"When we look at Michael Jackson, I believe we're looking at the future of our species."

[alexsarll]

So suggested imomus yesterday, hailing "a creature from a future in which we've all become more feminine, more consumerist, more postmodern, more artificial, more self-constructed and self-mediating, more playful, caring and talented". Now, I'm as keen as anyone on a more fluid humanity; this is what I'm talking about when I start alluding to the Evolution Wars because as far as I'm concerned the great struggle is not between good and evil, but between those who want everything solid & defined and those who want to delimit our potential. Between the Augustans and the Romantics, between Cezanne and the Impressionists, or between the rockists and the Romos.
Where I disagree with Momus is that I don't think Jacko is aiming for fluidity. And if he is, he's missed, badly. Personally I think he's simply been trying to look white, rather than deliberately aiming for anything outside racial categories. And the technology simply isn't there yet, so all he's succeeded in doing is looking calcified. Once we can flicker between races and genders and species as easily as we do between shirts, then I'll be happy to play. In the meantime, there's something terribly sad about those flawed attempts. I look at Jackson like I look at transexuals or furries or Otherkin, as the human race trying to run before it can walk. I suppose there's something noble in that refusal to accept the inevitability of failure, that unwillingness to wait. But by making the transfer look so clumsy, so freakish, so doomed, I think they only give succour to the enemy.


Last night saraviolet, angelv, moleintheground, wardytron, nickeii, jamesward and I all went up the Cardinal. And if you think that joke was bad, be grateful you weren't there. Nothing more can be said of the evening without breaching several statutes on taste, decency and simian welfare.
(Sadly we weren't up this Cardinal with knives, but maybe one day)

"Apple has won its legal fight to make three bloggers reveal who told them about unreleased products. Now Apple has won the right to see e-mail records from the three bloggers to root out the culprit." In the unlikely instance that any megacorps want the sources for any stories on here, they're welcome to try going through my email, because it drives me close to the mansions of madness when I try sorting the old stuff, and I contributed to it.

Comments

[johnnyvertigen.livejournal.com]

Regarding your current mood, that's *really* going to play merry hell with Swiss Cottage property prices. Ha.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I always thought that if things were private, one avoided doing them in broad daylight on busy streets. Shows what I know!

spending warm summer days indoors

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

After I first heard about the event which you refer to in your mood, I found myself a couple of minutes later humming "Ask" by the Smiths. "so axe me, axe me, axe meee".

I need HELP.

Re: spending warm summer days indoors

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the chap in Belsize Park was indeed humming 'Ask', and the assailant misheard him? They were such close friends that he felt obliged to comply.

Re: spending warm summer days indoors

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Now now, speculation gets us everywhere.

Re: spending warm summer days indoors

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

ah! so that's what you're on about.
nothing to see here - carry on.

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

My money is on the beheadee being a convicted or alleged paediatrician.

(There's a warning in there for Michael Jackson, though his squidgy head probably won't need several blows from an axe to sever.)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

A stern poke to the nose should do it, aye.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

or a radiator, speaking of fluidity

[shewho.livejournal.com]

In the meantime, there's something terribly sad about those flawed attempts. I look at Jackson like I look at transexuals or furries or Otherkin

otherwise known as a bunch of freaks that i would kill with axes. except trannies. i have a heart where trannies are concerned.

(filthy hypocrite!)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I can sympathise with their condition, because I do feel like homo superior born in a homo sapien body.
Where we differ is that I don't start tw@tting around with clumsy attempts at gene-therapy and cybernetics in a futile effort to remedy that 'mistake'.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

would you though? if you were offered the opportunity to have, oooh , x ray eyes or something?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

If I knew they would actually work, and wouldn't have dodgy side-effects, or always be on or anything, then Hell yes. And that's not even one of the powers I particularly crave.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

You are the least PC person I know, Alex!! Though I agree that in some cases transgender surgery looks quite, quite awful, it does seem to have come on leaps and bounds.

the least PC person I know

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Last night's conversation demonstrated that this is a very hotly-contested position.

Re: the least PC person I know

[wardytron.livejournal.com]

I think there's a clear winner, and it's not you, or me, or nickeii, or jamesward, or saraviolet, or angelv.

Re: the least PC person I know

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well, I specifically said he was the worst person I know. Which isn't quite the same thing as the least PC person I know, but yeah, I reckon he gets the double.

Re: the least PC person I know

[angelv.livejournal.com]

You're so mean.

Re: the least PC person I know

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Look, I said sorry for upsetting your chimp, what more do you want?

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

jamesward and I all went up the Cardinal.

So that's the reason why he's now odds-on to be the next Pope?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

There was more Pope and Cardinal-related humour than you could shake an underage boy at.

[thermaland.livejournal.com]

The Islamic nutters of Wood Green Library (the very poor man's Speakers' Corner) now have a picture of Jacko on their placard. Apparently he is the symbol of our plastic society.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

For all that he looks a state these days, he's still a damn sight cooler than any given ayatollah. Ayatollahs, now they're pretty much the dictionary definition of the Enemy.