Three Score & Four

Today is the 64th anniversary of my parents' wedding.  My Uncle Fisk officiated the ceremony.  His wife, my Aunt Grace, was there.

They are all four deceased.

Yet, today, I find myself fondly recalling them all.  And, that can be a tremendous comfort to an otherwise aching realization of how long they have been removed from among the living.  And though it can be written off as cliche, I find that telling anecdotes of their wit and adventures and good-natured deeds brings them back to me and to others.  In some small, but reassuring way, that keeps them near.

The Sound of a Crescendo

My iPod offered up Michael Jackson’s "Leave Me Alone" the other day.  And now the opening chords keep replaying in my mind.  And the jaunty chorus, replete with images from the music video.

It’s been more than two years since the announcement of Jackson’s death and the blitz of media coverage that followed.

While I was in college, a friend coaxed me into drawing a portrait of Michael for the wall above her bed.  She had the specific dimensions in mind, having already purchased a frame that suited the sensibilities of her college student chic motif.  She defined the medium (pen and ink) and chose the subject -- but allowed me the hallowed artistic license with regard to concept and composition.

I'd just painted the Queensryche's OPERATION: MINDCRIME logo on the back of a denim jacket (high-vogue, I know) for a buddy and was a little reticent to be on the hook again for someone else's artistic whimsy.   But, hey, I was in college, too.  A bag of potatoes and peanut butter sandwiches lose their tummy-tempting allure after so many weeks.  And I figured some cash in the pocket could translate to food in the fridge.

So, after a brief period of hesitation, I set about the task.  Soon after I began the piece, she left school, and I never heard from her again.  I remained unpaid, so the piece consequently remained unresolved.  Spurred by the tides of the 24-hour news cycle I recently unearthed the drawing, nearly two decades after I began it.

It wasn't like the man had not made music (and music videos) that peppered the years of my life.  At the time, he had not descended into the tabloid fodder, courtroom circus, and plastic surgery mishap that now defines him to younger people.  And by younger, I mean those who did not live through the infectiousness of Off the Wall, the omnipotence of Thriller, the tour de force of Bad.

"He was a dynamo," I tell these kids.  "Hit after hit.  He influenced what people wore and how they danced."

"He's a freak," they rejoin.  A familiar chorus from those who know him only from the days he was topping Internet headlines and not Billboard charts.

He was a powerhouse of pop hits, a cultural event, a consummate showman, and the Fred Astaire of Motown.  Even if you can't stand him, the facts (e.g., charts and sales) speak for themselves.  Of course, all of that has since been tainted by allegations of pedophilia and the public transmutation to a racially vague androgyne.  He was a monster to some, a deity to others, and a bank to many.

The exuberant and playful vocals of his Off The Wall tracks gave way to the visceral catcalls, verbal ticks, and syncopated grunts that marked the era of his affected sour-faced macho posturing, as if to plead:  "I'm so vulgar that you have to be convinced of my manliness."

Thus, he was King of Pop and King of Paradox.  It seemed as though he wanted to physically become Diana Ross -- maybe her alter ego, Dirty Diana.  Later, he verged on a black-wigged Carol Channing or drug-addled, Glaaaadiatorrr-spewing Elizabeth Taylor.  His famous Peter Pan Syndrome became less first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-'til-morning and more a darker fantasy of wealth and self-loathing.

In the end, for me, it seems healthiest to brush all those perceptions aside.  Perhaps his greatest transformation was not his surgically altered physical appearance, or the frequent video theme of Michael-becomes-panther/Michael-becomes-giant-robot/Michael-becomes-werewolf/Michael-becomes-sand/Michael-becomes-theme-park/Michael-becomes-sexual-entity sequence.  Perhaps his greatest transformation was via his influence on music and its byproduct, music videos...and possibly the single, sequined glove industry.

The Long Now and the Eventual When

The Clock of the Long Now ticks ever closer to existence.  It is back in the news again.

I blogged about it long ago (The Blog of the Long Now).  But, it is laughable and quaint to think of last November as a long time ago, when considering the expansive longevity proposed by those at the Long Now Foundation who envision the clock tracking time for millennia to come.

It seems there's a new location for the 10,000-year clock, courtesy of benefactor Jeff Bezos (of amazon.com fame).  Excavation has begun at a West Texas site north of Van Horn, where Bezos owns land around his secretive Blue Origin spaceport.  Builders are drilling an access tunnel to the location deep in the earth where the clock will mark the progress of time for thousands of years.

The audacity of this project is quickly realized if you attempt think back 10,000 years ago and imagine a device, structure, or mechanism that might abide the slow march of time to present day.