Only anarchists are pretty...

Like the rest of the world, I was shocked yesterday to learn of Michael Jackson's passing. As I watched the hype late into the night (every news channel was running nonstop MJ coverage, and MTV was even playing MJ videos - I can't remember the last time I saw a video on MTV), I was reminded of when I wrote about appreciating art as a reflection of its time, even if that time was focused on ideas we find anathema now. In a similar sense, the death of Michael Jackson resurfaces a question I've thought about extensively, namely this: Can you separate the art from the artist? In a sort of inverse of the old love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin axiom, can you love the art and hate (or perhaps simply dislike, or get squicked out by) the artist?

I think the answer has to be yes, you can respond to art without liking the artist. I think Phil Spector is an abusive, murdering arsehole, but I love the Wall of Sound style he created back in the 60s. I have no doubt that Roman Polanski raped a girl back in 1977, but I've quite enjoyed some of his films (Rosemary's Baby, Bitter Moon and The Ninth Gate come to mind). In the same vein, while I think it's never been clear what actually happened between Michael Jackson and the children with whom he surrounded himself, I do think that something did happen. Call it intuition, call it legal knowledge (the fact that the victims came forward at all is pretty strong evidence - being a victim of sexual abuse of any kind in our legal system is no picnic), something was up. But I still listened to and enjoyed his music, even after all of the abuse allegations came out. I can separate the art from the artist.

One of the earliest MJ memories I have is of being in grade school, and just about to start a new school year at a new school. Mum jane3tis knew that I was nervous, and so she told me on the morning of the first day of school that I could pick out a record (yes, vinyl) to listen to to put me in a good mood. I picked Off The Wall, which is still arguably my favorite MJ solo album. I also remember scrawling my school folders and such with "Michael Jackson" and "Thriller" when that came out in 1982, and trying (and failing miserably) to moonwalk. I remember being amazed at the man's reinvention capability with "Smooth Criminal" came out, and again when "Scream" was released. And of course, I have always loved just about everything the Jackson 5 did.

And so, in tribute, I offer you ( my favorite MJ songs: )

Note that "Dirty Diana" did NOT make the list. People started singing that song to me the instant it came out (when I was in junior high), and they still haven't stopped. I do not thank you for that, MJ. ;)

I've posted a picture of the finished sketch Michael drew (from the previous work in progress). I really like it.

I'm happy to report that M is drawing again - something he has always been particularly talented at doing. I have uploaded a photo of a work in progress he sent me yesterday below. I think his drawing, in terms of control and motor skills, has made progress indeed.

M continues with his outpatient therapy, and continues to get better every day.

-Some complete and utter tool vandalized the Bean.

-Why is it that people in the top tier of government can't ever seem to get their taxes done correctly (i.e., Tom Daschle)? Here's a good rule of thumb: If you think there is any chance, ever, of getting appointed/elected to some type of office, have a good accountant go over your finances with a fine-toothed comb. I know people miss things on their taxes. I know we don't all include what we should on our taxes. But seriously, at that level? Get a damned decent accountant. That's not fucking rocket science, folks.

-Need something new to read in the area of finance? Tired to death of the main newspapers and magazines (Financial Times, Forbes, etc.)? Here is your salvation: Duff McKagen, of GnR fame, is now a financial columnist at Playboy. Read him and weep.

-R.I.P. Lux Interior. You will be missed.

-Friday: Stopped in to see the Polaroid Art Show at Country Club Chicago. Lovely work, waxmuse! Then stopped into Debonair Social Club for La Dolce Vita's set. Some dude from 123out took my picture with girlvii:



Despite my smiling mug, I was feeling pretty meh, I must note, so I did not dance like a fiend, but instead headed home before 1 a.m.

-Saturday: Went to the Chicago premiere of Kings of the Evening at the Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the 14th Annual Black Harvest International Festival of Film and Video. The film stars my friend, the immensely talented Linara Washington. I thought it was a good film, and Linara's performance was, as always, top notch (Tyson Beckford's performance, on the other hand...). Anyway, you can go see the film on Thursday night at the Siskel Film Center, should you be so inclined. Hung out with Linara a bit after the showing, then headed up to Metro for Nocturna. Yes, a well-rounded evening, indeed. And I wore an outfit that I have worn before this summer, such that the outfit has now been to a wedding, a rockabilly gig, a film premiere and a goth night. True versatility.

