The Truly Sublime And The Utterly Selfish

by Alexandra Molotkow

Angela Bowie’s Backstage Passes is a good read, not only because it’s juicy but because Angie Bowie is funny and lucid in a way that only certain people get to be (people who don’t distinguish between how they feel and what they believe). Reading her is like being talked at rapidly by someone you don’t necessarily trust, but are happy to listen to. And she is very, very wise.

I don’t know how much love David felt — I suspect very little, and that my main (and powerful) appeal to him was my potential as a nurse, cook, housekeeper, creative ally, and business advisor — but I know I was falling hopelessly in love. I had that weird, almost spooky sense of communion and communication you get, if you’re lucky, with very few people in your life. I felt that I could read David’s mind; that I knew what he wanted and needed as well or better than he did; that I was almost inside him. I’d felt that way only once before, with Lorraine, and to be finding it again, so soon and in a man, was wild. It was exciting, and it felt very good and right.

It also felt lucky. I realized, you see, that in addition to finding love, I had found myself a job and everything that went with it. If I played my hand well with David, I could stay in England, get into the musical side of show business, and work my way into the theater from there. I should add that I realized these things rather quickly, as if perhaps I’d known them all along.

Don’t be surprised. If there’s anything I’ve learned from my time in the music business, it’s that the truly sublime and the utterly selfish can exist simultaneously in a person, and very often do. That is certainly true of David Bowie, and it’s true of me too. I aim for the stars, and I do what I have to do down here.