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Michael Jackson and tendonitis
Jun. 26th, 2009 10:58 am1. I have developed tendonitis of the left shoulder. This is very painful. I have now seen a physiotherapist who advised no typing so I have limited one-hand typing time here. I also can't drive: in England, cars tend to be manual and they drive on the left side of roads; this means that I have to manipulate the gearstick with my left hand and I can't. I also can't even ride a bike so have discovered me shire's bus routes! I can still do longhand, whee, as am right-handed so no excuse left for not writing fiction...
2. Despite typing disability, I did want to register my response to the death of Michael Jackson.
"Every death is dreadful", as a friend of mine says. This, I find, becomes truer as I age. Even people I don't know or don't like: they die and it reminds me of mortality in general and of all our deaths and of the bigness of death. That's one level.
But there's more to the death of a star. A star is more than a person, and is perhaps never a person. The star embodies mythical verities that we need, just like the ancient gods embodied epic and universal qualities and needs. So there is something epic about MJ: the success plus the tragedy; indeed, the success that caused the tragedy -- or that's how the myth sees it. There's something that we need in the over-the-topness of MJ's flaws; they are larger than life and mean more than themselves. If he had been more normal, arguably, he'd have had less of this tragic myth power for us. He'd have been a politician or a talented musician but not an icon.
There's also something specifically 20th century about his appeal. The idea that an unhappy childhood, bullying father, fraternal tension produces a fucked-up adulthood seems right and plausible to us post-Freudian believers in psychology.
Two things to say on a personal level. Because a star is so famous and in the public eye, many people couldn't help having their lives entwined with his. Listening to Billy Jean brings back memories of a particular dance club in Heidelberg in the early 80s and dancing to this beat. MJ has been a part of the furniture of so many people's lives, even those of us who weren't direct fans.
Secondly, I can identify, in an unexpectedly surprising way, with the suffering somehow (maybe wrongly but mythically plausibly) embodied by MJ. There's a connecting humanity there which I'm not sure I ever thought I'd say about weirdo Michael but that, too, has not to do with the real man (whom we can never get at -- part of the power of mythical figures is that we always want to strip away their star persona to get at the 'real' person underneath, but this very desire is part and parcel of the star persona) but with the man-as-myth.
And if this makes it sound as if I'm likening MJ to Achilles or Christ, then that's weird but also oddly compelling.
2. Despite typing disability, I did want to register my response to the death of Michael Jackson.
"Every death is dreadful", as a friend of mine says. This, I find, becomes truer as I age. Even people I don't know or don't like: they die and it reminds me of mortality in general and of all our deaths and of the bigness of death. That's one level.
But there's more to the death of a star. A star is more than a person, and is perhaps never a person. The star embodies mythical verities that we need, just like the ancient gods embodied epic and universal qualities and needs. So there is something epic about MJ: the success plus the tragedy; indeed, the success that caused the tragedy -- or that's how the myth sees it. There's something that we need in the over-the-topness of MJ's flaws; they are larger than life and mean more than themselves. If he had been more normal, arguably, he'd have had less of this tragic myth power for us. He'd have been a politician or a talented musician but not an icon.
There's also something specifically 20th century about his appeal. The idea that an unhappy childhood, bullying father, fraternal tension produces a fucked-up adulthood seems right and plausible to us post-Freudian believers in psychology.
Two things to say on a personal level. Because a star is so famous and in the public eye, many people couldn't help having their lives entwined with his. Listening to Billy Jean brings back memories of a particular dance club in Heidelberg in the early 80s and dancing to this beat. MJ has been a part of the furniture of so many people's lives, even those of us who weren't direct fans.
Secondly, I can identify, in an unexpectedly surprising way, with the suffering somehow (maybe wrongly but mythically plausibly) embodied by MJ. There's a connecting humanity there which I'm not sure I ever thought I'd say about weirdo Michael but that, too, has not to do with the real man (whom we can never get at -- part of the power of mythical figures is that we always want to strip away their star persona to get at the 'real' person underneath, but this very desire is part and parcel of the star persona) but with the man-as-myth.
And if this makes it sound as if I'm likening MJ to Achilles or Christ, then that's weird but also oddly compelling.