Monday, June 29, 2009
More on Michael Jackson
Let's play this game. If you are a writer or a composer or even a mathematician proving theorems, which one of your own works is yourself personified in your medium (a poem, novel, symphony, rhythm and blues song, or theorem)? I happen to be the mathematician, and my main theorem is one about group cohomology rings, which says that if you generalize it to groups acting on a set (sort of a relative group construction), the products all go to zero. In other words, if everything is relative, everything vanishes.
Anyway, let's try this game on Michael Jackson. What has Michael Jackson done, and what was his life like? After thinking about this I conclude that the work of Michael Jackson that most personifies himself is Thriller. He became a hit in his child and young adult years. But since then he has not done much of anything but go around the country celebrating his own worthiness and pride. He apparently got into molestation trouble with some of his children, and despite having a ridiculously huge mansion, spent himself into bankruptcy, while literally drugging himself to death. Some of the words of Thriller may pertain here. "The Midnight Hour is Close at Hand". Sooner or later his troubles are going to catch up with him. "Grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom". Talk about all of his troubles. Yes, I say that if Michael Jackson were a Michael Jackson hit song, he would be Thriller.
And isn't it like that with our entire society as well? Isn't the Time of Peak Oil the midnight hour that is close at hand? Richard Heinberg wrote a book called Peak Everything. In it Mr. Heinberg maintains that we are not only reaching the peak or the end of our oil supply, but also of water, gold, rare earth elements, natural gas, ice in the Arctic, and many other essential resources of our society. All of these are coming at us fast, like a horde of huge insects. And as the song goes, "Grizzly ghouls from every tomb Are closing in to seal your doom."
James Howard Kunstler gave an excellent description of Michael Jackson's life and what it says about ourselves today (2009 June 29) in an essay entitled "The Man in the Mirror" and you can find it here. Read it - it is interesting stuff. In the meantime, can you resist the evil of the Thriller? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Anyway, let's try this game on Michael Jackson. What has Michael Jackson done, and what was his life like? After thinking about this I conclude that the work of Michael Jackson that most personifies himself is Thriller. He became a hit in his child and young adult years. But since then he has not done much of anything but go around the country celebrating his own worthiness and pride. He apparently got into molestation trouble with some of his children, and despite having a ridiculously huge mansion, spent himself into bankruptcy, while literally drugging himself to death. Some of the words of Thriller may pertain here. "The Midnight Hour is Close at Hand". Sooner or later his troubles are going to catch up with him. "Grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom". Talk about all of his troubles. Yes, I say that if Michael Jackson were a Michael Jackson hit song, he would be Thriller.
And isn't it like that with our entire society as well? Isn't the Time of Peak Oil the midnight hour that is close at hand? Richard Heinberg wrote a book called Peak Everything. In it Mr. Heinberg maintains that we are not only reaching the peak or the end of our oil supply, but also of water, gold, rare earth elements, natural gas, ice in the Arctic, and many other essential resources of our society. All of these are coming at us fast, like a horde of huge insects. And as the song goes, "Grizzly ghouls from every tomb Are closing in to seal your doom."
James Howard Kunstler gave an excellent description of Michael Jackson's life and what it says about ourselves today (2009 June 29) in an essay entitled "The Man in the Mirror" and you can find it here. Read it - it is interesting stuff. In the meantime, can you resist the evil of the Thriller? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
