While TMZ and Gawker are reporting that Michael Jackson is dead, I wish to point out that there has been no official confirmation of his death. I spoke with Craig Harvey of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office and he informed me that there was no official confirmation of his death as of 3:00 PM Pacific Time. The person who is legally obligated to confirm the death is Jackson’s physician. And as of yet, there has been no official announcement.
UPDATE: As of 3:15 PM Pacific Time, the Los Angeles Times reports that Michael Jackson is dead after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma.
UPDATE 2: Michael Jackson’s death confirmed by AP (as picked up by The New York Times). (Thanks for the minor correction, vidiot.)
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
The definitive face of the 1980s… sadly.
Hey Steven, nice going. I hope everyone’s a huge fucking dick about his death.
Damn, I though Traci Lords was the definitive face of the 80s. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Like I said before: Steven Augustine is the best known troll on the internet. The fact that I even know your name is quite a feat, dipshit.
It’s just like being attacked by Zizek!
CTR:
It’s slightly ironic that between the two of us, I’m not the one hiding behind a non-name, or tossing ad hominems at someone who was heretofore unaware of my existence, or posting comments with zero-content (if you ignore the animus)… and yet you’re calling *me* a “troll”. And “dipshit” is not exactly a Leavisite vocabulary word.
But, sure, I’ll take you as a kind of stalker/twisted fan.
More Trolling to Piss Off the Facile and Credulous
I was impressed by Quincy Jones using MJ as an example of a hard-working artist in his concept of “ass power” (writers called it Sitzfleisch, I guess) given in Nelson George’s “City Kid”:
“To illustrate his point, Q compared Michael Jackson to another well-known vocalist he’d produced [I'm pretty sure Nelson can't name Chaka Khan here for legal reasons]. The other singer, an artist with an immense voice and an insatiable appetite for cocaine, would come to the studio, maybe lay down a scratch vocal, and then wander off for hours. Jackson, in contrast, would come into the studio, record a lead vocal, work on the stacked vocal harmonies that distinguished his work, and practice where to place those ad-libs that were his trademark.
“His ass power,” Q said, “would keep him in the studio until he felt he accomplished something that day. That ability to focus, to stay in that chair in the studio, listening to playback and then going back in to record some more — that’s what separates the good from the great.”
As someone who discovered Michael Jackson when I was in my late teens and he was a little boy of 8 or 9, I think he was truly great.
Steven, you’re probably spot on with what is and is not a Leavisite vocabulary word, but you pretty much seem like a fucking dipshit.
Shane:
A stinging rebuke from a dude whose opinion matters to me. Um, will you be stalking me *with* CTR, from now on, or will you be replacing him?
Nice Little Kitsch-Antidote
‘Waaah, I don’t care about your dumb opinion.’ Sorry for choosing to point out that you’re being a prick. It’s pretty low hanging fruit compared to your succinct and brave dismantling of a modern deity.
Steven, Shane, CTR: Enough. Cool it.
The whole word pays tribute to Michael Jackson’s death.
Michael Jackson would always be the best popstar ever. i love all his songs and his live concerts.
*
I remember this day…my phone was blowing up with people spreading the news. I’ve never been a huge MJ fan, I admire what he did for music. And I like some of his songs, but that’s about it.
-Natasha