Hi all.  Jon and I are are currently taking a break from the seeing of sights and the outdoors, which (finally) feel summery, but summery=hot.

All right, I am just going to get into it.  I loved Michael Jackson’s music.  Loved.  Until I was maybe 11 or 12 his music was what I associated with “popular” music.  I didn’t pay attention to Green Day or Nirvana or the Smashing Pumpkins or any of those bands.  Michael was it.  I remember the first time I saw the music video “Thriller,”–it was insane.  I was terrified but the dancing was so amazing. And even though the movie Moonwalker is fairly lame, it is worth it for the extended dance sequence to “Smooth Criminal,” which is one of the best dance sequences of all time in my opinion.  Captain Eo, the awesome 3-D movie at EPCOT directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring MJ and Anjelica Huston and a bunch of Jim Henson puppets and featuring music and choreography by MJ himself was the best thing at EPCOT, and I was so upset when it closed.  Regardless, here are the youtube clips of the entire thing:

HE SAVES THE WORLD WITH THE POWER OF SONG AND DANCE.  YOU CANNOT BEAT THAT.

When I was a sophomore in high school I made a movie as part of my Drama I course.  I called the film The Phantom of Funk.  Two girls, my friends Ashley and Sam, were chased through the auditorium by my friend Paul (the Phantom of Funk), a masked dancing man with a disco ball.  At the end of the film the Phantom revealed that all he wanted to do was show them the majestical power of dance.  The film had no dialogue but was set to a soundtrack of all MJ music from Off the Wall: “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and “Get on the Floor.”

I loved MJ’s music.  I know he got extremely weird, and may or may not have done inappropriate things to children, and screwed with his personal appearance, but his music in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was unsurpassable and made so many people happy.  The South African artist Candice Breitz came to UNC last fall and showed one of her video pieces: a montage of German people listening and singing and dancing along to MJ’s Thriller These people knew all the words, and the joy on their faces and in their bodies was undeniable.  The music MJ produced really altered the world in an extremely positive way.  We have lost a major, major icon of our culture.

In happier news, yesterday was barely a workday for me.  We had intern activities involving presentations of the Development and Education departments, both of which were far more interesting than I thought they’d be. Then it was lunchtime.  Theresa and I returned from lunch at 2:00, and at 3:00 there was a party in our office for the people working on the CDI project (the documentation project on which I am also working).  Since the files we are working on cannot be open around food, Theresa and I had to put our work away (also the party was literally at the table at which we work). By the time the party cleared out it was 4:30, and we leave around 5:00.  So minimal work was done.

A few pictures from the CDI Party:

Luckily it made the time pass quickly in terms of waiting for Jon to get here–also discovering the horrible news about MJ made the time pass quickly, but not in a good way. Last night Jon and I met up with Brad, Eddie Burgess (another friend from my Pine View days) and some of their friends at a Polish bar/restaurant in the East Village called Klimat.  I had pierogies, Jon had a burger.  We also met the man who initiated the Jeff-Goldblum-is-Dead-because-he-fell-off-a-set-in-New Zeland/Puerto Rico story (he isn’t dead, he’s fine, life finds a way).

Jon and I then went to Sundaes and Cones, an ice cream shop much loved by SeriousEats, where I got a scoop of taro and Jon got a scoop of mint chocolate chip.  I tried a sample of the corn flavor (tasted like corn of the cob, not unpleasant, but I didn’t think I could handle a scoop of it) and Jon tried the wasabi flavor, which he pronounced to taste like a “frozen version of the globby stuff they give you with sushi.”  Again, he went for the mint chocolate chip, so I guess he wasn’t that impressed.  We were, however, both impressed by our ice cream: very thick and very creamy, though I think I might like the version of taro at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory better.  Still, my ice cream was extremely purple, and you cannot argue with anything that is purple.

Today was busy: A walk in the party, burgers etc. at the UWS location of the Shake Shack, and a visit to the Natural History Museum.  You’ll have to hear about it tomorrow–we have dinner reservations at Flex Mussels.  In the meantime, I leave you with this picture of a picture of me at the Dan Graham opening.