Nobody danced better. His music was the best, once upon a time. Okay. But all right, already. "Thriller" is not thrilling when you have just heard it, without ever even intending to, 2,345,789 times in a row.
Enough is enough. We have all read and read about his hideous childhood and that father who should be Bernie Madoff's room-mate for 150 years instead of being free to grant a pack of panting interviewers, like rabid dogs, a self-serving press conference. But is there anyplace one can go these days to escape the coverage? Has the world as we know it ceased to exist? Is there no other news in the universe? Hey, Al Franken won! Remember Iraq? Iran? Health care? The Supreme Court nominee? Bo Obama? The finale to the finale to the finale of Real Housewives of N.J.? (For which I am in serious withdrawal.) Has nothing else happened on the planet? It's like Groundhog Day meets Sergeant Pepper, on a loop. It's everywhere. He's everywhere. It has spread like poison ivy this summer. There is no place to hide. Other than Gov. Mark Sanford, who must be giggling that his Last Tango in Buenos Aires has been so neatly eclipsed, other than the massive throngs of fans who all seem to have no purpose in life other than to just camp out and "be there" for Michael, um, er, what's the deal? Do these people have jobs? Parents? Fish that need to be fed? Who are they and how do they manage to just materialize in great swarms, in armies like this, in such stupendous numbers? And has Al Sharpton just once and for all gone completely stark-raving mad? In coffee shops, doctors' waiting rooms, on subways, anyplace and everyplace, it is All Michael, All the Time. Jon Stewart mocks this and thus prolongs it, just as I am doing now. Yeah, yeah, I know. But still...
This brings to mind a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which ends with:
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, -- so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
Filled with dizzying, relentless hope, I sought refuge this morning in the N.Y. Times crossword puzzle, hoping for some brief respite from the epidemic of Michaelmania. Surely Will Shortz would allow me just a corner of sanity, I reasoned, a place where I might be safe. But alas, when I reached the clue 10-Down and saw that it read: "With 25-Down, this puzzle's honoree," I knew better. Paging Franz Kafka! The whole puzzle, start to finish, was wall-to-wall Jacksonian. Oh, say it aint so, Will!
Shake me, wake me when it's over.