in Art, Life, Music | August 25th, 2026 Leave a Comment
It doesn’t quite ring true to call David Bowie a rock star. Ziggy Stardust, the neon synthetic-clad alien alter ego he both created and retired in the early seventies, was, of course, rock stardom outlandishly personified. But then, that was the concept of what turned out to be just one of many personae he deliberately crafted throughout the course of his career. That career was in music, primarily, but looking back on it today, more than a decade after Bowie’s death, it looks more like his medium was culture itself. That’s underscored by his interviews, clips from a variety of which appear in the new video above from YouTube channel T&H Inspiration.
Most of T&H’s most popular videos add visuals to speeches by the popularizer of Eastern philosophy Alan Watts, who’s been featured here on Open Culture before. He and Bowie had more in common than it may seem at first, beginning with an Englishness that remained thoroughgoing no matter how far out they ventured into the world.
Though Watts’ interest in Buddhism hardly needs stating, it’s worth remembering that he chose to be ordained as an Episcopalian priest rather than as a Buddhist monk. The young Bowie, for his part, very nearly took the latter path, studying under the late Lama Chime Rinpoche, who eventually told him he’d be better off going into the music business.