-Sunday: Was spent with a book and old Gene Kelly movies.



Also, the light on my ceiling was red, probably from the curtains, but I was liking the effect:



And now I'm back at the office, and tired because I didn't sleep well last night, alas.

Take a gander at Mistress C's artwork, which I had a chance to check out Friday at an art show:





Pretty cool, eh? The things you can do with broken glass...

After checking out The Bird and The Bee at Schubas on Friday night (a fun, if totally packed to ridiculous proportions, gig), the rest of the weekend was spent in, reading and compiling this year's D List.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been searching for the perfect oxford for months, now. And I finally found it, in the unlikeliest of places: ( Shoes, if you please )

Finally, all you Michiganders should go vote today, even if your primary's all mucked up (I am still confused as to exactly what the hell happened there). Vote for bitching rights, at the very least.

...when all I want to do is stay home and read. (What? I know that's pretty much always true. Shut up.)

But seriously folks, it's hot and sticky out, the sky is consistently threatening rain that won't even cool anything off, and work's rather slow. So the books call to me. Also all the magazines with their mega-September issues. Because you know what's in September, right? Right, my birthday (celebrations for which will be at Panic this year, how fitting). Also autumn, hopefully. And autumnal fashions. It's hard to concentrate with visions of new boots and sweaters and tweed dancing in your head.

Speaking of autumn, I bought some prints from one of my favorite artists, Lewis Barrett Lehrman. These are the 3 I got (all images are copyright Lewis Barrett Lehrman):


Does Anyone Still Live Up At Dead Man's Point?
This one reminds me of Rebecca or Jane Eyre or similar.


The Enduring Mysteries Of The McPike Mansion
A real Illinois haunted house!


There's Always A Vacancy at Hauntley House
I just love this one. I had it as my computer desktop wallpaper all last fall.

The thing I love about Lehrman's work (and indeed most of the work to which I find myself responding), is that I have a longing to step into the painting. So if you like spooky scenes, check out his work. He gave me a coupon for a deal on 2 more prints when these were shipped to me (matted really nicely, too), so now I just might have to get more.

Go on, call me goth all you want, I know what I like. :)

Days like today are enough to make one want to quit the rat race forever. It's warm, it's breezy, it's not at all humid, there is nothing very pressing going on at the office, and still I'm stuck here. Makes it so hard to come back from lunch. I've been having moments of what-if this week. What if I just got on a different bus and rode it till the end? What if I just didn't make it to work today? What if I just knocked off early? What if I ran away with the fairies?



Midsummer Eve by Edward Robert Hughes

Things to be glad about today:

-I'm leaving early to check out the Cezanne to Picasso exhibit at the Art Institute. Not only do I get to soak up some art, I get to hang out with C.

-My office is closed Monday for President's Day.

-I'm working from home Tuesday.

-Thus I've got 4 days away from the office coming. Much needed, this.

Things to be annoyed about today:

-The cold.

-The way I let myself be influenced by the moods/criticisms/etc. of others. I started off today in a good mood, and now I'm in no mood to do anything.

Yeah, the cocktails I'm going to consume later are sounding pretty good right now...

...photography is art, and one of my favorites, to be sure. I've even tried my hand at trying to capture that perfect evening light:





Nah, I'm not any good, but at least I can appreciate a visual. Like my icon, which was taken by girlvii.

I just entered Drench in another writing contest, this time one by Glimmer Train Press (I suppose I'll have to take it off my site if by some freak of nature I win the contest, so read it while you can - see, that's optimism). Drench is one of my favorite of my stories, and one that's close to my heart, so I'm going to keep sending it out until I find someone out there who likes it enough to publish it. Never give up, right? courts828 wrote once about a guy who had 79 rejections before his short story was finally published. So I think I should give my stories a few more tries before packing it in. It can be hard, though. Writing and trying to get published are inherently egotistical activities, assuming that what one has to say is important and that others should read it. Thus it sort of hurts that much more to be rejected, and it's quite a knock to one's self-esteem. Why should anything I say be read by anyone? Especially stuff that's already been rejected before? But I have to believe that if it was important enough to me that it had to come out of me, had to be recorded on a page just right, then maybe someone else might like to read it, too. That's all art, isn't it? If it's so important to create it, than it's probably important enough to share.

