Recent deaths

I used to hear The Jackson Five all the time--it seemed that every Liberian station was playing them for a while (surely not ELWA, though?). But I didn't follow Michael's career, never saw Thriller--after the Bloom County strips he disappeared from my radar until he reappeared as the train wreck you couldn't look away from. From Justin Taylor, via Touchstone: "The one thing that comes to mind about Jackson is how bad he was at hiding his brokenness. Even while living in a literal fantasy land, it was obvious to everyone that this was a person--enormously gifted--desperately seeking a mask to cover, in futility, who he was."

I suppose that made him an Everyman: an Everyman with the resources to follow through with every false hope. Some of us die still dreaming that "if only X" we'd be happy--because we never actually had "X." His sycophantic bubble more toxic than that of most, but that irreducible disquiet, knowing that something is disastrously wrong, is something we all share.

McMahon I hardly ever thought of--and I guess that's what made him indispensable. I wonder how much of the happy side-kick was real and how much was acting? Humility can be attractive...

I'd not actually seen much of Farah--The Apostle, half an episode of Charley's Angels, and of course the poster. It is strange how much more abstract the sex symbols came to be: airbrushed/photoshopped to a high gloss, with only idealized muscles and curves--and those idealized curves became less and less like those of the women you actually met. Porn chic eventually made it even more exaggerated.

Abstract women in stylized poses never seem quite as attractive as real women, but the designers know how to make them eye catching. Photos of Lady Gaga are in the news lately, and she is certainly eye catching--in an alien kind of way. You're startled, and can't look away; and she flaunts a female body--but she doesn't look entirely human anymore. Farah did. No, I never tacked up her poster.

As long as we're thinking of fame and fortune consider an article in Cracked on 5 things you think will make you happy but won't.