But whether accusations are true or not is almost secondary in importance here. People go on about the litany of the man's problems, speculating what is true, what is false, etc. In a recent post on his blog (), poet Philip Metres says "Michael Jackson is a symptom of our national illness." I think this is spot on the reason, I suspect, why people have not gotten over this musician's death is because he was a real live person that perfect strangers felt comfortable hating and judging and treating horrifically from afar. However, i think this obsession of America's (the world's?) is justified in ways we don't even understand really, more closely linked to the horrors in Tehran than we realize, too.\r The fact that it's completely eclipsed any further coverage of Tehran hasn't gotten any attention, from what I've seen. Of course, this MJ death stuff has already been drawn out too far and is, in most ways, grotesque. Travis also happened to choose an excellent graphic, to accompany the poem, from the arcade game mentioned in the comment above. He posted it on June 17th and it was about Michael Jackson, which feels like especially weird timing to me now, given the circumstances. The most recent poem I had appear anywhere was in Travis's hotline-forum, weird deer (). Travis, I am even moreso in love with you now for being the person that wrote this blog on the foundation website.\r Of one of your quilts, though I love them, \r Take my quilts, take all of my quilts, \r Vatican champagne flutes, my earplugs, \r Take my chicken shack & my wheelbarrow, \r Windowpanes, take my steps and my doors, \r My sprite sitting on a stump daydreaming\r Take my handkercheifs and my scissors, \r Her suitcase, my Michael Jackson doll, \r You can have my broom and my glass eye,\r Take my pitcher and the scarf you gave me, \r You can have my smoked ham & brown mustard, \r Take all of my spices and salt & pepper, \r I felt a huge anticipatory smile-all teeth and mania-spread across my face as I came into focus in the mirror, and there, above my little face smiling all crazy, was, yes, the exact same bowl-cut I always got. It was like Christmas on a roller coaster with a million puppies.
Could this really be happening? Michael Jackson's hair! On my head!Ī little whisk of the brush at the back of my neck, and then the lady spun me around to face the mirror. She snipped, brushed, combed and spruced and the whole while I had the magic of "P.Y.T." coursing through my little eight year old veins. The lady shrugged, spun me around to face the center of the room and-I couldn't believe it-began cutting my hair! She looked over at my mom who just sat there, casually flipping through a magazine. "Exactly like Michael Jackson's hair," I said, pointing at my head. I strode into the salon and told the lady straight away what was happening. That strange, curly, flingable wetness, how would I exist with such amazing glamour on my head? At school! At baseball practice! Out in the streets of Iowa! My mom seemed to take the news in stride. Michael Jackson had made it okay to be feminine, marvelous and not-so tough, right? So I 'll admit now to the world that I went with my mom to the salon to get my haircut when I was eight. I told my mom on the way to the barber (Okay, actually, a confession here: it was not the barber. Yes, well, case in point: I decided that summer that I wanted to get my haircut EXACTLY like Michael's. Not quite a lunatic fan, but an eight-year old pop music fan, which is quite enough already, don't you think? Then-summer of '87-I had the Thriller poster up in my room, the weird plastic "Beat It" doll, the records, stickers on my school folders. Myself, I've felt mostly numb about the whole thing, mainly, I think, because the King of Pop had been dead for me twenty years or so, ever since I was eight years old. It is sad and strange, and though it feels a little odd, I wanted to put up a sort of Harriet "open thread" about it here just in case anyone wants to vent over the weekend. As we all know by now, Michael Jackson-who apparently was reading Tagore poems in his last days-is dead.