title: Washington Metro

text: On July 7, 2020, a 7000-series Red line train derailed one wheelset on departure from Silver Spring around 11:20 in the morning.


title: Washington Metro

text: On October 12, 2021, a 7000-series Blue Line train derailed outside the Arlington Cemetery station. This forced the evacuation of all 187 passengers on board with no reported injuries. Cause of the derailment was initially stated to be an axle not up to specifications and resulted in sidelining the entire 7000-series fleet of trains, approximately 60% of WMATA's current trains through Friday, October 29, 2021, for further inspection. On October 28, 2021, WMATA announced that the system would continue running at a reduced capacity through November 15, 2021 as further investigation took place.


title: Washington Metro

text: The inspection determined a defect causes the car's wheels to be pushed outward. As of July 2022, the system was still running without most 7000-series cars. Workers manually inspect wheels on eight trains daily to catch the defect before it becomes problematic; the remaining cars are out of service pending an automated fix.


title: Washington Metro

text: On July 13, 2009, WMATA adopted a "zero tolerance" policy for train or bus operators found to be texting or using other hand-held devices while on the job. This new and stricter policy came after investigations of several mass-transit accidents in the U.S. found that operators were texting at the time of the accident. The policy change was announced the day after a passenger of a Metro train videotaped the operator texting while operating the train.


title: Washington Metro

text: On January 12, 2015, during early evening rush, a Yellow Line train stopped in the tunnel and filled with smoke just after departing L'Enfant Plaza for Pentagon due to "an electrical arcing event" ahead in the tunnel. Everyone on board was evacuated; 84 people were taken to hospitals and one person died.


title: Washington Metro

text: On March 14, 2016, an electrified rail caught fire between McPherson Square and Farragut West, causing significant disruptions on the Blue, Orange, and Silver lines. Two days later, the entire Metro system was shut down so its electric rail power grid could be inspected.


title: Washington Metro

text: WMATA expects an average of one million riders daily by 2030. The need to increase capacity has renewed plans to add 220 cars to the system and reroute trains to alleviate congestion at the busiest stations. Population growth in the region has also revived efforts to extend service, build new stations, and construct additional lines.


title: Washington Metro

text: In 2008 officials began to explore the possibility of adding an infill station called in the Potomac Yard area of Alexandria, on the Blue and Yellow Lines between the and stations. In 2010 the Alexandria City Council approved a portion of the proposed $240 million construction of the station. Construction started in December 2019 and the station is expected to open in May 2023.


title: Washington Metro

text: The original plan called for ten "future extensions" on top of the core system. The Red Line would have been extended from the Rockville station northwest to Germantown, Maryland. The Green Line would have been lengthened northward from the to Laurel, Maryland, and southward from the to Brandywine, Maryland. The Blue Line initially consisted of a southwestern branch to Backlick Road and Burke, Virginia, which was never built. The Orange Line would have extended westward through Northern Virginia past the Vienna station to Centreville or Haymarket, and northeastward past to Bowie, Maryland. Alternatively, the Blue Line would have been extended east past Largo Town Center to Bowie. The future Silver Line was also included in this proposal.


title: Washington Metro

text: In 2001, officials considered realigning the Blue Line between and stations by building a bridge or tunnel from Virginia to a new station in Georgetown. Blue Line trains share a single tunnel with Orange Line and Silver Line trains to cross the Potomac River. The current tunnel limits service in each direction, creating a choke point. The proposal was later rejected due to cost, but Metro again started considering a similar scenario in 2011.


title: Washington Metro

text: In 2005 the Department of Defense announced that it would be shifting 18,000 jobs to Fort Belvoir in Virginia and at least 5,000 jobs to Fort Meade in Maryland by 2012, as part of that year's Base Realignment and Closure plan. In anticipation of such a move, local officials and the military proposed extending the Blue and Green Lines to service each base. The proposed extension of the Green Line could cost $100 million per mile ($60 million per kilometer), and a light rail extension to Fort Belvoir was estimated to cost up to $800 million. Neither proposal has established timelines for planning or construction.


title: Washington Metro

text: The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) announced on January 18, 2008, that it and the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) had begun work on a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the I-66 corridor in Fairfax and Prince William counties. According to VDOT the EIS, officially named the I-66 Multimodal Transportation and Environment Study, would focus on improving mobility along I-66 from the Capital Beltway (I-495) interchange in Fairfax County to the interchange with U.S. Route 15 in Prince William County. The EIS also allegedly includes a four-station extension of the Orange Line past Vienna. The extension would continue to run in the I-66 median and would have stations at Chain Bridge Road, Fair Oaks, Stringfellow Road and Centreville near Virginia Route 28 and U.S. Route 29. In its final report published June 8, 2012, the study and analysis revealed that an "extension would have a minimal impact on Metrorail ridership and volumes on study area roadways inside the Beltway and would therefore not relieve congestion in the study corridor."


title: Washington Metro

text: In 2011 Metro began studying the needs of the system through 2040. WMATA subsequently published a study on the alternatives, none of which were funded for planning or construction. New Metro rail lines and extensions under consideration as part of this long-term plan included:


title: Washington Metro

text: In September 2021, a report on the capacity improvements of Blue/Orange/Silver lines recommended converting the Blue Line into a circle line, extending it to National Harbor and Alexandria. The proposed extension starts from a new station at , continues to Georgetown through a new tunnel under the Potomac River, then runs under the M street NE, just north of the existing Blue/Orange/Silver central segment, to the new . Then it turns south to the Navy Yard and National Harbor, and crosses the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to Alexandria, connecting at on the current Yellow Line, which is re-routed to . Three alternative routes are also considered, including a Blue Line extension to , a Silver Line Express service from to with an extension to , and a Silver Line extension to ; they use the same central segment layout from Rosslyn to Union Station through Georgetown. The final decision on the preferred route is expected in 2022.


title: Washington Metro

text: Before construction on Metro began, a proposed station was put forward for the Kennedy Center. Congress had already approved the construction of a station on the Orange/Blue/Silver Lines at 23rd and H Streets, near George Washington University, at the site of what is now Foggy Bottom station. According to a "Washington Post" article from February 1966, rerouting the line to accommodate a station under the center would cost an estimated $12.3 million. The National Capital Transportation Agency's administrator, Walter J. McCarter, suggested that the Center "may wish to enhance the relationship to the station by constructing a pleasant, above-ground walkway from the station to the Center," referring to the soon-to-be-built Foggy Bottom station. Rep. William B. Widnall, Republican of New Jersey, used it as an opportunity to push for moving the center to a central, downtown location.


title: Washington Metro

text: The 2011 Metro transit-needs study identified five additional sites where infill stations could be built. These included Kansas Avenue and Montgomery College on the Red Line, respectively in Northwest D.C. and Rockville, Maryland; Oklahoma Avenue on the Blue, Orange, and Silver Lines near the D.C. Armory in Northeast D.C.; Eisenhower Valley on the Blue Line in Alexandria, Virginia; and the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus on the Green Line in Southeast D.C.


title: Washington Metro

text: A number of light rail and urban streetcar projects are under construction or have been proposed to extend or supplement service provided by Metro. The Purple Line, a light rail system, is under construction as of 2022 and is scheduled to open in 2026. The project was originally envisioned as a circular heavy rail line connecting the outer stations on each branch of the Metrorail system, in a pattern roughly mirroring the Capital Beltway. The current project will run between the and stations by way of and College Park. The Purple Line will connect both branches of the Red Line to the Green/Yellow and Orange Lines, and would decrease the travel time between suburban Metro stations.


title: Washington Metro

text: The Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) is a proposed bus rapid transit line that would link Clarksburg, Maryland, in northern Montgomery County with the station on the Red Line. Assuming that the anticipated federal, state, and local government funds are provided, construction of the first of the system would begin in 2018.


title: Washington Metro

text: In 2005, a Maryland lawmaker proposed a light rail system to connect areas of Southern Maryland, especially the rapidly growing area around the town of Waldorf, to the station on the Green Line.


title: Washington Metro

text: The District of Columbia Department of Transportation is building the new D.C. Streetcar system to improve transit connectivity within the District. A tram line to connect Bolling Air Force Base to the station and was originally expected to open in 2010. Streetcar routes have been proposed in the Atlas District, Capitol Hill, and the K Street corridor. After seven years of construction, the Atlas District route, known as the H/Benning Street route, opened on February 27, 2016.


title: Washington Metro

text: In 2013, the Georgetown Business Improvement District proposed a gondola lift between Georgetown and Rosslyn as an alternative to placing a Metro stop at Georgetown in its 2013–2028 economic plans. Washington, D.C and Arlington County have been conducting feasibility studies for it since 2016.


title: Gastric acid

text: Gastric acid, gastric juice, or stomach acid is a digestive fluid formed within the stomach lining. With a pH between 1 and 3, gastric acid plays a key role in digestion of proteins by activating digestive enzymes, which together break down the long chains of amino acids of proteins. Gastric acid is regulated in feedback systems to increase production when needed, such as after a meal. Other cells in the stomach produce bicarbonate, a base, to buffer the fluid, ensuring a regulated pH. These cells also produce mucus – a viscous barrier to prevent gastric acid from damaging the stomach. The pancreas further produces large amounts of bicarbonate and secretes bicarbonate through the pancreatic duct to the duodenum to neutralize gastric acid passing into the digestive tract.


title: Gastric acid

text: The active components of gastric acid are protons and chloride. Often simplistically described as hydrochloric acid, these species are produced by parietal cells in the gastric glands in the stomach. The secretion is a complex and relatively energetically expensive process. Parietal cells contain an extensive secretory network (called canaliculi) from which the "hydrochloric acid" is secreted into the lumen of the stomach. The pH of gastric acid is 1.5 to 3.5 in the human stomach lumen, a level maintained by the proton pump H/K ATPase. The parietal cell releases bicarbonate into the bloodstream in the process, which causes a temporary rise of pH in the blood, known as an alkaline tide.


