Does This Make Any Sense?

Continuing from yesterdays entry and CK's question:

 Does this make any sense?

TB:

It makes absolute sense. He could bludgeon people or the media would have crucified him even further.

 

King of Pop.....profound messages hidden under glorious music....very subversive. People are really just beginning to recognize how subversive it really was.

EB:

Dare I hit send on this? 

 

And to me my dear, that is one of the reasons he was "killed".  He was too powerful for the status quo and they truly feared His waking of the masses.  Just look at the History Tour with all the flags and the words "harmony".  Stay quiet black man, we couldn't destroy you with lies, you got up from our knock out punch, just    don't come back and start that awakening stuff again.  But He did because "they" really could not control Him.  He Himself was his greatest asset worth more than any thing he owned.  Our beautiful liberator knew what he was doing all those years but many people could only see the song and dance.  Yes my dear Theresa he was very subversive but he was being studied and watched by the world controllers.  I only wish he had protected himself better in the end.

 

TB:

I am glad you hit send

 

 

 

From MJ On The Bed to "Escapism"

TB:
We really need to get our blogs going. We are dang good.

CK:

...she says modestly!

LOL

Now as to the definition of "escapism" as MJ used it and Willa interpreted it - I need to go back and catch up on several DWTE posts coz I unfortunately missed that one in the midst of the chaos of my last three months.

I understand what you mean - great art as time & space converging in one singular moment to pop you OUT of your present reality and into - somewhere else.

Yes. Great art does indeed do that - it's transcendent, it reaches part of the brain that isn't really altogether under your control, it can work subtly or BANG slap you full on. It can knock you down like a tornado or seep in gently like summer rain through cracks you didn't even know you had in your consciousness. It takes you away from your known reality. If you're lucky. If you allow it. Though again it isn't always your choice. I think MJ had his finger on the pulse of a type of escapism that he himself experienced through great art and wanted to share with everyone somehow. And man, he had the ammunition to take us away like few others before him. And none after.

I picture him onstage as that convergent point in time and space and energy, where stars and galaxies and atoms and whirlwinds suddenly collide and take form. He was a blinding example of "star seed" personified - that which we all are and were made to feel along with him.

The attachment says it all.  <photo below>

RB:

A picture's worth a thousand, eh? Beautiful being.

Well yes, Willa was saying that by "escapism" MJ meant escaping the bounds of space and time--the shackles that hold us in this version of "reality." Great art makes those borders disappear. And it's indeed "like magic" as MJ would say in his entirely appropriate but childlike way. Suddenly we are one with everything and everyone that ever was. I think I sent you guys NJ's account of the energy at MJ's Bad and Victory concerts she attended--how it all felt like a "religious" experience? Same thing.

On my list to read this summer is an NPR-reviewed book about how "today's world" more and more suppresses right-brain processes and promotes left-brain ones. Author posits that our very humanness resides in the right brain. It's the part that is less concrete, less about measurement and more about integration, synthesis, and intuition. It's the only part that's in the least bit interested in or capable of connecting us to something greater than the sum of a bunch of parts. This book makes me think of MJ as well as what I consider to be really going wrong with the world.

I'm not sure you can experience escaping space and time and connecting with the Universe even momentarily if you're strictly stuck in the left brain

CK:

Sounds like Willa and I - and you & MJ - are all on the same page here about great art and "escapism" - I look forward to reading that particular post. As I do all her posts. I wish I could comment in some meaningful way on the site about what she says - I simply don't feel adequate.

The book you are planning to read sounds fascinating too, RB - I look to your example and hope to inject my daily life with more time to read once I get moved. I want to slow down for a few months before I choose my next creative expression (which hopefully will make me a living!)...

BTW there is nothing I enjoy more than seeing a left-brain person of my acquaintance come up against an experience that does transcend all things concrete, rational and practical - that journey (or struggle depending on level of resistance) is endlessly fascinating and I think that's why I ended up in the arts in the first place. Reality as a concept often has little meaning for me. People talk about reality as if it were the experience itself but too often they are only describing the trappings...

Whoever took that photo deserves an award of some sort - I just love it.

Besides the instant recognition of the body and hair, besides the beauty of his long and expressive open arms, besides the hint you the viewer gets of standing alone on a darkened stage facing a vast sea of faces and eyes all riveted on the same man, under the more profound vastness of space and stars... there is the sense that he glows from within and is actually the source of the light around him rather than the target of many spotlights from out there somewhere... which is just plain satisfying to my soul.

RB:

This picture has been heavily worked over, I think--looks almost like a painting--to good effect, though.

Another one I want as a huge poster!

CK:

Now girrrl - don't go gettin' all nit-picky when I'm waxing poetic here, yano?? Sheesh!

jkjk

If any digital enhancement HAS been added, it still started out as a brilliant photograph.

Serendipity traveled with the tours, I think.

