Tuesday, July 7, 2009

And the Winner Is


Mary, from Finding Joy in Simple Things has won a signed copy of my friend Vicki Forman's fantastic new memoir This Lovely Life. If you didn't win, don't waste any more time-- go buy, borrow or perhaps even steal (just teasing) this book. It's life-changing. Really.

Thank you to all for commenting on my blogaversary and for all your wise words and support each time I post!


On another note, and I feel like I should make this writing very very small, but I felt almost sick to my stomach all day watching and then thinking about the Michael Jackson memorial. Call me an iconoclast, but the amount of hoopla around the death of this man was obscene. The helicopters, the traffic, the non-stop coverage, the tearful speeches, the aggrandizement, the sermonizing -- well, it just made me feel incredibly low and depressed. I am a fan of MJ -- or was, before he died twenty years ago. I saw the Jackson 5 and at least four other solo concerts growing up in Atlanta. I get that he was a talented superstar and also deeply troubled. What bothered me most about today, I think, was the feeling that so many of those who spoke had been a part of the man's demise, the gradual whittling away of soul and personhood that we all witnessed as he cut up his face, changed his skin color, his voice, his hair, his persona. I mean -- what the hell happened to him and who watched and allowed it to? I think it was these same sycophants who stood up on the stage today, in front of his glittering coffin and the sad spectacle of his brothers, ridiculously outfitted with those sequined gloves.

12 comments:

  1. i absolutely agree with you! not that i watched any of it. everytime i see the headlines in the news, it just makes me look away. it's like the public is craving something grand, something bigger than life. and then it's being created out of this, of mj. so sad.

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  2. Isn't it strange that not so long ago the same public was quick to call him a pedophile pervert? Now, some idiots have gone as far as calling him a "new Jesus". He's left his family destitute as well. Bizarre in the extreme.

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  5. My dad sent me this article, and I think it speaks to a lot of what was making some of us sick to our stomachs.

    Bob Herbert in the NY Times

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  6. It was...yes, obscene is the only way to put it.

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  7. Yes, I'm with you there!! I just didn't watch.. the whole thing has made me ill too. It is impossible for me to see him as the saint he is now made out to be..he had become a very troubled man. I too have wondered..where were the folks who loved him in all his pain? I guess I prefer to remember him as he was years ago and chalk the rest up to being human. The whole thing just made me very sad!!
    On a happier note - I'm off to look for the book!! Hugs, Sarah

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  8. Amen! You're not the only one who feels that way. Why don't we see the same public demonstration for real heroes and victims?

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  9. Thanks for posting that. And it was certainly disturbing, if only for the strange performative grief, which just feels wrong. We don't have this kind of send off for our leaders, it feels like. I'm not into the Reagan hagiography at all, but I don't think there was coverage like this for him, and he was a President.

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  10. i agree. its a wierd feeling i have about his death. sorta sad, sorta creeped out, sorta want to eye roll, but sorta feel so sorry for him. i think he was really messed up from childhood, but it wasnt his fault. its like, i feel about his death the way i felt about him in life - confused, torn, and wondering why the media circus...
    may he rest in peace - a peace im not sure he had in life...

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  11. See, one of the advantages of not watching current tv or listening to the news OR reading the papers (what's wrong with me?) is that I barely knew he died.

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  12. I think I can count myself as lucky! Sequestered in Amsterdam without a TV, I didn't see a single image. You brought it to life for me with your description, and I'm not sorry I missed it.

    Your friend's book looks beautiful!

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