Celebrity

The buzz buzz around Michael Jackson’s death isn’t going to stop any time soon. I’ve been fascinated for a long while with how celebrity works to transform simple mortals into these global gods of the public sphere. It’s easy to forget the psychological toll for those folks, even as we wait to see when they’ll a) drop a baby, b) shave their head, c) be arrested for something else, d) etc. The isolation these people must feel in their delusional bubbles is probably stifling. I’m no celebrity, and I have a hard enough time sleeping in the dark by myself sometimes! So sad.

My thoughts mostly circulate around Kim Jong-Il in this regard, and what will happen when he finally passes on. I can’t help but think of his political maneuverings as these distraught love letters, these efforts to reach out to us for some human contact. It probably sounds crazy, but not much crazier perhaps than what’s really at work behind these missile tests and posturing.

Who can withstand that sort of judgement?

It’s all the things I think to write down.

I was biking up Cecil B with my friends Caro and Stan when this woman shouted at us–“Michael Jackson’s dead!”

We didn’t know what to think. I sat with Caro on the bus for 45 minutes as we headed up to Germantown. Some people were talking about it in front of us. We were exhausted and sweaty. It turned out to be true. So long, Michael! Some people seem like they’ll never die, but keep going on and on into a strange eternity.

Thinking: chicken wings. No no.

About to read: Race and the Avant Garde by Timothy Yu. Waiting for Chris and Melanie to show up. Concocted some sangria with cinnamon sticks and vanilla bean.

Foot status: heels still hurt. Grrrrr.