music listened to by boomers. Bowie wrote some of the earliest true music of the baby boom generation. Bowie was not only a singer and songwriter, he was a record producer, painter and actor. Bowie was a baby boomer Renaissance man.

Bowie's art is not just an intrinsic part of baby boom culture, his creative endeavors permeate pop-culture across generational divides. I don't believe many were surprised when Commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian-born baby boomer astronaut, performed a cover of Bowie's Space Oddity while circling earth in May 2013. The video is posted on You Tube until Nov. of 2016 after an agreement was reached with the copyright holder (not David Bowie.)



David Bowie, a baby boomer icon, will be sorely missed.
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For some other thoughts on the death of a cultural icon, follow the link to the article David Bowie and Me posted in the Arts and Culture section of the Harvard Gazette. Five Harvard academics, possibly all boomers, share their personal reactions to Bowie's death.

The first piece is by professor James Wood, a boomer born in 1965 in England. The professor wrote: "I loved Bowie’s work, and in many ways it defined my youth, as it did the upbringing of anyone who grew up in Britain in the 1970s and ’80s."

Well said, professor.

Head lice: Not so super

This post, Head lice: Not so super, has been moved to the Digital Journal in support of an imaginative new media outlet. DJ may be providing a window into the future of journalism.

Please click the link and check out the story and the newspaper itself.

Cheers,
Rockinon
(former photojournalist: The London Free Press)

The online presentation is excellent. Journalists take note.

 Journalists take note:

The digital journal has been around for years. Their software is excellent. If journalists worked together to get out the news instead of working to ship money out of the country to foreign investors, journalists could get by without old technology companies like Post Media.

With the right people working on the money earning end of the business (selling ads) and professional journalists covering the news, maybe newspaper people could free themselves from the anchor of the printing press and the tyranny of media chain ownership.

Facebook shares are now 15. Time on pg. is 5 min.

And how is my head lice article doing online? Not badly. The number of hits is as expected.

The bounce rate is rather low and that's good. The bounce rate indicates the percentage of readers who read the first few lines and move on without reading the full article.

The average time spent on the page is high, indicating that good number of readers stay to read the story. The number of comments is low. That surprises me. I thought this topic would elicit a lot of comments from parents and others. The Facebook shares are partially driving the hits. Facebook may become the main driver of hits in the coming days.