07 July 2009
Michael (1958-2009)
)Published on July 7th, 2009 @ 09:33:50 pm, using 780 words, 142 views
I hadn’t planned on writing anything about Michael Jackson (always making a conscious effort to steer away from the masses, from anything already done to exhaustion) but I had a Jane moment this morning with the name Michael, which made writing feel right.
Michael… Michael… Mi…chael. Mahy-kuhl.
That moment took me right back to the movie E.T. of all things (very characteristic of me to take such impossible leaps.) Standing in the middle of a sidewalk, I kept hearing little Henry Thomas’ voice saying that name (his older brother in the film). Back when, for me, fluency was wishful thinking and proper names consequently stood out.
Michael.
Words cling to me like that. I cling to them. They get etched in my memory in a variety of ways - sometimes names, sometimes whole sentences and the accompanying intonation, sometimes the accompanying facial expression, sometimes their source. Any combination of those.
“What do you mean?” (Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s)
“Is that true? That’s what you’re thinking?” (Meg Ryan in When Harry met Sally)
“Je ne pas ta soeur, maman. Je ta fille. J’ai trente trois ans.” (Juliette Binoche in Blue)
“I wanna get hurt!” (John Cusack in Say anything…)
A thousand others.
A few seconds later, that many closer to home I found myself standing in front of a newsstand, staring at a magazine, on the cover of which was a little African American boy who also went by the name of Michael.
A pretty common name for a pretty unique, constantly changing individual, I thought. A pretty common name to be directly linked to such a remarkable impact in the world.
I don’t really know how such seemingly unrelated ingredients came to be part of the same line of thought. Maybe due to my dad’s recent revisiting of E.T. Maybe due to that movie’s place at the center of my childhood. Maybe due to Jackson’s own controversial association with childhood. The fact is they all converged to get me to take time out to think and write about MJ.
Michael Jackson was not a fully realized person to me. No surprise there. The more iconic one becomes the more they’re likely to be shunned from this we call the real world. We’re not equipped to see beyond the billboard cutout, the dancing image on TV, the singing voice we eventually learn to drown out. At the end of a career such as his, as long and visually versatile as his, what remains is the image, split into 1,000 versions. The little boy I found myself staring at on a magazine cover, the gloved one, the many results of plastic surgery.
‘It’s naïve to believe that our image is only an illusion that conceals our selves, as the one true essence independent of the eyes of the world. The imagologues have revealed with cynical radicalism that the reverse is true: our self is a mere illusion, ungraspable, indescribable, misty, while the only reality, all too easily graspable and describable, is our image in the eyes of others. And the worst thing about it is that you are not its master. First you try to paint it yourself, then you want at least to influence and control it, but in vain: a single malicious phrase is enough to change you forever into a depressingly simple caricature.’
(Immortality - Milan Kundera)
What ultimately remains at this distance (ours from him) is the image. The image is the anchor that gives us the illusion of knowledge. In the case of Michael Jackson, there were simply too many. Several Michaels spread along a four-decade timeline. Looking at that boy, the one that started it all and held such promise, not only artistically but personally as we all do, I felt sad. It had finally sunk in.
While looking for pictures for this post, I chanced upon an image I’d call my favorite of his. An image that has been a favorite of mine for a while now, regardless of whom is at its center. That of eyes looking up at a movie screen. I’ve been inspired by, written and posted about it. It reduces us to children… sparkling eyes looking up at the prospect of an unveiling - yet another little piece of the world revealed. That’s sort of the way I’ve always looked at movies… with those same wide spongy eyes.
[Click on the thumbnail for a larger view]
He sat in the dark just as we do. He was here just as we are.
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Michael Jackson, RIP, E.T., writing, thoughts, Henry Thomas, words, memory, names, sentences, childhood, child, movies, image, Kundera, Immortality, distance, iconic, dark, movie theater, photos, film, Thriller, popcorn
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