Michael Jackson's This is It

To appreciate Michael Jackson’s artistry in THIS IS IT , you only need to compare and contrast it with the “classic” Michael Jackson on earlier tours. With each tour it seems to me his body projects a certain attribute of the elements: water, air, earth, fire.

Bad Tour

On the Bad Tour, it’s as if he’s walking on water, smooth and fluid. Here’s the famous circle-sliding on BJ from Yokohama 1987 at 5:39


And here’s a move that’s rare, a kind of forward glide on Bad at Wembley 1987 at 3:45)

It’s all about illusionistic steps.

Dangerous Tour
On the Dangerous Tour, he’s aerial, he’s got this balletic thing going, long lines and poses, graceful progressions from one move to another, very refined, very clean. Watch how he can make a street move like the slide glide seem so “classical” on Jam, Mexico City 1993 (2:52): And here on SC in Bucharest at 4:46, watch the rapid-fire leg movement before settles on that hat-point pose; very Astaire-like: And, how does he get on and off stage? Leaping in, flying out.

HIStory Tour
On the HIStory Tour, he lands to earth (in a space shuttle, of course). The dancing is earthier, harder edged, robotic. He’s not going for gracefulness but projecting anger (much more than usual).

Watch how he pops his shoulders here at 1:21 in Hawaii (1:21):



And again how he locks in Manila at 2:45 to 2:50:


The dancing is crisp, aggressive, and very street.

This is It
On THIS IS IT , I think the element he’s projecting is fire. The show was to begin with electrical disturbances (as Ortega explains on the outtakes), and fire was a major component of the show – the jacket in BI was going be on fire, the bed in Dirty Diana was going to be on fire. And why does Michael Jackson using these fiery metaphors of simmering and sizzling? On THIS IS IT every old move is given an extra shock (or a new electrical twitch if you prefer).

Let’s compare the same moves and how they’re different in THIS IS IT .

TWYMMF

TWYMMF at MSG 2001, 0:53 to 1:00 Now this is classic MJ, especially 0:56 to 0:59 – clean, sharp legs, on the beat shoulder pops, slow, well-rounded, gyrating hips.

Now watch 0:55 to 1:00 on THIS IS IT here His legs seem to spasm and shuffle unsteadily, barely keeping to the drum snaps, the shoulder pops are jerkier, less pronounced, and seem to just peter out instead of repeating one after the other, and instead of an obviously sexual move such as rotating hips, he does this really quirky bird-like pecking/puppet movement at 1:13. The whole thing is less about doing moves than projecting an urgency that is as naughty as it is raunchy. He’s having fun, with the rhythm, with the song, and with his own crotch-grabbing image.

Smooth Criminal

Watch SC in Munich 1997 from 2:10 to 2:18. This is so lyrical, voluptuous, luxuriously effortless, everything done without a hair falling out of place, pure sprezzatura.

On SC on THIS IS IT , you get a snappier, more raw, rougher kind of poetry. Here it’s not about being lyrical, but being dramatic, more theatrical, with little gestures and ticks and stops and starts. Watch 2:28 to 2:38, the exact same point in the song as in the Munich example



His hands are furiously gesticulating with epileptic fury at some nameless, unseen intruder, and then the little lilting limp he does from 2:35 to 2:37 as if doing an imitation of stalking Annie, and then the ominously reptile-like walk and pointing gesture at 2:42. All more theatre than “pure dance” but it captures perfectly the dark mood of the song. None of these little moves are big “steps” but they’re harder to do, because it’s easy to imitate a dance move, but less easy to embody nervous energy.

It’s as if, as in a scientific equation, he’s changing all his mass and muscles that once executed dance steps into neurons that are channeling pure energy and electrical charge.

WBSS


One final comparison. WBSS Brunei 1996, from 1:37 to 1:42, he does the sidewalk and the arm wave.


Very funky, very street, on the beat.

Now THIS IS IT , 0:22 to 0:30. Same moves—sidewalk and the arm wave Sure it’s f.u.n.k.i.e.r. But he’s not sliding on the stage, he’s slithering, serpent-like, seemingly unsteadily, with a herky-jerky precision that I have never seen on any dancer. Just watch that arm wave at 0:27 and how seamlessly it leads to the next one, and then another little twitch of an arm wave. All within less than seconds.

When This is It released some fans noticed a "twitchiness" in the way Michael Jackson moved, and fitting facts to theory, assumed that this was owing to ring rust, nervous anxiety, or medication woes. But if you watch carefully what Michael Jackson is doing, you'll discover that he's actually improvising a whole new dancing style on-the-spot.