title: Gastric acid

text: The highly acidic environment in the stomach lumen degrades proteins (e.g., food). Peptide bonds, which comprise proteins, are labilized. The gastric chief cells of the stomach secrete enzymes for protein breakdown (inactive pepsinogen, and in infancy rennin). The low pH activates pepsinogen into the enzyme pepsin, which then aids digestion by breaking the amino acid bonds, a process called proteolysis. In addition, many microorganisms are inhibited or destroyed in an acidic environment, preventing infection or sickness.


title: Gastric acid

text: A typical adult human stomach will secrete about 1.5 liters of gastric acid daily. Gastric acid secretion is produced in several steps. Chloride and hydrogen ions are secreted separately from the cytoplasm of parietal cells and mixed in the canaliculi. Gastric acid is then secreted into the lumen of the gastric gland and gradually reaches the main stomach lumen. The exact manner in which the secreted acid reaches the stomach lumen is controversial, as acid must first cross the relatively pH-neutral gastric mucus layer.


title: Gastric acid

text: Chloride and sodium ions are secreted actively from the cytoplasm of the parietal cell into the lumen of the canaliculus. This creates a negative potential of between −40and−70mV across the parietal cell membrane that causes potassium ions and a small number of sodium ions to diffuse from the cytoplasm into the parietal cell canaliculi.


title: Gastric acid

text: The enzyme carbonic anhydrase catalyses the reaction between carbon dioxide and water to form carbonic acid. This acid immediately dissociates into hydrogen and bicarbonate ions. The hydrogen ions leave the cell through H/K ATPase antiporter pumps.


title: Gastric acid

text: At the same time, sodium ions are actively reabsorbed. This means that the majority of secreted K (potassium) and Na (Sodium)ions return to the cytoplasm. In the canaliculus, secreted hydrogen and chloride ions mix and are secreted into the lumen of the oxyntic gland.


title: Gastric acid

text: The highest concentration that gastric acid reaches in the stomach is 160mM in the canaliculi. This is about 3 million times that of arterial blood, but almost exactly isotonic with other bodily fluids. The lowest pH of the secreted acid is 0.8, but the acid is diluted in the stomach lumen to a pH of between 1 and 3.


title: Gastric acid

text: There is a small continuous basal secretion of gastric acid between meals of usually less than 10mEq/hour.


title: Gastric acid

text: There are three phases in the secretion of gastric acid which increase the secretion rate in order to digest a meal:


title: Gastric acid

text: Gastric acid production is regulated by both the autonomic nervous system and several hormones. The parasympathetic nervous system, via the vagus nerve, and the hormone gastrin stimulate the parietal cell to produce gastric acid, both directly acting on parietal cells and indirectly, through the stimulation of the secretion of the hormone histamine from enterochromaffine-like cells (ECL). Vasoactive intestinal peptide, cholecystokinin, and secretin all inhibit production.


title: Gastric acid

text: The production of gastric acid in the stomach is tightly regulated by positive regulators and negative feedback mechanisms. Four types of cells are involved in this process: parietal cells, G cells, D cells and enterochromaffine-like cells. Beside this, the endings of the vagus nerve (CN X) and the intramural nervous plexus in the digestive tract influence the secretion significantly.


title: Gastric acid

text: Nerve endings in the stomach secrete two stimulatory neurotransmitters: acetylcholine and gastrin-releasing peptide. Their action is both direct on parietal cells and mediated through the secretion of gastrin from G cells and histamine from enterochromaffine-like cells. Gastrin acts on parietal cells directly and indirectly too, by stimulating the release of histamine.


title: Gastric acid

text: The release of histamine is the most important positive regulation mechanism of the secretion of gastric acid in the stomach. Its release is stimulated by gastrin and acetylcholine and inhibited by somatostatin.


title: Gastric acid

text: In the duodenum, gastric acid is neutralized by bicarbonate. This also blocks gastric enzymes that have their optima in the acid range of pH. The secretion of bicarbonate from the pancreas is stimulated by secretin. This polypeptide hormone gets activated and secreted from so-called S cells in the mucosa of the duodenum and jejunum when the pH in the duodenum falls below 4.5 to 5.0. The neutralization is described by the equation:


title: Gastric acid

text: The carbonic acid rapidly equilibrates with carbon dioxide and water through catalysis by carbonic anhydrase enzymes bound to the gut epithelial lining, leading to a net release of carbon dioxide gas within the lumen associated with neutralisation. In the absorptive upper intestine, such as the duodenum, both the dissolved carbon dioxide and carbonic acid will tend to equilibrate with the blood, leading to most of the gas produced on neutralisation being exhaled through the lungs.


title: Gastric acid

text: In hypochlorhydria and achlorhydria, there is low or no gastric acid in the stomach, potentially leading to problems as the disinfectant properties of the gastric lumen are decreased. In such conditions, there is greater risk of infections of the digestive tract (such as infection with "Vibrio" or "Helicobacter" bacteria).


title: Gastric acid

text: In Zollinger–Ellison syndrome and hypercalcemia, there are increased gastrin levels, leading to excess gastric acid production, which can cause gastric ulcers.


title: Gastric acid

text: In diseases featuring excess vomiting, patients develop hypochloremic metabolic alkalosis (decreased blood acidity by H and chlorine depletion).


title: Gastric acid

text: The proton pump enzyme is the target of proton pump inhibitors, used to increase gastric pH (and hence decrease stomach acidity) in diseases that feature excess acid. H antagonists indirectly decrease gastric acid production. Antacids neutralize existing acid.


title: Gastric acid

text: The role of gastric acid in digestion was established in the 1820s and 1830s by William Beaumont on Alexis St. Martin, who, as a result of an accident, had a fistula (hole) in his stomach, which allowed Beaumont to observe the process of digestion and to extract gastric acid, verifying that acid played a crucial role in digestion.


title: Station to Station

text: Station to Station is the tenth studio album by English musician David Bowie, released on 23 January 1976 through RCA Records. Regarded as one of his most significant works, the album was the vehicle for Bowie's performance persona, the Thin White Duke. Co-produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin, "Station to Station" was mainly recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, California, in late 1975, after Bowie completed shooting the film "The Man Who Fell to Earth"; the cover art featured a still from the film. During the sessions, Bowie was dependent on drugs, especially cocaine, and later said that he recalled almost nothing of the production.


title: Station to Station

text: The commercial success of his previous release, "Young Americans" (1975), allowed Bowie greater freedom when he began recording his next album. The sessions established the lineup of guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis that Bowie would use for the rest of the decade, and also featured contributions by guitarist Earl Slick and pianist Roy Bittan. Musically, "Station to Station" was a transitional album for Bowie, developing the funk and soul of "Young Americans" while presenting a new direction influenced by electronic music and the German music genre of krautrock, particularly bands such as Neu! and Kraftwerk. The lyrics reflected Bowie's preoccupations with Friedrich Nietzsche, Aleister Crowley, mythology and religion.


title: Station to Station

text: Preceded by the single "Golden Years", "Station to Station" was a commercial success, reaching the top five on the UK and US charts. After scrapping a soundtrack for "The Man Who Fell to Earth", Bowie supported the album with the Isolar Tour in early 1976, during which he attracted controversy with statements suggesting support for fascism. At the end of the tour, he moved to Europe to remove himself from L.A.'s drug culture. The styles explored on "Station to Station" culminated in some of Bowie's most acclaimed work with the Berlin Trilogy over the next three years. Positively received by music critics on its release, "Station to Station" has appeared on several lists of the greatest albums of all time. It has been reissued multiple times and was remastered in 2016 as part of the "Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976)" box set.


title: Station to Station

text: Bowie developed a cocaine addiction in the summer of 1974. The Alan Yentob documentary "Cracked Actor" depicted Bowie on the Diamond Dogs Tour in September 1974 and showcased his mental state. Bowie said in a 1987 interview: "I was so blocked ... so stoned ... It's quite a casualty case, isn't it. I'm amazed I came out of that period, honest. When I see that now I cannot believe I survived it. I was so close to really throwing myself away physically, completely." After seeing an advanced screening of the film in early 1975, director Nicolas Roeg contacted Bowie to discuss a role in his upcoming adaptation of Walter Tevis's 1963 novel "The Man Who Fell to Earth". Bowie accepted the role, and moved from New York to Los Angeles, California, where shooting was to take place.


title: Station to Station

text: On his arrival in L.A., Bowie stayed with Glenn Hughes, bassist for the English rock band Deep Purple. He also visited his old friend, singer Iggy Pop, in rehab. The two would attempt to record some material in May 1975, but the sessions were unproductive due to Pop's heroin addiction. Hughes told biographer Marc Spitz that Bowie lived in an increasingly paranoid state, recalling he refused to use elevators because of his fear of heights. His addiction severed friendships with fellow musicians Keith Moon, John Lennon and Harry Nilsson; he later said: "If you really want to lose all your friends and all of the relationships that you ever held dear, [cocaine is] the drug to do it with."


title: Station to Station

text: According to biographer David Buckley, Bowie's diet now consisted primarily of red and green peppers, milk and cocaine. Bowie later admitted that he only weighed about 80 pounds and was "zonked out of his mind most of the time". Hughes said Bowie would not sleep for "three to four days at a time". Stories, mostly from one interview—pieces of which found their way into "Playboy" and "Rolling Stone"—circulated of the singer living in a house full of ancient Egyptian artefacts, burning black candles, seeing bodies fall past his window, having his semen stolen by witches, receiving secret messages from the Rolling Stones, and living in morbid fear of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. In an interview with "Melody Maker" in 1977, Bowie described living in L.A.: "There's an underlying unease... You can feel it in every avenue... I've always been aware of how dubious a position it is to stay here for any length of time." Three years later, he would tell "NME" that the city "should be wiped off the face of the earth". In April 1975, Bowie announced his retirement from music, stating: "I've rocked my roll. It's a boring dead end. There will be no more rock'n'roll records or tours from me. The last thing I want to be is some useless fucking rock singer." Biographer Nicholas Pegg attributes this quote to Bowie's decaying mental state; his "retirement" lasted less than six months. Shooting for "The Man Who Fell to Earth" began in June 1975.