I started a new story last night, one inspired by a dream. Good thing I keep a notebook next to my bed. Stories inspired by my dreams always seem quite real to me, as the dream did. I feel like I'm in a place I've been when I'm in the story, and it's my job to try to convey it as well as I can so others can be there, too. I'm not sure quite where this story is going to go yet, but it was nice to get some words down. I wonder if I can take it in a direction to make it suitable for the Fairy Tale Review, because I really like the idea of that magazine and would love to submit something to them. Hmmm...

I was talking to a couple of random guys at the bar Friday night about writing, and one said to me that I was more of a real writer than he was because I write every day, even though he's been published. I don't know about that, but it was kind of nice to hear, regardless.

Sometimes (often) our favorite books (or plays, or films, etc.) from the past reflect the ignorance of their times. Does this make them any less good? I tend to agree with the author of that post that The Merchant of Venice is still a great work, though it clearly portrays Shylock (and thus, Jews in general) in a bad light. I do think, however, that Shylock, Portia, even Othello, whilst written in and reflecting a time that saw minorities and women as inferior, still manage as characters to be ahead of those times. For certainly, real minorities and women who weren't characters in Shakespeare's plays were treated far worse than his characters were.

I also find this debate interesting in terms of other pop culture. One of my favorite movies is White Christmas. (FYI: the song White Christmas first appeared in Holiday Inn from 1942, a film that is far more blase about its racist times, with Bing Crosby appearing in blackface for a song that supposedly celebrates the abolition of slavery.) One year, I watched White Christmas with a friend who'd never seen it, after I'd gone on about how great it was, how funny Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye's interactions were, how great the songs and dancing were, etc. She was fine with the film until the big "Mandy" number, at the beginning of which a scrim with a caricature of a couple of vaudivillian performers, apparently in blackface, rises to reveal the set. Then she freaked out. "Oh my God, that's so racist! How can you like this movie?!" I had to admit, before that I'd never even noticed whatever was drawn on the scrim, because it's only on screen for a few seconds before going into the musical number. But more than that, I thought it was important to note that the film was made in 1954. Like it or not, that was before the Civil Rights Movement really got going (Brown v. Board of Ed was decided that year, starting the ball rolling, but the changes hadn't truly started happening), and the U.S., Hollywood included, was still pretty racist. Does that make the entire movie evil? Or just a reflection of its times? And how do we react to it either way?

I feel that you can enjoy the value of a work without accepting the prejudices of the time in which it was created. You can say: that line, that story, that song, was really great, but fuck all that racist/sexist/whateverist shit that was in there. And I also think that creative works are a measure of their times, and are thus valuable as historical records. It's important to acknowledge that women and minorities were seen as inferior by almost everyone in Shakespeare's time. It's important to acknowledge that we had a long way to go in terms of equality in 1954. And it's good to be able to compare creative works from those times to those in modern times, to see how far we've come (and probably how far we still have to go). What good does it do to shut your eyes and pretend such things never existed? What can anyone learn from that?

Shylock is portrayed by Shakespeare as an awful stereotype of a Jew. But Shakespeare still wrote these immortal lines for him: "To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."

C works at the Art Institute, and consequently gets some lovely perks. One of which is that she can sometimes take friends through exhibits before they open. Last night she took S, girlvii and I to the members preview of Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre.

This is one of the best exhibits I've seen, and certainly one to which I could relate. The paintings and lithographs evoked a joy in life through the subjects (dancers, artists, brothels, patrons) and use of color. I got the feeling that, though life for many in the Paris of the late 1800s must have been hard, one could escape into Montmartre if one had enough money for a bit of drink, an appreciation for dance, music and spectacle, and a liberal attitude. The overall theme of living life with joy that I felt was intensified by the fact that Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec managed to get so much living and art in before his death at age 36.

Afterward we stopped into Trader Vic's for a cocktail, and reveled in the Brady-Bunch-in-Hawaii-episode feel of the place. I stuck to a fairly tame rum drink (rum, pineapple juice, and grenadine served frozen) because I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the hell the rest of the drinks were supposed to contain. The descriptions ran along the lines of: "a mysterious drink" or "this one packs a punch" - dude, just tell me what the hell's IN the thing.

And now it's Friday, and it has, in fact, been a long time coming...