Dancing interprets the music, and it is, in most dance forms, rhythmic, i.e., matching the beat, hitting the spots, grooving to the feel of the music.

But if you watch what Michael Jackson is doing, he’s not matching the beat, he’s dividing it. This is what musicians call syncopation; but here it’s the body that’s syncopating. His moves come in between the beats.

Watch his sidewalks; they’re so jagged and slippery at the same time. The sidewalk is actually an easy move – when it’s on the beat. But not in the way he’s doing it here, because you never know at what speed point the next “twitch” of the leg is going to come.

WBSS

Watch this on WBSS. Watch the sidewalk at 0:23, followed by the arm wave at 0:27. It’s done so carelessly, almost off-hand, with a flexibility that’s breathtaking.

But where’s the beat? The beat’s in his body. It’s as if you can’t hear the music alone; you need to watch him move to complete what the drums and the rhythm guitars are doing. This is what the Dutch dancer on This is It said in the outtakes, if you just watch his body move, you can infer the music. But the sidewalk is one his big moves. This is It is full of “little” movements, “his stop-on-a-dime spins, deft footwork and body jerks”, as Nekesa Mumbi Moody writing for the Associated Press puts it. Watch the little body twitch he does at 0:37. I love how Rob Harvilla writing for the Village Voice said, ‘["Wanna Be Startin' Somethin"] with his whole body in constant, mesmerizing motion, an endless fusillade of micro-Moonwalks it doesn't seem like he could control even if he wanted them to.’

What some people saw as his twitchiness is actually precision taken to the next level. But it’s precision that’s never rhythmic, in the sense that it happens where you least expect it. And critics noticed this. Here’s Kevin Maher for Times Online, “While even when standing still Jackson has the charismatic mien of an instinctive dancer, one whose body posture suggests that a rhythmic leg-twist, a head-nod, or a hip-flick is only seconds away.” Seconds away, but you can never predict it. On earlier tours his routines were so choreographed that you always knew, with some degree of accuracy, where he was going go with his body (the exceptions are some performances of WBSS and SIM on the HIStory Tour).

TDCAU

On the TDCAU drill this is taken even further. Check out that elbow twitch at 0:21:



Then take it apart, frame by frame, and watch that lightning-quick head movement at about 0:24. Now try an exercise – try tapping to the beat. Where is it? You might get a pulse, but one which is constantly interrupted. And then try dancing to it – frame by frame, body twitch by body twitch.

Human Nature

Now take Human Nature. His voice is urgent, propulsive, always pushing ahead of the beat. Now watch the spin at 1:44. On the beat? And now watch the arm waves that come at the end from 3:52 to 3:55: It’s not keeping to any rhythm that the band is playing; it comes with lightning quickness, abrupt, angular, keeping to a time that none of us can hear, measures that are playing only in his head.

This is what Roger Ebert said of it: “His choreography, built from such precise, abrupt and perfectly-timed movements, is exhausting, but he never shows a sign of tiring. His movements are so well synchronized with the other dancers on stage, who are much younger and highly-trained, that he seems one with them. This is a man in such command of his physical instrument that he makes spinning in place seem as natural as blinking his eye.”

What kind of dancing is this? In it percussive unpredictability, twitchy precision, ragged lines, and “anomalous grace” (Ann Powers’ phrase), this is more akin to tap dancing or marionette movements than to hip-hop. This is not dancing to the beat, but dancing to micro- beats. The marionette thing is important here, and people, again, noticed: Owen Gleiberman for the Entertainment Weekly spoke of his “herky-jerky demon-marionette grace”.

TWYMMF

On TWYMMF, why do you think he’s trying so hard to get the slightly pig-headed Michael Bearded to get the syncopation just right—a little bit of drag, a little behind the beat, like you’re dragging yourself out of bed. It’s all about beating the beat – either going ahead or behind, but never predictable toe-tapping stuff. Watch the leg spasms he does at 0:57 here, and how independent they seem of Jonathan Moffet’s predictable drum snaps.



And, when you see him do that lovely thing at 0:21 here, you get the point. And notice how his feet immediately afterward are tapping slightly ahead of the beat.



His movements on earlier tours used to be big, occupying space, sliding and soaring across the stage—here they are on-the-spot jitters, sizzles, and cracks that are so quick that you have watch frame by frame.