title: Station to Station

text: Bowie's heavy drug use continued during filming. He recalled in 1993: "My one snapshot of that film is not having to act...Just being me as I was was perfectly adequate for the role. I wasn't of this earth at that particular time." Nevertheless, when shooting took place in New Mexico, he was reported to be in a much healthier state compared to his time in Los Angeles. During his days off from filming, he began writing a collection of short stories called "The Return of the Thin White Duke", which he described as "partly autobiographical, mostly fiction, with a deal of magic in it;" he also recalled taking "400 books" for the shoot. He began writing songs throughout filming, including two—"TVC 15" and "Word on a Wing"—that would end up on his next album. On top of this, he was in line to compose the film's soundtrack.


title: Station to Station

text: In the film, Bowie portrays the lead role of Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien who travels to Earth in search of materials for his dying planet, eventually becoming corrupted by humans. Roeg warned the star that the part of Newton would likely remain with him for some time after the filming. With Roeg's agreement, Bowie developed his own look for the film, and this carried through to his public image over the next twelve months, as did Newton's air of fragility and aloofness. Newton served as a major influence on Bowie's next onstage character, the Thin White Duke.


title: Station to Station

text: Bowie's 1975 single "Fame", a collaboration with John Lennon, was a massive commercial success, topping the charts in the US. Bowie's label RCA Records were eager for a follow-up. After completing his work on "The Man Who Fell to Earth" in September, he returned to Los Angeles; his assistant Coco Schwab had recently acquired a house for him. Partly because of his drug addiction, his marriage to his wife, Angie, began falling apart. After recording backing vocals for Keith Moon's "Real Emotion", he was ready to record his next album.


title: Station to Station

text: "Station to Station" was recorded primarily at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles. The studio opened in January 1975 and quickly became one of the city's busiest studios, attracting artists such as Rod Stewart and Frank Sinatra. Cherokee was more advanced than Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios, where Bowie had recorded "Young Americans" (1975); it featured five studio rooms, 24-track mixing consoles, 24-hour session times, more space and a lounge bar. According to O'Leary, on arriving at Cherokee, Bowie sang a few notes in Studio One, played a piano chord, and said: "This will do nicely." With a more advanced studio and no time constraints, the ethos of the sessions became experimentation.


title: Station to Station

text: In terms of personnel, Bowie brought back producer Harry Maslin, who co-produced "Fame" and "Across the Universe" on "Young Americans". Tony Visconti, who after a three-year absence had recently returned to the Bowie fold mixing "Diamond Dogs" and co-producing "David Live" and "Young Americans", was not involved because of competing schedules. Also returning from the "Young Americans" sessions were guitarists Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick, drummer Dennis Davis and Bowie's old friend Geoff MacCormick (now known as Warren Peace). Bassist George Murray, a player from Weldon Irvine's group, was recruited to play bass. Bowie would use the lineup of Alomar, Murray and Davis for the rest of the decade. In mid-October, pianist Roy Bittan, a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, joined the ensemble at the suggestion of Slick. Bittan recalled: "David knew we were coming to town and he wanted a keyboard player. It must have only been about three days. It's one of my favourite projects I've ever worked on." Following the departure of Mike Garson, Bowie praised Bittan's contributions.


title: Station to Station

text: Although "NME" editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray surmised it was cut "in 10 days of feverish activity", more recent scholarship contends that the album was recorded over a couple of months, with the sessions beginning in late September 1975 or early October and ending in late November. Initial working titles for the album included "The Return of the Thin White Duke" and "Golden Years", named after the first track recorded. According to O'Leary, "Golden Years", which Bowie began writing before he began filming "The Man Who Fell to Earth", was completed in ten days and issued as a single while the album was still being finished. Recording for "TVC 15" began shortly after the completion of "Golden Years".


title: Station to Station

text: A cover of "Wild Is the Wind", written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington and first performed by Johnny Mathis in the 1957 film of the same name, was recorded during the sessions. Bowie was inspired to record it after he met singer Nina Simone, who had recorded her own cover in 1966. He recalled in 1993: "Her performance of ["Wild Is the Wind]" really affected me. I thought it was just tremendous, so I recorded it as an homage to Nina." A guest during the sessions was Frank Sinatra, who praised Bowie's recording of "Wild Is the Wind". His feedback prompted Bowie to include it as the album's closing track. While he had begun writing "Word on a Wing" during filming, both "Stay" and the title track were written and recorded entirely in the studio. The three tracks were composed throughout October and November, rather than in one quick rush. Slick stated: "He had one or two songs written, but they were changed so drastically that you wouldn't know them from the first time anyway, so he basically wrote everything in the studio."


title: Station to Station

text: For previous albums, Bowie had maintained a relatively straightforward recording process. He arrived at the studio with tracks that were fully written and rehearsed, recorded at a brisk pace, and the sessions concluded quickly. With the massive commercial success of "Young Americans", and a reissue of "Space Oddity" becoming his first UK number-one single, Bowie did not feel compelled to rush the process in L.A. He arrived at Cherokee with fragments of songs rather than finished compositions, changing them as recording progressed. He then gave the ideas to Alomar, who worked on the arrangements with Murray and Davis. After the backing tracks came saxophone, keyboard and lead guitar overdubs, followed by vocal tracks, ending with production effects. Bowie would use this new process for the rest of the decade. Alomar recalled, "It was one of the most glorious albums that I've ever done ... We experimented so much on it". Maslin added, "I loved those sessions because we were totally open and experimental in our approach." Slick contributed numerous guitar effects throughout the sessions. According to Bowie, "I got some quite extraordinary things out of Slick. I think it captured his imagination to make "noises" on guitar, and textures, rather than playing the right notes." Both Slick and Maslin praised Bowie's "on-the-spot approach". Slick found no rehearsals advantageous, resulting in a cleaner performance.


title: Station to Station

text: Because of his heavy cocaine use, Bowie recalled remembering "only flashes" of the album's production, not even the studio, later admitting, "I know it was in LA because I've read it was". Buckley says that Bowie's only memory of the sessions was "standing with Earl Slick in the studio and asking him to play a Chuck Berry riff in the same key throughout the opening of 'Station to Station'." The singer was not alone in his use of cocaine during the sessions; Alomar said, "if there's a line of coke which is going to keep you awake till 8 a.m. so that you can do your guitar part, you do the line of coke ... the coke use is driven by the inspiration". Like Bowie, Slick had only vague memories of the recording: "That album's a little fuzzy—for the obvious reasons! We were in the studio and it was nuts—a lot of hours, a lot of late nights." Pegg says there were several 24 hour non-stop sessions; one day, work began at 7:00 a.m. ending at 9:00 a.m. the next day. According to Spitz, at one point Bowie moved a bed into the studio. One day, recording moved to the nearby Record Plant Studios because Cherokee was already booked and Bowie did not want to lose momentum during the session. Maslin recalled: "[Bowie] liked to work four days or so, very strenuous hours, and then take a few days off to rest and get charged up for another sprint." Cherokee co-owner Bruce Robb told Spitz: "I'd come in the following day and they were all still working from the night before. I'd leave and they were still working."


title: Station to Station

text: When mixing "Station to Station", Maslin found using the 24-track mixing consoles a challenge, but they allowed flexibility. Richard Cromelin of "Circus" writes that having a large number of tracks allowed Maslin to "waste" a channel on one sound effect which could then be "tampered with", leaving other tracks for use by double-tracked instruments and vocals. Bowie admitted to giving the record a commercial edge: "I compromised in the mixing. I wanted to do a dead mix ... All the way through, no echo ... I gave in and added that extra commercial touch. I wish I hadn't." Speaking to "Creem" magazine in 1977, Bowie proclaimed that the album was "devoid of spirit ... Even the love songs are detached, but I think it's fascinating."


title: Station to Station

text: "Station to Station" is often cited as a transitional album in Bowie's career. Developing the funk, disco and soul sound of "Young Americans", the album also reflects the influences of electronic and the German music genre of krautrock, particularly by bands such as Neu! and Kraftwerk. Bowie had exhibited avant-garde elements on the 1973 tracks "Aladdin Sane (1913–1938–197?)" and "Time". According to Robert Christgau, Bowie's experimentation with African-American music styles had matured by the time he recorded "Station to Station", as the record appropriated them "in a decidedly spacy and abrasive context"; he said it added soul to the "mechanical, fragmented, rather secondhand elegance" explored on "Aladdin Sane" (1973). Initial reviews of "Station to Station" considered it a "dance" album.


title: Station to Station

text: As a whole, reviewers have classified "Station to Station"s music as "glacial, synthesized funk-rock", "avant-garde art-rock", space rock, "a hybrid of electronic R&B", "eerie avant-pop", "art-funk", and "ice-funk". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes it includes "everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop" while extending "the detached plastic soul of "Young Americans" to an elegant, robotic extreme". Chris Randle of "The Village Voice" labeled the album "robotic R&B". Maslin told "Circus" magazine: "There was no specific sound in mind. I don't think [Bowie] had any specific direction as far as whether it should be R&B, or more English-sounding, or more commercial or less commercial. I think he went out more to make a record this time than to worry about what it was going to turn out to be." Bowie remarked in 1999 that the music on the album has a "certain charismatic quality to it ... that really eats into you".


title: Station to Station

text: The ten-minute title track has been described as heralding "a new era of experimentalism" for Bowie. The song is split into two parts: a slow, hypnotic march, introduced by a noise resembling a train—created by Slick on guitar using flangers and delay effects—before it abruptly changes to a what Alan Light of "Rolling Stone" calls a "celebratory groove", which lasts for the rest of the track. "Pitchfork" and "Rolling Stone" defined the track as a "momentous prog-disco suite" and a "Krautrock disco opus" respectively. With its krautrock influence, it is the album's clearest foretaste of Bowie's subsequent Berlin Trilogy.


title: Station to Station

text: The musical style of both "Golden Years" and "Stay" are built on the funk and soul of "Young Americans" but with a harsher, grinding edge. Bowie said the "Golden Years" was written for, and rejected by, American singer Elvis Presley, while Angie Bowie claimed it was penned for her. According to Pegg, the song lacks the "steelier musical landscape" of the rest of the album. Author James Perone argues "Stay" represents a merger of hard rock and blue-eyed funk. "TVC 15", the album's most upbeat track, has been compared to the music of the English rock band the Yardbirds. "Wild Is the Wind" contains funky elements in its electric guitar playing, while the rhythm section and acoustic guitar add a jazz flavour. AllMusic's Donald A. Guarisco likens the music of "Word on a Wing" to gospel and soul; Perone compares it to the sound of American musician Roy Orbison. Both tracks have been categorised as hymns and ballads.


