MJ

I've been thinking about Michael Jackson today. His passing last month has brought him back from the dead and he is everywhere. Why, just yesterday there was a flash mob event here in Montreal with choreography and everything.

It's like a musical! But in real life! I was sad I missed it until I read in The Gazette that there's another one being held this Sunday, location TBD.

Funny how he's gone from pariah to lamented genius. I suppose you could chalk it up to widespread hypocrisy. But I think it's something different than that, or something more nuanced. In recent years the charges against him, and his overall weirdness, overshadowed the music. In death it's been reversed. It's easier to remember him as who he was before he got all pale and freaky now that he can't get any paler or freakier. And then there were the crimes he allegedly committed. Bodily crimes. As long as he continued to exist in body, it was hard to get beyond his violation of social taboo. Hard to appreciate the transcendent in a man who came to embody pervy weirdness.

Now he's gone. Free of the body, all we have left is the transcendent.

Earlier today I happened to stumble across a great remix by DJ Z-Trip. I defy you to sit still while listening to it.

Long live MJ!