Sequins: Sequence: Sequinsissential

Ok - the last gasp from the spectacle that was the Jacko Memorial, and no more jokes: I point you to the quote from my more succesful doppleganger below (in his 96 reaction during the brit awards):



...and this quote from Momus:

Michael Jackson is not just the King of Pop, but the Last King of Pop. Three major factors will prevent there ever being another one: digital culture and its fragmentation of the big "we are the world"-type audience into a million tiny, targeted audiences; the demographic decline of the "pigs in the pipe" (the Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y, who made pop music's four-decade-long pre-eminence possible); and the decline of the influence of the United States...
"I think we're seeing the re-appearance of class and caste. Michael Jackson's fame comes from a cultural period -- postmodern global consumerism -- when the distinction between high and low collapsed. When Pierre Bourdieu surveyed French cultural tastes in the 1960s, he found that blue collar and white collar workers had completely different cultures -- classical music for the brain workers, cheap pop for the hand workers. A few decades later, postmodern consumer culture had leveled that, at least superficially: now, people with college degrees spoke about Michael Jackson "intelligently", people from lower class backgrounds spoke about him "passionately". But everybody spoke about him. Now that postmodernism is coming to an end, and now that narrowcasting and social networking limit our encounters with "the class other", I think we'll see different classes embracing different cultures again. Things will settle back into the kind of cultural landscape Bourdieu described in "Distinction"."

Sometimes the air isn't so fresh...

Yesterday, while enroute to meet up w/peeps to watch the fireworks, i witnessed a vehicle combust from inside. The driver seemed nonplussed as flames reached up inside his windows, and he circled while talking on his cellphone. It became one of those surreal moments because you can't really explain why someone's vehicle is on fire - and the lack of soundtrack makes the whole thing long and drawn out while each of the pedestrians make the obligatory 911 phone call to give a head's up... I waited to make sure there's no assistance needed (or if anyone was in the car - which didn't look likely at that point), so I resumed walking... and I started to notice the amount of exhaust from other cars well. In fact, the whole city seemed to become this worst representation of global warming (the crappy vintage dautsun with a bad muffler, the obnoxious harley rider with the tail pipe spewing noxious gas)... It was like watching a PSA of all the things that are quickly corroding our planet, later that night replaced with the rocket exhaust of a million illegal fireworks.
In approximately 2 weeks, the Light Rail will start and with it a small victory for the South end that's been continually shunted by suspect transit issues (there's a reason why the #36 is not running on time) and an easier way to get downtown. A little too late as we gulp the last decent air...