MJ
Kitchen Chairs 11.75″ x 15.75″, Silkscreen on Paper 2009 $7.00
Is it possible to separate man, music and icon and treat all three as separate entities? I hate to do this, but I’m going to write a post about Michael Jackson. Oliver and I went out for dinner last night. Before we left, Oliver had read that MJ had had a heart attack. When we got in the cab, the cabbie alerted us that MJ was in a coma. At dinner, the waiter informed us that MJ had died. This all in a matter of half an hour, that’s how quickly news travels now: it’s staggering. The restaurant was abuzz.
He left behind an amazing legacy of music, social change, and baaaaaad publicity. His face has to be one of the most recognizable in the world, and it’s not even his. I just got into a huge debate with someone over his molestation trials, of which he was acquitted. Is it possible to remember him without thinking of that? I know nothing was ever proven, but he is partially responsible for such a nightmare, troubled childhood or not. Should it affect the way we enjoy his music? Should it affect the way we mourn him? Creative output and the person are almost impossible to separate, they define one another.
I feel like his death is this shocking partly because he’s so young, but also because he’s risen to iconic status, and while icons can last forever, the people behind them do not. Living icons are supernatural, we put them on a platform: we don’t imagine that they poop and pee like everybody else, or that they inevitably die. I certainly don’t have any answers here, but I can say that something about his death is very unsettling, and I’m not sure why..
Categories
Subscribe2
Archives
My Etsy Shoppe
Great Blogs & Websites
- Alex Braubach
- Ambera’s Etsy Shoppe
- Ambera’s Website
- Anthony Vanarsdale
- Bill Sharp
- Bob Martin
- C. G. Young
- Catherine Bussiere
- Chantrelle Li
- Cooper Dragonette
- David Jon Kassan
- Dear Ada
- Eric Orchard
- Frank Gardner
- Fresia & The Offsprings
- Gifted Typist
- Jeffery Boron
- Jen Dewar
- Jeremy Lipking
- Lines and Colors
- Miya Turnbull
- Oliver Braubach
- Simon Collins
- Stephen Magsig
- Travis Louie
- Typealice