Billie Jean

With Billie Jean, this kind of syncopated movement is taken to its extreme. Watch that entire performance again, but watch only his feet (as hard as it might be, ignore the crotch, please—for now). Watch how they’re marking the beat. Then watch this wave at 2:03 here. It’s the least predictable thing to do at that moment, but when he does it, it makes sense, because the waves in his body go crotchward as the chorus sings the phrase “in the round”. The critic for HitFlix says: ‘during "Billie Jean," Michael seems to snap into focus, his dancing almost like an involuntary reaction to the song.’ The operative word here is involuntary. His movements here are, seemingly, intuitive, where they were once carefully rehearsed and thought out. This is why Travis Payne called him the greatest improvisational dancer.

Michael Phillips, writing for the Baltimore Sun, wrote, “He was the only entertainer who, within four bars, could do the mashed potato followed by the moonwalk followed by seven other moves that never really had a name.” But it's not that he could do them, it's how he did them.

No dancer teacher would ever encourage this kind of a style. My dance instructor always tells me to hit the spots, hit the lines, make it big, and keep it sharp. But MJ’s been there and done that, and he’s gone beyond.



I can only call his style on THIS IS IT a kind of sloppy perfection, incredibly flexible, maddeningly hard to imitate, and mind-blowingly erotic.

And, eroticism brings me to my final point.

Billie Jean

That famous crotch grab at 5:58 here; it’s not slow motion, it’s breaking the crotch on the beat (as weird as that sounds), it’s like he’s got a thing going with his crotch that controlling the beat and slowing it down. The drum beat goes on steadily, but his crotch isn’t matching it; it’s moving to a kind of counter-rhythm so that when you watch it it’s two different rhythms happening at the same time, which slows down the moment. Now where else do counter-rhythms happen—making love. Would you want to make love with only one motion? So you move in different rhythms to move to the big moment. And Michael Jackson’s simulated L.O.V.E., where the drum and his body are in a kind of spastic dance of eroticism, uses this rhythmic complexity to add to the hypnotic effect of the moment. My favourite quote about his dancing on THIS IS IT comes from Peter Travers for the Rolling Stone, "Death holds no sway over Michael Jackson. His soul is still dancing."

Richard Strauss and Hedonism

What Fritz Busch said of Strauss is most apt. There is a cheerful hedonism about the man, an invincible materialism. A will to discovery, unabashed curiosity, all texture and sensuousness, totally amoral, totally satiating.

Strauss is no Mahler.

What can be said of the music has also been said of the man. Strauss was amoral, apolitical, materialistic; all he wanted was that the Nazis leave him alone to make his art and his money.

Augustine's Confessions

Augustine was a great poet of grief. Here's a famous passage from the Confessions:

At this grief my heart was utterly darkened; and whatever I beheld was death. My native country was a torment to me, and my father's house a strange unhappiness; and whatever I had shared with him, wanting him, became a distracting torture. Mine eyes soughwhat to ant him every where but he was not granted them; and I hated all places, for that they had not him...I became a great riddle to myself, and I asked my soul, why she was so sad, and why she disquieted me sorely: but she knew not swer me.

Measure for Measure

Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st
Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get,
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,
But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.

Flaubert's Deification of the Author

Flaubert once wrote that he disliked Uncle Tom's Cabin because the author was constantly preaching against slavery.

"Does one have to make observations about slavery? Depict it; that's enough... An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere."

Here's an interesting personal essay on Madame Bovary.

Der Rosenkavalier

"I'm in the mood when I'm so conscious of the frailty of everything earthy,
deep down in my heart,
how we can hold nothing,
how we can hug nothing,
how everything slips through our fingers,
everything we grasp for dissolves,
everything fades like mist or a dream..."

Nicomachean Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics is a classic. Aristotle tackles the problems of ethics with coherence, elegance, and loads of sprezzatura. Here's a distillation of some important ideas:

1. Ethics is to the good as metaphysics is to being.

2. The good is determined by the end.

3. The end for humans is to become rational beings.

4. Happiness lies in realizing the end; it is what you desire for its own sake.

5. What determines happiness is not choice: We may choose what makes us miserable.

6. Happiness is becoming who we are, realizing the seed within the self, fulfilling teleology. The end of the child is to develop into an adult. The end of the flute player is playing the flute excellently.

7. Happiness is the result of practiced excellence; it lies in the performance of certain actions.

8. Happiness is success. Only the man who lives well can be a candidate for happiness: one cannot be happy in a state of destitution.