title: Station to Station

text: While living in his cocaine-induced, paranoid state, Bowie did not sleep for days, often reading books one after the other. During a run-in with Jimmy Page in February 1975, Page discussed the works of the English occultist Aleister Crowley with him. Bowie, whose tracks "Oh! You Pretty Things" and "Quicksand" from 1971's "Hunky Dory" had exhibited occult influences, immersed himself in Crowley's works. He revisited concepts seen in "Hunky Dory" and "The Man Who Sold the World"s "The Supermen" (1970) such as German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's theory of "Übermensch", or "Superman", and studied new concepts such as Nazi fascination with Holy Grail mythology and the Kabbalah. Bowie would use all these ideas throughout "Station to Station", with Pegg describing the album's theme as a clash of "occultism and Christianity".


title: Station to Station

text: The title track introduces Bowie's new persona—the Thin White Duke—who became the mouthpiece for "Station to Station" and often during the next six months, for Bowie himself. The character, inspired by Thomas Jerome Newton, dressed impeccably in a white shirt, black trousers and waistcoat. Carr and Murray described him as a hollow man who sang songs of romance with an agonised intensity, yet felt nothing, "ice masquerading as fire", exuberantly "throwing darts in lovers' eyes." Commentators have labelled the persona "a mad aristocrat", "an amoral zombie", and "an emotionless "Aryan" superman". For Bowie himself, the Duke was "a nasty character indeed".


title: Station to Station

text: Despite the noise of a train in the opening moments, Bowie said the title of "Station to Station" does not refer so much to railway stations as to the Stations of the Cross, the series of 14 images depicting Christ's path to his crucifixion, each symbolising a stopping-point for prayer. He added it was about the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, evident in the line "from Kether to Malkuth", which bookend the Tree of Life: "so for me the whole album was symbolic and representative of the trip through the Tree of Life". Pegg believes the song displays a combination of Christian and Jewish allusions. The song refers to William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest". Fixation with the occult was evident in such phrases as "white stains", the name of a book of poetry by Crowley. Cocaine is also referenced directly in the line: "It's not the side effects of the cocaine / I'm thinking that it must be love."


title: Station to Station

text: Spitz interprets "Station to Station" as "an album of love songs", specifically "the kind you write when you have no love in your own life". Indeed, Perone considers "Golden Years" the type of love song that does not feature the word ""love"". The song's character assures his companion that he will always protect her no matter what and promises her a brighter future. Carr and Murray write it carries "an air of regret for missed opportunities and past pleasures". The lyrics of "Stay" have been interpreted as reflecting on "the uncertainty of sexual conquest", and as an example of "the Duke's spurious romanticism".


title: Station to Station

text: Religious themes, as well as belief in spirituality, are prevalent on "Station to Station", "Word on a Wing", "Golden Years" and "TVC 15"; for Carr and Murray religion, like love, was simply another way for the Duke to "test his numbness". Bowie has claimed that on "Word on a Wing", at least, "the passion is genuine". There is a comedic flavour in "TVC 15", which multiple commentators describe as a "surreal comedy". It concerns a character's girlfriend being eaten by a television. The song was inspired by a dream of Iggy Pop's featuring a similar premise, as well as a scene in "The Man Who Fell to Earth" where Newton fills a room with television screens, each tuned to a different channel. Pegg calls it the album's "odd man out".


title: Station to Station

text: The album cover is a black-and-white still frame from "The Man Who Fell to Earth", in which Bowie, as Newton, steps into the space capsule that will return him to his home planet. Featuring unspaced lettering, the artwork was designed by Steve Shapiro. Bowie had insisted on the cropped monochrome image, feeling that in the original coloured full-size image the sky looked artificial; an all-white border was placed around the image, which Pegg believes reflects the "stark monochrome aesthetic" of both the Thin White Duke character and the 1976 tour. He also contends that the monochrome cover matches the "austere tone" of the album. The full-size, colour version was used for some subsequent reissues of the album. The back cover showed Bowie sketching the Kabbalah Sephirot with chalk—something he had been doing on the set of the film. It was Bowie's first LP not to include lyric sheets in the packaging, which was criticised in contemporary reviews by "Street Life" and "NME".


title: Station to Station

text: RCA released "Golden Years" as the album's lead single on 21 November 1975, with the "Young Americans" track "Can You Hear Me?" as the B-side. On 4 November, Bowie appeared on the American television show "Soul Train", miming to "Fame" and the then-unreleased "Golden Years". Bowie was the second white artist to appear on the programme, after Elton John six months earlier. During the performance and interview, he was visibly drunk and, according to Pegg, was at a "new low in coherency". Bowie later felt ashamed for his behaviour, recalling in 1999 that he had failed to learn the new single and was scolded afterwards by the show's DJ. The resulting film clip was used as the song's unofficial music video to promote the single worldwide. Commercially, "Golden Years" reached the top ten in the UK and the US but, like "Rebel Rebel"'s relationship to "Diamond Dogs" (1974), was a somewhat unrepresentative teaser for the album to come.


title: Station to Station

text: Following "Soul Train", Bowie appeared on "The Cher Show" on 23 November, performing "Fame" and a duet of "Can You Hear Me?" with singer Cher. He then appeared via satellite on ITV's "Russell Harty Plus" five days later. At the turn of the new year, on 3 January 1976, Bowie and his band appeared on the Dinah Shore-hosted variety show "Dinah!" and performed "Stay",—the song's public debut. RCA released "Station to Station" on 23 January, with the catalogue number APLI 1327. It was a commercial success, peaking at number three on the US "Billboard" Top LPs & Tape chart, remaining on the chart for 32 weeks. It became Bowie's highest-charting album in the US until "The Next Day", which reached number two in 2013. "Station to Station" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on 26 February 1976. In the UK, it charted for seventeen weeks, peaking at number five, the last time one of Bowie's studio albums charted lower in his home country than in America. Elsewhere, the album peaked in the top three in Canada, France and the Netherlands, and the top ten in Australia, Japan, Norway and New Zealand.


title: Station to Station

text: The title track was released in France as a 7-inch promotional single in January 1976. It featured a shortened version of the track, lasting just over three-and-a-half minutes, with "TVC 15" as the B-side. "TVC 15" was released in edited form as the second single from the album on 30 April 1976, backed by the "Diamond Dogs" track "We Are the Dead". Its release coincided with the European leg of the Isolar tour. It peaked at number 33 in the UK. "Stay" was first issued, in its full-length form, as the B-side of the "Suffragette City" single in the summer of 1976 to promote the "Changesonebowie" compilation. An edited version was subsequently released in July as an A-side in the US and other territories, backed by "Word on a Wing". It failed to chart. The song, however, did not appear on the compilation. ("Changesonebowie" was itself packaged as a uniform edition to "Station to Station", featuring a black-and-white cover and similar lettering). In November 1981, as Bowie's relationship with RCA was winding down, "Wild Is the Wind" was issued as a single to promote the "Changestwobowie" compilation. The full-length version of "Golden Years" backed the UK single. Accompanied by a new music video shot specifically for the release, it peaked at number 24 in the UK and charted for ten weeks.


title: Station to Station

text: "Station to Station" received positive reviews from music critics on its release. Paul Trynka says overall, critics acknowledged that Bowie was exploring new territories. Ian MacDonald noted Bowie's musical growth in Britain's "Street Life" magazine, recognising it as one of his finest albums up to that point. He believed it was the first album he'd released where it felt he had total control. Writing for "NME", Charles Murray praised the music throughout the record, but was critical of Bowie's vocal performance, particularly on "Word on a Wing" and "Wild Is the Wind". Another reviewer for "NME" found the album "a strange and confusing musical whirlpool where nothing is what it seems", ultimately calling it "one of the most significant albums released in the last five years". The magazine named it the second greatest album of the year, behind Bob Dylan's "Desire". John Ingham of "Sounds" magazine gave immense praise to the album, naming "Golden Years", "TVC 15" and "Stay" some of Bowie's best songs up to that point and overall "a great record of our time". Musically, he viewed it as a cross between "The Man Who Sold the World" and "Young Americans". Some reviewers found the lyrics' meaning difficult to comprehend, with Ingham citing "TVC 15" as an example. However, he felt it was part of the LP's charm.


title: Station to Station

text: In America, "Billboard" felt Bowie had "found his musical niche" with songs like "Fame" and "Golden Years" but that "the 10-minute title cut drags". "Rolling Stone" writer Teri Moris applauded the album's 'rockier' moments but discerned a move away from the genre, finding it "the thoughtfully professional effort of a style-conscious artist whose ability to write and perform demanding rock & roll exists comfortably alongside his fascination for diverse forms ... while there's little doubt about his skill, one wonders how long he'll continue wrestling with rock at all". Critic Dave Marsh was extremely negative, calling it "the most significant advance in LP filler since Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" [1975]". Considering "Word on a Wing" the "only complete success" on the LP, he panned the tracks as overlong, unexciting and uninteresting, further arguing that "it's rather appalling that the best thing [Bowie] can think of doing with his talent currently is fool around."


title: Station to Station

text: Rock critic Lester Bangs, who gave Bowie's work negative assessments throughout the 1970s, praised "Station to Station" in "Creem" magazine, noting the presence of "a wail and throb that won't let up" and "a beautiful, swelling, intensely romantic melancholy", calling it his "(first) masterpiece". In "Circus", Cromelin, noting that Bowie was "never one to maintain continuity in his work or in his life", declared that "Station to Station" "offers cryptic, expressionistic glimpses that let us feel the contours and palpitations of the masquer's soul but never fully reveal his face". Cromelin also found allusions to earlier Bowie efforts, such as the "density" of "The Man Who Sold the World", the "pop feel" of "Hunky Dory", the "dissonance and angst" of "Aladdin Sane", the "compelling percussion" of "Young Americans", and the "youthful mysticism" of "Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud" (1969), concluding "it shows Bowie pulling out on the most challenging leg of his winding journey". Ben Edmonds' did not find the LP one of Bowie's best works in "Phonograph Record", instead believed that "Station to Station" is merely a "stopping place" where he can reflect and plan his next musical journey, "which his followers always expect him to make". However, he noted the album's overall cohesiveness and praised the backing band, calling them Bowie's finest since the Spiders from Mars.