Or more likely MJ created his own serendipity!! LOL

HC:

CK, your trail mix is mega healthy compared to the snacks I eat. When I read that as being your slip up or the green tea ice cream..... girrrrrrl if you knew what I ate for snacks you'd scold me harder than you just scolded miss Tania here! I got cookie dough flavored ice cream downstairs with cookie dough ribbons and chunks and choco chips too. And doritos. And Doctor P. But shshhshshhshsshhhh i didn't even wanna say nothin' cuz I know what your reaction's gonna be!!

 

^ CK.

Oh, and I had KFC for dinner and ice cream cake for dessert today waaaahhh!

 

CK:

LOL!!! Oh THANK you HC for that fabulous gif!!! <it was a gif, now it's a photo>

I love me my Maestro (especially when he gets all manly tough-guy and stuff) yuuuuuummmyyy

(Not easy to do in long hair and a frilly shirt, I might add! LOL)

Honey - you eat what you wanna eat, darlin' - it's your body and you get to feed it exactly what you want! Calories are calories whether from trail mix and green tea ice cream or KFC and cookie dough ice cream.Which is why I'm still a chubette in spite of my good intentions.

I don't aim to convert ANYBODY - takes more energy than I have to spare anyhoo.

 

I must point out though, that the noted and unusual health of MJ's arteries (no plaque) and the good condition of his heart according to the autopsy <sigh> can only be in part due to his long years of healthy eating (vegetarian at times and calorie-restriction when he chose to fast) and very active physicality. I think it's too late for me, but maybe not for you youngsters.

We can learn from that too.

 

HC:

 

 

oooooh I love Maestro too. All the time, any time he can come and "scare" me.

 

I must say too I am usually pretty good with how I eat but it was my stepgrandma's birthday so we had lots of goodies about but normally I don't eat too much of that. I grew up eating wholesome homemade meals too so now that I'm grown I treat myself to junk food from tim to time since I didn't have it as a youngster. (which is a good thing) everybody should be careful I think but it's also okay to have treats sometimes! MJ always loved to have some KFC himself. Too much makes me sick anyhow.

CK:

Hee hee! loveitloveitloveit

And then right after those two faces, when he gets REAL INTENSE....

Go Maestro! Go Maestro! Go Maestro!

Sock their knockers off!

 

HC:

I think I need to watch Ghosts again. Just sayin'. I've been feeling a want, NO, A NEEEEEEEED, to watch it lately.

CK:

Funny you should say that -

MJStar sent out the link to the VH1 "Making Of" special this morning - which I had to stop and watch again coz I needed it bad - If you haven't downloaded this little gem, make sure you do coz there's so much meat there.

I just ADORE his scenes in his trailer as The Mayor when he's speaking in his own deep voice and spouting profound about dance...

Shoot, I adore everything in it.

So awesome too to see his body in the "performance capture" mode when they animated the skeleton - his moves are so specific and clean, made even more so by the skin-tight catsuit he had to wear. All that gaming video he shot was great rehearsal for that animation process. (Needed a booty shot though - would have been breathtaking!!)

Again he leaves me shaking my head when he describes his intention in Ghosts as simply fun entertainment -

 

Thanks to the recent brilliant reminder by Willa and Joie on Dancing With The Elephant, we know there was so much more to it, and more to discover as we watch it many more times. I want more "behind the scenes" footage and pray that the Estate can come up with something a little faster than 25 years later...

 

RB:

WHY do you believe MJ downplayed his intent with Ghosts and other things, CK? Willa made an interesting observation recently about what she believes MJ meant when he used the word "escapism"--it was really about time and space coming together at a single point--something great art can do. She interprets his otherwise somewhat vapid, "escapism is what they want"...

 

CK:

Well - regarding Ghosts in particular, while I shake my head in wonder, I also think that MJ realized full well that he could not make a polemic out of any creation of his that contained a message, however subtle, concerning his personal struggles against racial bias, lies from the media and "fear of the different".

If he introduced it as a "message" piece, a harangue against the prejudices he had faced, against bullying and name-calling, it would have been a hard sell to get anyone to look at the film. The critics would have reviewed it with claws out and it was too gentle a piece to get that kind of treatment. He was wise to market it the way he did AND LET THE MESSAGE SELL ITSELF, allow the subtext to seep in to the consciousness of the people who "got it" and "got him", spread by word of mouth (which I think it did) and give a more enticing gateway to get the viewer to look at it.

"Come see a fun piece of fluff by the King Of Pop! See state-of-the-art special effects that have never been done before! Laugh! Sing! Dance! Cry!"

It's always harder to sell a moral.

He reserved his polemics for social issues (Man In The Mirror, Earth Song) but I think also knew that too heavy a hand might possibly turn off many viewers he was trying to reach. He had to rope them in first using his own wonderful music and his own personal magnetism, and hope that the respect and love he had earned around the world would do the rest of the work.

A gentle and loving, somewhat restrained, but very concerned messenger to the end.

Does this make any sense?

 

RB:

It makes complete and utter sense, Chris. I get it now. Perfect sense! It belongs in a blog.