9. Happiness is the activity of the rational soul in accordance with virtue.

10. Virtue is what allows us to achieve happiness.

11. Virtue is being good at being human: It is doing what an excellent human being does.

12. Virtue is taking pleasure in doing virtuous acts.

13. Virtue is a habit, not a state of being; it is an acquired skill, even an acquired taste.

14. Virtue is as much contingent upon practice as lute-playing is.

15. Virtue cannot exist without the proper instruments.

16. Virtue is not a peak, an extreme, but a mean, a proportioning, a disposition fashioned by action.

17. Virtue is feeling the right thing at the right time with the right people in the right circumstances and in the right proportion.

Aquinas always referred to Aristotle as 'The Philosopher' as a mark of respect (just as he referred to Averroes as 'The Commentator').

The Battle of Cannae

It was--by all accounts--a blood bath. And it is--by all accounts--the most stunning battle ever fought.

And it was slow slaughter. Little by little, they were drawn into a death trap, an impossible and impotent formation so that they could barely use their arms; slowly squeezed in on all sides by the Spanish, the Numidians, and the Carthaganians, they found, to their horror, the crescent closing in on them; and hour by hour, jammed in a hellish rat hole with no escape, suffocating, choking, some, out of desperation, asphyxiating themselves in the bloody ground on which they found their feet slipping, infinitely slowly, they were hacked to pieces: 50,000 of them in a single day, in a space as large as a modern football stadium.

The slaughter was absolute, the defeat unprecedented, and the calamity unimaginable: In less than two years Rome had lost--parsing the population in modern terms--the equivalent of ten million men--all of the war dead from 1939 to 1945 put together.

Generals through the ages, right up to Norman Scharzkopf in the First Gulf War, have obsessed over this battle, and will, no doubt, continue to do so: What Hannibal achieved was the perfect victory--the complete encirclement of the enemy.

Here's Polybius' account. And here's an illustrated description of the Battle.

T.S. Eliot's Conversion to Skepticism

T.S. Eliot might have become as famous as a philosopher as he did as a poet. (If you enjoy his poetry, you'd know it really is a kind of sensuous philosophy, especially the Four Quartets.) His first--and I think true--conversion was from philosophy to poetry. His doctoral dissertation, which was never presented, is a testament to that. These ideas are the soil from which much of Eliot’s poetry springs; here's a 13-point primer:

1. Reality is a convention, a theory we all choose to believe in.

2. There is no objective, absolute, ultimate reality, but only realities.

3. Knowledge has no object; there are no real, stable objects to know; knowledge begins with faith.

4. Outside a context there are no answers; within a context there are no questions.

5. The proper study of reality is the study of words.

6. Philosophers ought to be poets.

7. Philosophy should be an analysis of words, not an analysis of things.

8. Language does not describe reality, it is continuous with it.

9. The description of an object depends upon perspective.

10. Words connote, they do not denote.

11. Words are coterminous with what they connote.

12. The explainer asks questions about what she calls reality, not realizing that she invents and constructs reality as she asks those questions.

13. The best kind of describer goes around the object she is describing and asks others what they see.

Philosophy, Eliot considered, should become a genre of prose writing. The proper study of philosophy is the study of fictions at work; it should not be a quest for ultimate reality; it ought to describe not explain.

Eliot admired Aristotle for being the philosopher most careful with words.

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Rhapsody on Rachmaninoff

There is a signature dream-like quality about Sergei Rachmaninoff's works. Take this passage from Ayn Rand, who adored Rachmaninoff:

A young photographer … noticed Howard Roark standing alone across the street, at the parapet of the river. He was leaning back, his hands closed over the parapet, hatless, looking up at the building. It was an accidental, unconscious moment. The young photographer glanced at Roark’s face -- and thought of something that had puzzled him for a long time: he had always wondered why the sensations one felt in dreams were so much more intense than anything one could experience in walking reality - why the horror was so total and the ecstasy so complete - and what was the extra quality which could never be recaptured afterward; the quality of what he felt when he walked down a path through tangled green leaves in a dream, in an air full of expectation, of causeless, utter rapture - and when he awakened he could not explain it, it had been just a path through some woods. He thought of that because he saw that extra quality for the first time in walking existence, he saw it in Roark’s face lifted to the building.

This describes beautifully Rachmaninoff’s music too. There is that quality of utter rapture--"causeless, utter rapture"--in “Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini.” Of ecstasy--not evident immediately: it is so intensely personal that it creeps up on you, a slow, delicious langour. The rapture of being alive. And alone.