title: Station to Station

text: "Station to Station" was voted the 13th best album of 1976 in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics nationwide, published by "The Village Voice". Reviewing the record for the newspaper, Robert Christgau expressed some reservations about the length of the songs and the detached quality of Bowie's vocals, but deemed "TVC 15" his "favorite piece of rock and roll in a very long time" and wrote, "spaceyness has always been his shtick, and anybody who can merge Lou Reed, disco, and Dr. John ... deserves to keep doing it for five minutes and 29 seconds". He ranked it as the year's fourth best in his ballot for the poll.


title: Station to Station

text: With the "Station to Station" sessions completed in December 1975, Bowie started work on a soundtrack for "The Man Who Fell to Earth" with Paul Buckmaster, whom Bowie worked with for "Space Oddity" (1969), as his collaborator. Bowie expected to be wholly responsible for the film's music but found that "when I'd finished five or six pieces, I was then told that if I would care to submit my music along with some other people's ... and I just said 'Shit, you're not getting any of it'. I was so furious, I'd put "so" much work into it." Notwithstanding, Maslin argued Bowie was "burned out" and could not complete the work in any case. The singer eventually collapsed, admitting later, "There were pieces of me laying all over the floor". When Bowie presented his material for the film to Roeg, the director decided it was unsuitable. He preferred a more folksy sound, although John Phillips (the chosen composer for the soundtrack) described Bowie's contributions as "haunting and beautiful". In the event, only one instrumental composed for the soundtrack saw the light of day, evolving into "Subterraneans" on his next studio album, "Low".


title: Station to Station

text: With the soundtrack album abandoned, Bowie decided he was ready to free himself of Los Angeles' drug culture and move back to Europe. In January 1976, he began rehearsals for the Isolar Tour to promote "Station to Station", which began on 2 February 1976 and ended on 18 May. Iggy Pop, who, like Bowie, was ready to quit his drug addiction, accompanied him on the tour. Due to disagreements with Bowie's management, Stacy Heydon replaced Slick on lead guitar. Kraftwerk's "Radioactivity" was used as an overture to the shows, accompanying footage from Luis Buñuel's and Salvador Dalí's surrealist film "Un Chien Andalou" (1929). The staging featured Bowie, dressed in the Duke's habitual black waistcoat and trousers, a pack of Gitanes placed ostentatiously in his pocket, moving stiffly among "curtains of white light", an effect that spawned the nickname 'the White Light Tour'. In 1989, Bowie reflected, "I wanted to go back to a kind of Expressionist German-film look ... and the lighting of, say, Fritz Lang or Pabst. A black-and-white movies look, but with an intensity that was sort of aggressive. I think for me, personally, theatrically, that was the most successful tour I've ever done." The Isolar Tour was the source of one of the artist's best-known bootlegs, culled from an FM radio broadcast of his 23 March 1976 concert at Nassau Coliseum. A live album, "Live Nassau Coliseum '76", was officially released years later.


title: Station to Station

text: Bowie drew criticism during the tour for his alleged pro-fascist views. In a 1974 interview, he had declared, "Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars ... quite as good as Jagger ... He staged a country", but managed to avoid condemnation. On the Isolar Tour, however, a series of incidents attracted publicity, starting in April 1976 with his detention by customs in Eastern Europe for possession of Nazi memorabilia. The same month in Stockholm, he was quoted as saying that "Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader". Bowie would blame his addictions and the persona of the Thin White Duke for his lapses in judgment. The controversy culminated on 2 May 1976, shortly before the tour ended, in the so-called 'Victoria Station incident' in London, when Bowie arrived in an open-top Mercedes convertible and apparently gave a Nazi salute to the crowd that was captured on film and published in "NME". Bowie claimed that the photographer simply caught him in mid-wave, a contention backed by a young Gary Numan who was among the crowd that day: "Think about it. If a photographer takes a whole motor-driven film of someone doing a wave, you will get a Nazi salute at the end of each arm-sweep. All you need is some dickhead at a music paper or whatever to make an issue out it ...".


title: Station to Station

text: "Station to Station" was a milestone in Bowie's transition to his late 1970s Berlin Trilogy. Pegg calls it the "precise halfway point on the journey from "Young Americans" to "Low"". Bowie himself said, "As far as the music goes, "Low" and its siblings were a direct follow-on from the title track [of "Station to Station"]". For the Berlin Trilogy, Bowie collaborated with Tony Visconti and former Roxy Music keyboardist and conceptualist Brian Eno. Eno similarly felt that "Low" was "very much a continuation" of "Station to Station", which he called "one of the great records of all time" in 1999. In an interview with "Q" magazine in 1997, Bowie considered "Station to Station" a "great, damn good" album, but "extremely dark". Because of his disconnected state during its recording, he heard it as "a piece of work by an entirely different person".


title: Station to Station

text: The album has been described as "enormously influential on post-punk". Carr and Murray wrote in 1981: "If "Low" was Gary Numan's Bowie album, then "Station to Station" was Magazine's." Ian Mathers of "Stylus" magazine opined in 2004 that "just as few had anticipated Bowie's approach, few copied it ... for the most part this is an orphaned, abandoned style". Ten years later, NPR's Jem Aswad described the album as "pioneering ice-funk" that "paved the way not only for thousands of artists who were influenced by it, but also for the brilliant wave of experimentation that followed over the next five years: "Low", ""Heroes"" (both 1977), "Lodger" (1979) and "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)" (1980)".


title: Station to Station

text: Bowie's biographers have described "Station to Station" as one of his greatest records. In his book "Strange Fascination", David Buckley calls it a "masterpiece of invention" that "some critics would argue, perhaps unfashionably, is his finest record". He finds Bowie's vocal performance on "Wild Is the Wind" one of the best of his career. Paul Trynka was struck by the album's innovation, noting "a bizarre blend of spritely and monumental themes", and argues it "marks the point at which David Bowie moved from pop musician to phenomenon". Marc Spitz acknowledges "Station to Station" as a "gigantic creative leap forward", similar to "Hunky Dory" five years earlier. He praises the record's timeless feel, the performances and the overall atmosphere, and considers it the first true new wave record. James Perone cites it as one of the most "structurally coherent and broadly accessible" records of the era. Peter Doggett argues that the new recording process Bowie used on the record allowed him to elevate it into a single unifying vision, as he had encapsulated on "Hunky Dory" and "Ziggy Stardust". Although Bowie would use this process for later records such as "Lodger" and "Scary Monsters", Doggett believes these records are more fragmented than cohesive in the manner of "Station to Station".


title: Station to Station

text: Retrospectively, "Station to Station" is viewed as one of Bowie's best and most significant works. Erlewine wrote: "It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement." Alan Light called it both "musically accessible and lyrically elliptical". In the "Spin Alternative Record Guide" (1995), Rob Sheffield considered "Station to Station" Bowie's greatest album: "[It's] the album where Major Tom learns to dance, as the slick, robotic onslaught of the Teutonic title track fades into the tricky beats of "Stay" and "Golden Years". In the Velvets-worthy "TVC 15", Major Tom appears as a woman who beams herself to a satellite, leaving poor David stranded on earth. Highly recommended to MUD devotees and computer sex aficionados." Sheffield later deemed it a "space rock masterpiece" in "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004), writing Bowie had recorded "the most intense music of his life".


title: Station to Station

text: In 2010, Paul Morley of the "Financial Times" praised its cohesiveness calling it a "mesmerising album" that is not only one of Bowie's best, but "maybe" one of rock's greatest. He argued it works as a capsule showing the artist's mentally, and where rock music was, at the time he made it. In a 2013 retrospective for Rock's Backpages, Barney Hoskyns called "Station to Station" "one of the most impressive of his musical junctions: intense, passionate, focused, surging and urgently funky". In "The Guardian", Alex Needham said the album "manages to incorporate almost everything fantastic about pop music" in just six tracks: "it's dramatic, stylish, emotional and danceable".


title: Station to Station

text: Like his biographers, critics have acknowledged the album's position in Bowie's overall discography as the transition between the styles of "Young Americans" and the Berlin Trilogy. "Consequence of Sound"s Frank Mojica agreed, saying it offers "an intriguing portrait" of an artist's transitional period, while also being an "excellent album in its own right". Michael Gallucci of "Ultimate Classic Rock" described it as "the moment where his most unabashed commercial move gave way to his most don't-give-a-damn experimental period", arguing the album marked Bowie's transition "from Rock Star to Artist". In a 2013 readers' poll for "Rolling Stone", "Station to Station" was voted Bowie's third best album. The magazine called it a "deeply weird album that just gets better with age". Following Bowie's death in 2016, "Ultimate Classic Rock"s Bryan Wawzenek listed "Station to Station" as his fourth greatest album, stating that although he made better albums in the years to follow, "he made this fascinating album first".


title: Station to Station

text: "Station to Station" has frequently appeared on several lists of the greatest albums of all time by multiple publications. In 1995, it was ranked number 21 on "Mojo" magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums ever made, the highest ranked Bowie album on the list. In 2003, "Rolling Stone" ranked it number 323 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, 324 on the 2012 revised list, and 52 on the 2020 revised list. In 2004, "The Observer" ranked the album number 80 on its list of the 100 greatest British albums. "Vibe" magazine placed the album on its list of 100 Essential Albums of the 20th century. In 2013, "NME" ranked the album 53rd in their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. "Uncut" magazine ranked the album 30th on their list of the 200 greatest albums of all time in 2015. A year later, the UK-based "Classic Rock" magazine ranked the album number five in its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1970s.


title: Station to Station

text: English writer Colin Larkin included "Station to Station" in the second edition of his book "All Time Top 1000 Albums" (1998) at number 305. The album was also included in the 2018 edition of Robert Dimery's book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". Based on "Station to Station"s rankings and listings, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists it as the fifth most acclaimed album of 1976, the 98th most acclaimed album of the 1970s and the 335th most acclaimed album in history.


