Sally Bloodbath did
a lovely comic about her childhood memories of Michael Jackson*. I know there's been a glut of stories everywhere regarding him and you're probably sick to death of it all, but I encourage you to read it. I myself am overfull of the media, especially because as
Jon Lajoie points out [lots of naughty words!], so much of it is the complete opposite of what they were saying when he was alive. ["'Oh, it's so sad that Michael passed away--we loved him so much.' Really, really--did you love him? Because from where I'm standing, it kind of looked like you hated him and that you called him a freak and that you wanted him to die."]
Since I was so young when I loved him, I guess I sort of thought of it as something that I'd outgrew and not surprisingly, in the aftermath of his death, I've been digging back into that music and I won't lie. It still hurts when I think that I went so long taking it for granted and when I realize again that it's all gone. Because I've long believed that it's never too late to have a happy childhood, who now has their very own keyboard t-shirt a la the "Beat It" video? This girl. I may or may not also own this watch:
I saw
Funny People last night. I think the last hour and change dragged--the peanut butter game could've been cut, but thanks for the Boston terrier inclusion--but overall, I really liked it. I was struck by how lovely it was visually, but of course, when you've got Janusz Kamiński, that's to be expected. There was a mix of ages in the audience, unlike when I went to see
The Hangover and felt old as balls because I was seemingly the only person who could recognize Mike Tyson on sight. I did overhear a teenage girl in my row sigh, "This is the longest movie ever." I thought of Sátántangó and its 450 minutes of running time. But that's because I see too many movies.
We've been cleaning out things and finding some letters that have been very interesting. There was one that was dictated by my great-aunt, my grandfather's sister, and it sounds like a suicide note. It also sounds like the beginning of her paranoid schizophrenia. My mother remembers when they drove her to
the nervous hospital and that was a few years after this letter.
We also found a letter that must have been from one of my grandmother's pen pals. Apparently, they'd had an argument about something, because the letter (postmarked June 1965) is all about how the writer hopes that she and my grandmother can still be friends. Judging by context, the argument is over the civil rights movement. The friend says, "You've had the race problem shoved down your throat!!!"** The friend also writes, "My sister-in-law Barbara Massar went to Jackson, MS in May 1963 for CORE.
My brother, Ivan Jr, the photographer, went to Selma, Ala, just recently on a job for Black Star Agency--He and Barbara and Mother were among the 'Marchers to Montgomery.'" Finally, there is also the last letter my great-grandmother wrote to my grandfather before she died. He was at Fort Benning and she died before he got it. On the envelope, written in my grandfather's shaky cursive, it reads, "Take care of this for me."
After my grandfather got the phone call notifying him of her death, he refused to answer the phone. When I was a child, we worked out a secret code of rings, so he would know it was me. I don't know why, but I just remembered the time I got chicken pox and none of the parents on our street would let their children play with me. My mom drove us to this house, my grandparents' house and my grandfather greeted us in the driveway, lipstick pox marks all over his face. That also reminds me of something that happened the other day, but I'm going to save that for a locked entry, along with the other thing that I've still to tell.
It made me laugh when I was reading the NY Times article about the
New Antiquarians, because all that stuff just sounds like the stuff I grew up around and still have. Like the Andy Rooney piece about
his kitchen drawer. That's my drawer! I didn't even know what the strawberry destemmer was until I saw that bit. I was thinking about giving my room a Mad Men-over and so I poked around a few places online, before realizing that I can find all that stuff--rotary phones, old embossers, etc.--in my closets. I guess it makes sense that I'm so into history. I live in a time warp.
*God knows I too spent hours alone in my bedroom dancing. Also, the key change in "Man in the Mirror" always tears me up, too.
**My grandmother got into arguments over social issues that ended in her refusing to speak to people? That doesn't sound familiar at all.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
