Michael Jackson's legend

What can you say about our culture? You're checking in with the NBA draft, and suddenly an interview with Shaquille O'Neal begins with him offering condolences to the Jackson family. Huh? Then CNN and MSNBC have dueling helicopter shots on another helicopter waiting for a corpse to cross a parking lot to a coroner's office. It was the dark apotheosis of celebrity culture, the gross spectacle at the end of modern capitalism. But of course, it is also a human tragedy really (from many, many angles), and the passing of a great artist. I remember distinctly going to summer camp as a kid (this would have been '84, '85), and meeting new kids and figuring each others' likes and dislikes out. The consensus usually emerged that you really liked Jackson's music but were a bit creeped out by the guy himself. My generation had to grow up with an innate sense of awareness about how you compartmentalize culture. The music was ubiquitous, and legitimately brilliant, but it felt like it had been around forever to us -- he was already in the same category as Sinatra or the Beatles, which seemed to mean that he could be taken for granted. And "Jacko" himself was so hard to understand, and therefore so easy to mock. Of course, as the years went by, he just got harder to understand. And his sudden but perfectly predictable death just leaves a ton of questions we'll no doubt have decades to pick through. For example, I've always wondered who are all these people screaming and crying during his press conferences and outside the courthouses? What do they do with the rest of their time? And as much as I hate to say it, Al Sharpton made a good point Thursday (repeatedly, across many different media platforms, naturally) about how tons of people would put out statements about his passing, but where were all those people the day before? Indeed, that's what has been the most disturbing part of his ridiculous efforts to rehabilitate his image over the past 17 years. Was there no one to stop and tell him, "Wait a sec. This looks crazy!" Janet? Quincy? Elizabeth? Anyone? And these ill-conceived ideas were wildly compounded by the gleeful willingness of the media to go along with the circus, because freak-shows are terrific ratings. And what's worse, knowing his family and the ranks of sketchy hangers-on, it is perfectly clear that this is going to go on for a long time. The closest analogy has to be Elvis -- a historic early career, an embarrassing end, and decades of sordid gossip. But as with any pop cultural turning point, there is more to this than the cheap spectacle, something at the root that is very important and true. One afternoon in 1996 (or '97), I was hanging out at my favorite coffeeshop in Philadelphia with two close friends, talking about music. These guys were black, natives of Philly, and had an honest sense of patience and humor about race, and taught me an awful lot about black life and culture which I only learned about before through a mediated distance. But when I made a joke about Jackson -- something perfectly common about how weird and possibly criminal he was -- their faces went blank, and an actual chill seemed to come over them as they asked why I thought that was funny. I think that was the one time I can recall stumbling upon a racially awkward moment that I completely couldn't have foreseen. They explained to me about how they listened to their Jackson Five records until the grooves wore out, and about how much they meant to them and their parents and their families. They were aware of his substantial flaws, but regarded them with the resigned patience of a wayward family member. They then spent a long time reliving their favorites in earnest falsettoes, and joyfully imitating dance moves from the early days. So, I'll just think about that day as Michael Jackson's sad, contested legend continues. Now, what were we talking about a day ago? (Iran, I mean Iran. Not Jon and Kate, whoever they are.)

Happy Bloomsday!

Here's my 2006 editorial for the Eagle about our favorite literary holiday.

Iran's moment

Watching what is happening now in Iran is quite frustrating, because you realize the deep unknowability of what is happening there. Our current media environment is both very broad and very shallow, and presents the dangerous impression that we know what is happening, when in fact we don't. I often think about this in the context of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The other day, I had occasion to spend some time at Sawyer Library reading through the 1991 run of The New Republic. What's left of the historian in me loves spending time this way, and I always marvel at how things have changed. The first thing that struck me is the amount of writing about what was happening in Russia. There were detailed observations about changes in state news telecasts, about the ominous violence between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, about price changes in the markets and the splits between Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn in the dissident community. The coverage was extensive and informed, and overall pretty good and insightful. And yet, it was slightly off. Throughout the spring, writers frequently referred to "glasnost" in the past tense. There was a tenor that Gorbachev was pulling back from reform, as demonstrated by the growing number of perceived hardliners he was putting in place in the Kremlin. Of course, those reactionaries would lead a coup against him that August, whose failure sealed the fate of the Soviet Union once and for all. But no one could accurately see the ways that Gorbachev was being pressured from within, or just how dramatically the Russian people had moved away from the regime. These are the moments that force everything out into the open, and time will tell what the current unrest in Tehran says about the regime and its relationship with the people. From what I've read so far -- and I'm by no means an expert -- we've been hearing in the media for a long while about the Westernizing, reform-minded, young generation in Iran, and that demographics and political pressure suggested change was in the air. But what seemed to happen in the election is that the conservative "silent majority," with an assist from the authorities, have stepped in. It remains to be seen if this is going to be more like the August Coup or Tiananmen Square.

Stamp collecting

No matter how many times I go through it, no matter how many new holographic stickers my passport picks up, it seems I can't go through the process of getting a Russian visa without some sort of drama. This year's adventure is particularly painful: once we'd mapped out our summer plans, I managed to misread the (vaguely-worded) fine print about timing options, which caused a few days of real stress and turmoil around here. I think we survived this time -- but one is never certain you've succeeded until the landing-gear goes up on your return flight. Folks unfamiliar with the details of traveling to Russia are often astonished about what it takes. For example, no, as a matter of fact, being married to Russian citizen has not changed a single friggin' thing about our visa options. Even though we scaled the bureaucratic equivalent of Mount Everest by getting hitched in an official Russian ceremony, I still have to drudge through the visa regime like anyone else. And the tough part is that I, raised in full American "Don't Tread on Me" libertarian bliss, am incredibly bad at sorting through fearsome state structures. I decidedly lack what I call the "bureaucratic imagination," a set of skills most Russians learn and hone from birth. It is a kind of attention to detail and ruthless persistence in the face frustration, rudeness, and hopelessness that is the only way to get the right stamp on your passport, or get your kids into the right school, or to make sure local authorities can't sweep you aside. It is the cynical -- though perfectly frank -- admission that there is a vast system out there that does not exist to make things easier for you, and the ability to creatively imagine the ways that it is going to beat and crush you if you aren't careful. It is something that our soft consumer society has lost. But, as wife would surely note, 'tis my own damned fault. I should have just called about the visa a month ago. I swear I'll remember next time.