title: Station to Station

text: The album has been released several times on CD beginning in 1984 by RCA, with the original black-and-white cover art. The album was released again in 1991 by Rykodisc featuring two bonus tracks: live versions of "Word on a Wing" and "Stay"; this reissue charted at number 57 on the UK Albums Chart for one week. A 1999 re-release from EMI featured 24-bit digitally remastered sound, but lacks bonus tracks. Both re-releases used the original, full-sized colour cover artwork. In 2007, the 1999 remaster of the album would be reissued in Japan as part of the "David Bowie Paper Jacket Series", which packaged Bowie's studio albums from "Space Oddity" through "Tin Machine" in mini-LP sleeves; this release reverts back to the 1976 cover art, which would become standard for later reissues.


title: Station to Station

text: "Station to Station" was reissued in 2010 in different special and deluxe editions. The special edition included an "original analogue master" of the album (a newly prepared digital master sourced from the original tapes) and the complete 1976 Nassau Coliseum concert on two CDs. The deluxe edition included the special edition's contents, alongside all five tracks' single edits and three different mixes of the album: the 1985 RCA European CD master, a Dolby 5.1 surround sound mix and a DVD containing a new stereo mix, both created by co-producer Harry Maslin. Bowie's official website announced the contents of the reissues on 1 July 2010, which were then released on 20 September. In "The Complete David Bowie", Pegg is critical of Maslin's remix. He writes that it "surrenders all the subtlety of the original [mix] in favour of unimaginatively pushing everything to the front", resulting in a "messy racket", particularly evident in the backing vocals for "TVC 15". Although he notes that there is a different lead vocal take on "Wild Is the Wind", he considers the new mix drastically inferior to the original.


title: Station to Station

text: In 2016, the album was remastered for the "Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976)" box set, with an individual CD release made available the following year. The box set includes both the original 1976 mix and the 2010 stereo remix of "Station to Station", individually packaged in mini-LP sleeves. The 1976 mix uses the original cover art, while the 2010 mix uses a color-corrected version of the 1991 front cover art; the back cover of the 2010 mix's sleeve is a variant of the 1976 back cover, with burgundy text in place of bright red.


title: Station to Station

text: All songs written by David Bowie, except "Wild Is the Wind"; lyrics by Ned Washington and music by Dimitri Tiomkin.


title: Menorca

text: Menorca or Minorca (from , later "Minorica") is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain. Its name derives from its size, contrasting it with nearby Majorca. Its capital is Mahón (), situated on the island's eastern end, although Menorca is not a province and forms a political union with the other islands in the archipelago. Ciutadella and Mahon are the main ports and largest towns. The port of Mahon is the second biggest natural port in the world.


title: Menorca

text: Menorca has a population of approximately 93,397 (at 1 January 2019). It is located 39°47' to 40°00'N, 3°52' to 4°24'E. Its highest point, called El Toro (from Catalan ""turó"" meaning "hill"), is above sea level.


title: Menorca

text: The island is known for its collection of megalithic stone monuments: "navetes", "taules" and "talaiots", which indicate very early prehistoric human activity. Some of the earliest culture on Menorca was influenced by other Mediterranean cultures, including the Greek Minoans of ancient Crete (see also Gymnesian Islands). For example, the use of inverted plastered timber columns at Knossos is thought to have influenced early peoples of Menorca in imitating this practice.


title: Menorca

text: The end of the Punic wars saw an increase in piracy in the western Mediterranean. The Roman occupation of Hispania had meant a growth of maritime trade between the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. Pirates took advantage of the strategic location of the Balearic Islands to raid Roman commerce, using both Menorca and Majorca as bases. In reaction to this, the Romans invaded Menorca. By 123 BC both islands were fully under Roman control, later being incorporated into the province of Hispania Citerior.


title: Menorca

text: In 13 BC Roman emperor Augustus reorganised the provincial system and the Balearic Islands became part of the Tarraconensis imperial province. The ancient town of Mago was transformed from a Carthaginian town to a Roman town.


title: Menorca

text: The island had a Jewish population. The "Letter on the Conversion of the Jews" by a fifth-century bishop named Severus tells of the forced conversion of the island's 540 Jewish men and women in AD 418. Several Jews, including Theodore, a rich representative Jew who stood high in the estimation of his coreligionists and of Christians alike, underwent baptism. The act of conversion brought about, within a previously peaceful coexisting community, the expulsion of the ruling Jewish elite into the bleak hinterlands, the burning of synagogues, and the gradual reinstatement of certain Jewish families after the forced acceptance of Christianity, allowing the survival of those Jewish families who had not already perished. Many Jews remained within the Jewish faith while outwardly professing Christian faith. Some of these Jews form part of the Xueta community.


title: Menorca

text: When Menorca became a British possession in 1713, they actively encouraged the immigration of foreign non-Catholics, which included Jews who were not accepted by the predominantly Christian inhabitants. When the Jewish community in Mahon requested the use of a room as a synagogue, their request was refused, and they were denounced by the clergy. In 1781, when Louis des Balbes de Berton de Crillon, duc de Mahon invaded Menorca, he ordered all Jews to leave in four days. At that time, the Jewish community consisted of about 500 people and they were transported from Menorca in four Spanish ships to the port of Marseille.


title: Menorca

text: The Vandals easily conquered the island in the fifth century. The Byzantine Empire recovered it in 534. Following the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, Menorca was annexed to the Caliphate of Córdoba in 903, with many Muslims emigrating to the island.


title: Menorca

text: "Manûrqa" () was the Arabicized name given to the island by the Muslims from its annexation to the Caliphate of Cordoba by 'Isâm al-Khawlânî in 903 until the rule of the last Muslim ra'îs, Abû 'Umar ibn Sa'îd in 1287. The only urban centre of the island was "Madînat al Jazîra" or "al Manûrqa" (modern Ciutadella). Most of the population lived in small farm communities organized under a tribal structure.


title: Menorca

text: In 1231, after Christian forces took Majorca, Menorca chose to become an independent Islamic state, albeit one tributary to King James I of Aragon. The island was ruled first by Abû 'Uthmân Sa'îd Hakam al Qurashi (1234–1282), and following his death by his son, Abû 'Umar ibn Sa'îd (1282–1287).


title: Menorca

text: A Catalan-Aragonese invasion, led by Alfonso III (also known as Count of Barcelona Alfons II), came on 17 January 1287; its anniversary is now celebrated as Menorca's national day. Once the island was captured, most of its Muslim inhabitants were enslaved and sold in the slave markets of Eivissa, Valencia and Barcelona, while others became Christians.


title: Menorca

text: After the Christian conquest of 1287, the island was part of the Crown of Aragon. For some time it was ceded to the Kingdom of Majorca, a vassal state of the Crown, but it was retaken by the king of Aragon in 1343. Eventually the Crown of Aragon merged with the Crown of Castile, and so Menorca became part of Spain.


title: Menorca

text: During the 16th century, Turkish naval attacks destroyed Mahon, and the then capital, Ciutadella. In Mahon, Barbary pirates from North Africa took considerable booty and as many as 6,000 slaves. Various Spanish kings, including Philip III and Philip IV, styled themselves "King of Minorca" as a subsidiary title.


title: Menorca

text: Captured by Britain's Royal Navy in 1708 during the War of the Spanish Succession, Minorca temporarily became a British possession. Great Britain took possession in 1713, under the terms of of the Treaty of Utrecht. Under the governorship of General Richard Kane, this period saw the island's capital moved to Port Mahon and a naval base established in that town's harbour.


title: Menorca

text: In 1756, during the Seven Years' War, France captured the island after the Siege of Fort St Philip and a failed British relief attempt. The 1763 Treaty of Paris enabled the British to return to the island after Britain's victory in the Seven Years' War. In 1781, during the American War of Independence, the British were defeated for a second time, in this instance by a combination of French and Spanish forces, and on 5 January 1782 the Spanish regained control of the island, after a long siege of St. Philip's Castle in Port Mahon. The British ceded the island back to Spain the next year in the Treaty of Versailles. Menorca was invaded by the British once again in 1798, during the French Revolutionary Wars, but it was finally repossessed by Spain by the terms of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. The British influence can still be seen in local architecture, with elements such as sash windows.


title: Menorca

text: As with the rest of the Balearic Islands, Menorca was not occupied by the French during the Peninsular War, as it was successfully protected by the Royal Navy, this time allied to Spain.


title: Menorca

text: From 1815 until the mid-century, the U.S. Navy developed its Mediterranean headquarters at Port Mahon, leaving behind the English Cemetery, Menorca, which was restored by the Spanish government in 2008 and is maintained in the 21st century.


title: Menorca

text: During the Spanish Civil War, Menorca stayed loyal to the Republican Spanish Government, while the rest of the Balearic Islands supported the Spanish Nationalists. The island did not see ground combat, but it was a target of aerial bombing by the pro-Nationalist Italians of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie Air Force. Many Menorcans were also killed when taking part in a failed invasion of Majorca. During the Pedro Marqués Barber era (July–December 1936) some Mallorcans and a priest were executed on the island. After the Nationalist victory in the Battle of Minorca in February 1939, the British Navy assisted in a peaceful transfer of power in Menorca and the evacuation of some political refugees aboard .


title: Menorca

text: In October 1993, Menorca was designated by UNESCO as a biosphere reserve. In July 2005, the island's application to become the 25th member of the International Island Games Association was approved.


title: Menorca

text: As the major part of Balearic Islands, Menorca has a mediterranean climate (Köppen: "Csa"), with mild winters and hot summers. Menorca is generally wetter than Mallorca, with rainfall peaking in late autumn. Average annual highs range between in winter to in summer. Due to its offshore position and the small size of the island, temperatures are generally quite stable.


title: Menorca

text: The location of Minorca in the middle of the western Mediterranean was a staging point for the different cultures since prehistoric times. This Balearic Island has a mix of colonial and local architecture.


title: Menorca

text: The "festes" take place throughout the summer in different towns around the island, and have their origins in the early 14th century. The international opera week and international organ festival in Mahon, and the summer music festival and Capella Davidica concerts in Ciutadella are the main events of the island.


title: Menorca

text: Minorca's cuisine is dominated by the Mediterranean diet which is known to be very healthy. While many of the locals have adopted modern attitudes they still uphold certain old traditions.


title: Menorca

text: Minorca is especially well known for its traditional summer "festes", which intrigue many visitors. The Saint John's Feast is held annually in Ciutadella de Menorca, during 23–25 June. The festes last for three days. On the first day, a man bears a well-groomed sheep upon his shoulders and parades around the local streets. In the late evening, main streets are closed, and bonfires held upon them.


title: Menorca

text: On the second day, locally bred black horses are dressed with ribbons and rosettes. The riders, or "caixers", ride the horses through the streets and, along with a tumultuous crowd of people, encourage them to rear up on their hind legs. The brave can be found running underneath them in an attempt to touch the horses hearts for good luck.


title: Menorca

text: The third day sees intense competition between the riders in a harmless form of jousting that involves spearing a suspended ring with a lance at considerable speed. The festes are brought to a close with a firework display.


title: Menorca

text: As a small island, Menorca offers limited opportunities to see top-level sport competitions in. Football in Menorca is played at the fifth level of the Spanish football pyramid. There are currently 11 clubs contesting the Regional Preferente de Menorca, the champion of which progresses to the Tercera División Grupo XI playoffs. The winner of this playoff is promoted to Tercera División; the last Menorquí club to do so was CF Sporting Mahonés in 2009.


title: Menorca

text: CV Ciutadella are a professional women's volleyball club who play in the Superliga Femenina, the top league of Spanish volleyball, having won the league championship in 2011 and 2012. They play at Pavelló Municipal d'Esports in Ciutadella.


title: Menorca

text: A semi-pro basketball club, CB Menorca, play in the LEB Plata, the third level of Spanish basketball. Their home court is Pavelló Menorca in the Bintaufa neighborhood just outside of Maó.


title: Menorca

text: In recent years, some sport events that gather hundreds of participants are successfully held on a yearly basis, such as the triathlon race Extreme Man Menorca or the single-staged ultramarathon race Trail Menorca Camí de Cavalls. In 2014, it was announced that the island would host the 18th editions of the Island Games in 2019, however, Menorca later pulled out of hosting the event, citing a change of government as the main reason.


title: Menorca

text: The two official languages are Catalan and Spanish. Natives to the island speak the variety of Catalan called "Menorquí", and Spanish as well; many residents originating from the mainland are monolingual in Spanish. The language of education and of government is Catalan, with Spanish taught alongside it.


title: Menorca

text: A 2014 survey carried out by the Government of the Balearic Islands found that 53.5% of participants identified themselves as Catalan speakers, 36.7% as Spanish speakers, and 7.7% as bilingual speakers.


title: Menorca

text: The Catalan spoken in Menorca is a variety known as "Menorquí". Between "Menorquí" and standard Catalan, as with most Balearic dialects, the most distinctive difference is the word used for the article "the", where "Menorquí" uses "es" for masculine and "sa" for feminine. Menorquí thus shares the source of its article with many Sardinian varieties (masc. sing. "su", fem sing. "sa"), rather than the standard Catalan "el" and "la", similar to other Romance languages (e.g. Spanish "el", "la", Italian "il", "la"), corresponding to a form which was historically used along the Costa Brava of Catalonia, from where it is supposed that the islands were repopulated after being conquered from the Moors.


title: Menorca

text: Menorquí also has a few English loan words dating back to the period of British rule, such as "grevi", "xumaquer", "boinder" and "xoc" taken from "gravy", "shoemaker", "bow window" and "chalk", respectively.


title: Menorca

text: Wine production has been known on the island since ancient times, but it went into a heavy decline over the last century. Now, several new, small wineries have started up, producing wines locally.


title: Menorca

text: Lingering British influence is seen in the Menorcans' taste for gin, which during local "festes" honoring towns' patron saints is mixed with lemonade (or bitter lemon) to make a golden liquid known as "Pomada". Gin from Menorca is not derived from grain alcohol but from wine alcohol (eau de vie de vin), making it more akin to brandy. It has the distinction to have geographical identity protection. Probably the best known gin is Gin Xoriguer which is named after the typical Menorcan windmill which was used to make the first gin. One of the reasons it is also known as Gin de Minorca or Gin de Mahón.


title: Menorca

text: One origin story of mayonnaise is that it was brought back to France from Mahon, Menorca, after Louis-François-Armand du Plessis de Richelieu's victory over the British at the city's port in 1756.


title: Menorca

text: Menorca is rich in wild flowers with over 900 species of flowering plants recorded. Many are those typical of the Mediterranean, but some are endemic. There are 24 or 25 species of orchid found and of these most flower early in the year in late March, April and May.


title: Menorca

text: 30 species of butterflies have been recorded on Menorca and most are on the wing from March to late September. The species that occur include the Cleopatra, Lang's short tailed blue and the two-tailed pasha.


title: Menorca

text: Despite not having many large wetlands dragonflies abound on Menorca. Seventeen species have been recorded including the emperor dragonfly.


title: Menorca

text: There are three species of "amphibia": green toad ("Bufo viridis"), marsh frog and stripeless tree frog ("Hyla meridionalis").


title: Menorca

text: The common lizard seen all over the island is the Italian wall lizard ("Podarcis siculus") although the Moroccan rock lizard ("Scelaris perspicillata") also occurs. The Balearic endemic Lilford's wall lizard ("Podarcis lilfordi") can be found on many of the offshore islands. Two species of gecko can be found on Menorca, the Moorish ("Tarentola mauritanica") and the Turkish ("Hemidactylus turcicus") also called the Mediterranean house gecko.


title: Menorca

text: Four species of snake occur: the viperine snake ("Natrix maura"), grass snake, false smooth snake ("Macroprotodon cucullatus") and the ladder snake ("Rhinechis scalaris").


title: Menorca

text: Hermann's tortoise ("Testudo hermanni") is quite common and can be found all over the island. Two terrapin species are also found, the native European pond terrapin ("Emys orbicularis") and the introduced American red-eared slider" (Trachemys scripta").


title: Menorca

text: The birdlife of Menorca is very well known. Menorca is a well watched island which is on the migration route of many species and good number of passage migrants can be seen in spring. Residents include Audouin's gull, blue rock thrush and Thekla lark. Booted eagle and red kite are easy to see as is Egyptian vulture in the right habitat. In summer there are bee-eaters and Menorca has major colonies of Cory's shearwater and Balearic shearwater.


title: Menorca

text: Menorca has no large native mammals. There are some small mammals including rabbits, bats, rats, mice, pine martens and a subspecies of North African hedgehog.


title: Menorca

text: The major towns are Port Mahon and Ciutadella de Menorca. The island is administratively divided into eight municipalities (from west to east):


title: Menorca

text: The areas and populations of the municipalities (according to the "Instituto Nacional de Estadística", Spain) are:


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist of the early 20th century.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. His books, written and published from the 1920s to the 1940s, vividly reflect on American culture and the mores of that period, filtered through Wolfe's sensitive, sophisticated, and hyper-analytical perspective.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: After Wolfe's death, contemporary author William Faulkner said that Wolfe might have been the greatest talent of their generation for aiming higher than any other writer. Wolfe's influence extends to the writings of Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac, and of authors Ray Bradbury and Philip Roth, among others. He remains an important writer in modern American literature, as one of the first masters of autobiographical fiction, and is considered North Carolina's most famous writer.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe was born in Asheville, North Carolina, the youngest of eight children of William Oliver Wolfe (1851–1922) and Julia Elizabeth Westall (1860–1945). Six of the children lived to adulthood. His father, a successful stone carver, ran a gravestone business.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: W. O. Wolfe's business used an angel in the window to attract customers. Thomas Wolfe "described the angel in great detail" in a short story and in "Look Homeward, Angel". The angel was sold and, while there was controversy over which one was the actual angel, the location of the "Thomas Wolfe angel" was determined in 1949 to be Oakdale Cemetery in Hendersonville, North Carolina.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe's mother took in boarders and was active in acquiring real estate. In 1904, she opened a boarding house in St. Louis, Missouri, for the World's Fair. While the family was in St. Louis, Wolfe's 12-year-old brother, Grover, died of typhoid fever.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: In 1906 Julia Wolfe bought a boarding house named "Old Kentucky Home" at nearby 48 Spruce Street in Asheville, taking up residence there with her youngest son while the rest of the family remained at the Woodfin Street residence. Wolfe lived in the boarding house on Spruce Street until he went to college in 1916. It is now the Thomas Wolfe Memorial. Wolfe was closest to his brother Ben, whose early death at age 26 is chronicled in "Look Homeward, Angel". Julia Wolfe bought and sold many properties, eventually becoming a successful real estate speculator.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe began to study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) when he was 15 years old. A member of the Dialectic Society and Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, he predicted that his portrait would one day hang in New West near that of celebrated North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance, which it does today. Aspiring to be a playwright, in 1919 Wolfe enrolled in a playwriting course. His one-act play, "The Return of Buck Gavin", was performed by the newly formed Carolina Playmakers, then composed of classmates in Frederick Koch's playwriting class, with Wolfe acting the title role. He edited UNC's student newspaper "The Daily Tar Heel" and won the Worth Prize for Philosophy for an essay titled "The Crisis in Industry". Another of his plays, "The Third Night", was performed by the Playmakers in December 1919. Wolfe was inducted into the Golden Fleece honor society.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe graduated from UNC with a bachelor of arts in June 1920, and in September, entered Harvard University, where he studied playwriting under George Pierce Baker. Two versions of his play "The Mountains" were performed by Baker's 47 Workshop in 1921.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: In 1922, Wolfe received his master's degree from Harvard. His father died in Asheville in June of that year. Wolfe studied another year with Baker, and the 47 Workshop produced his 10-scene play "Welcome to Our City" in May 1923.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe visited New York City again in November 1923 and solicited funds for UNC, while trying to sell his plays to Broadway. In February 1924, he began teaching English as an instructor at New York University (NYU), a position he occupied periodically for almost seven years.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe was unable to sell any of his plays after three years because of their great length. The Theatre Guild came close to producing "Welcome to Our City" before ultimately rejecting it, and Wolfe found his writing style more suited to fiction than the stage. He sailed to Europe in October 1924 to continue writing. From England he traveled to France, Italy and Switzerland.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: On his return voyage in 1925, he met Aline Bernstein (1880–1955), a scene designer for the Theatre Guild. Twenty years his senior, she was married to a successful stockbroker with whom she had two children. In October 1925, she and Wolfe became lovers and remained so for five years. Their affair was turbulent and sometimes combative, but she exerted a powerful influence, encouraging and funding his writing.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe returned to Europe in the summer of 1926 and began writing the first version of an autobiographical novel titled "O Lost". The narrative, which evolved into "Look Homeward, Angel", fictionalized his early experiences in Asheville, and chronicled family, friends, and the boarders at his mother's establishment on Spruce Street. In the book, he renamed the town Altamont and called the boarding house "Dixieland". His family's surname became Gant, and Wolfe called himself Eugene, his father Oliver, and his mother Eliza. The original manuscript of "O Lost" was over 1,100 pages (333,000 words) long, and considerably more experimental in style than the final version of "Look Homeward, Angel". It was submitted to Scribner's, where the editing was done by Maxwell Perkins, the most prominent book editor of the time, who also worked with Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He cut the book to focus more on the character of Eugene, a stand-in for Wolfe. Wolfe initially expressed gratitude to Perkins for his disciplined editing, but he had misgivings later. It has been said that Wolfe found a father figure in Perkins, and that Perkins, who had five daughters, found in Wolfe a sort of foster son.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: The novel, which had been dedicated to Bernstein, was published 11 days before the stock market crash of 1929. Soon afterward, Wolfe returned to Europe and ended his affair with Bernstein. The novel caused a stir in Asheville, with its over 200 thinly disguised local characters. Wolfe chose to stay away from Asheville for eight years because of the uproar; he traveled to Europe for a year on a Guggenheim Fellowship. "Look Homeward, Angel" was a bestseller in the United Kingdom and Germany. Some members of Wolfe's family were upset with their portrayal in the book, but his sister Mabel wrote to him that she was sure he had the best of intentions.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: After four more years writing in Brooklyn, the second novel Wolfe submitted to Scribner's was "The October Fair", a multi-volume epic roughly the length of Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time". After considering the commercial possibilities of publishing the book in full, Perkins opted to cut it significantly and create a single volume. Titled "Of Time and the River", it was more commercially successful than "Look Homeward, Angel". In an ironic twist, the citizens of Asheville were more upset this time because they had not been included. The character of Esther Jack was based on Bernstein. In 1934, Maxim Lieber served as his literary agent.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe was persuaded by Edward Aswell to leave Scribner's and sign with Harper & Brothers. By some accounts, Perkins' severe editing of Wolfe's work is what prompted him to leave. Others describe his growing resentment that some people attributed his success to Perkins' work as editor. In 1936, Bernard DeVoto, reviewing "The Story of a Novel" for "Saturday Review", wrote that "Look Homeward, Angel" was "hacked and shaped and compressed into something resembling a novel by Mr. Perkins and the assembly-line at Scribners".


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe spent much time in Europe and was especially popular and at ease in Germany, where he made many friends. However, in 1936 he witnessed incidents of discrimination against Jews, which upset him and changed his mind about the political developments in the country. He returned to America and published a story based on his observations ("I Have a Thing to Tell You") in "The New Republic". Following its publication, Wolfe's books were banned by the German government, and he was prohibited from traveling there.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: In 1937, "Chickamauga", his short story set during the American Civil War battle of the same name, was published. Wolfe returned to Asheville in early 1937 for the first time since publication of his first book.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: In 1938, after submitting over one million words of manuscript to his new editor, Edward Aswell, Wolfe left New York for a tour of the Western United States. On the way, he stopped at Purdue University and gave a lecture, "Writing and Living", and then spent two weeks traveling through 11 national parks in the West, the only part of the country he had never visited. Wolfe wrote to Aswell that while he had focused on his family in his previous writing, he would now take a more global perspective. In July, he became ill with pneumonia while visiting Seattle, spending three weeks in hospital there. His sister Mabel closed her boarding house in Washington, D.C. and went to Seattle to care for him. Complications arose, and Wolfe was eventually diagnosed with miliary tuberculosis.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: On September 6, he was sent to Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital for treatment by Walter Dandy, the most famous neurosurgeon in the country, but an operation revealed that the disease had overrun the entire right side of his brain. Without regaining consciousness, he died 18 days before his 38th birthday.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: On his deathbed and shortly before lapsing into a coma, Wolfe wrote a letter to Perkins: He acknowledged that Perkins had helped to realize his work and had made his labors possible. In closing he wrote:


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: I shall always think of you and feel about you the way it was that Fourth of July day three years ago when you met me at the boat, and we went out on the cafe on the river and had a drink and later went on top of the tall building, and all the strangeness and the glory and the power of life and of the city was below.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe was buried in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina, beside his parents and siblings.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: After Wolfe's death, "The New York Times" wrote: His was one of the most confident young voices in contemporary American literature, a vibrant, full-toned voice which it is hard to believe could be so suddenly stilled. The stamp of genius was upon him, though it was an undisciplined and unpredictable genius ... There was within him an unspent energy, an untiring force, an unappeasable hunger for life and for expression which might have carried him to the heights and might equally have torn him down. "Time" wrote: "The death last week of Thomas Clayton Wolfe shocked critics with the realization that, of all American novelists of his generation, he was the one from whom most had been expected."


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe saw less than half of his work published in his lifetime, there being much unpublished material remaining after his death. He was the first American writer to leave two complete, unpublished novels in the hands of his publisher at death. Two Wolfe novels, "The Web and the Rock" and "You Can't Go Home Again", were edited posthumously by Edward Aswell of Harper & Brothers. The novels were "two of the longest one-volume novels ever written" (nearly 700 pages each). In these novels, Wolfe changed the name of his autobiographical character from Eugene Gant to George Webber.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: "O Lost", the original "author's cut" of "Look Homeward, Angel," was reconstructed by F. Scott Fitzgerald scholar Matthew Bruccoli and published in 2000 on the centennial of Wolfe's birth. Bruccoli said that while Perkins was a talented editor, "Look Homeward, Angel" is inferior to the complete work of "O Lost" and that the publication of the complete novel "marks nothing less than the restoration of a masterpiece to the literary canon".


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Upon publication of "Look Homeward, Angel", most reviewers responded favorably, including John Chamberlain, Carl Van Doren, and Stringfellow Barr. Margaret Wallace wrote in "The New York Times Book Review" that Wolfe had produced "as interesting and powerful a book as has ever been made out of the drab circumstances of provincial American life". An anonymous review published in "Scribner's" magazine compared Wolfe to Walt Whitman, and many other reviewers and scholars have found similarities in their works since.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: When published in the UK in July 1930, the book received similar reviews. Richard Aldington wrote that the novel was "the product of an immense exuberance, organic in its form, kinetic, and drenched with the love of life...I rejoice over Mr. Wolfe". Both in his 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech and original press conference announcement, Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature, said of Wolfe, "He may have a chance to be the greatest American writer...In fact I don't see why he should not be one of the greatest world writers."


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Upon publication of his second novel, "Of Time and the River", most reviewers and the public remained supportive, though some critics found shortcomings while still hailing it for moments or aspects of greatness. The book was well received by the public and became his only American bestseller. The publication was viewed as "the literary event of 1935"; by comparison, the earlier attention given to "Look Homeward, Angel" was modest. Both "The New York Times" and "New York Herald Tribune" published enthusiastic front-page reviews. Clifton Fadiman wrote in "The New Yorker" that while he wasn't sure what he thought of the book, "for decades we have not had eloquence like his in American writing". Malcolm Cowley of "The New Republic" thought the book would be twice as good if half as long, but stated Wolfe was "the only contemporary writer who can be mentioned in the same breath as Dickens and Dostoevsky". Robert Penn Warren thought Wolfe produced some brilliant fragments from which "several fine novels might be written". He went on to say: "And meanwhile it may be well to recollect that Shakespeare merely wrote "Hamlet"; he was "not" Hamlet." Warren also praised Wolfe in the same review, though, as did John Donald Wade in a separate review.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Though he was acclaimed during his lifetime as one of the most important American writers, comparable to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, or William Faulkner, Wolfe's reputation has been "all but destroyed" since his death, although "The New York Times" wrote in 2003 that Wolfe's reputation and related scholarship appeared to be on an "upswing". He is often left out of college courses and anthologies devoted to great writers. Faulkner and W.J. Cash listed Wolfe as the ablest writer of their generation, although Faulkner later qualified his praise. Despite his early admiration of Wolfe's work, Faulkner later decided that his novels were "like an elephant trying to do the hoochie-coochie". Ernest Hemingway's verdict was that Wolfe was "the over-bloated Li'l Abner of literature".


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Southerner and Harvard historian David Herbert Donald's biography of Wolfe, "Look Homeward", won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1988.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Wolfe inspired the works of many other authors, including Betty Smith with "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", Robert Morgan, author of "Gap Creek", and "Prince of Tides" author Pat Conroy, who has said "My writing career began the instant I finished "Look Homeward, Angel"." Jack Kerouac idolized Wolfe. Ray Bradbury was influenced by Wolfe, and included him as a character in his books. Earl Hamner, Jr., who created the popular television series "The Waltons", idolized Wolfe in his youth.


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Hunter S. Thompson credits Wolfe for his famous phrase "Fear and Loathing" (on page 62 of "The Web and the Rock").


title: Thomas Wolfe

text: Two universities hold the primary archival collections of Thomas Wolfe materials in the United States: the Thomas Clayton Wolfe Papers at Harvard University's Houghton Library, which includes all of Wolfe's manuscripts, and the Thomas Wolfe Collections in the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Each October, at the time of Wolfe's birthday, UNC-Chapel Hill presents the annual Thomas Wolfe Prize and Lecture to a contemporary writer, with past recipients including Roy Blount, Jr., Robert Morgan, and Pat Conroy.