In which I watch Michael Jackson inspire a universe of creative people

Yesterday I took Menticia to see "This is It," the Michael Jackson farewell movie.

We were both rapt. For years I've only seen pictures of his plastic surgery ravaged face, seen him doing press conferences about his possibly obscene relationships with children, heard about his financial failings, seen him falling apart psychologically...

... but here, we saw him confident, incandescent, showing why he became such a super-star.

The movie was well edited and respectful, the music was realer and less processed than I expected, and Jackson himself was a powerhouse. His dancing, his singing, and the way he conceived the whole over-blown, miraculous spectacle made me think, over and over again...

... that he was exhibiting the divine spark. I don't necessarily believe in God (though I do give thanks regularly to nobody in particular when my life is going well and ask for strength and patience from nobody in particular when I'm at my wit's end) ...

... but watching Michael's frail frame bursting with disciplined, focused energy, energy that has inspired millions across the globe, made me feel there was something divine in him.

It continually amazes me to look around at humans - fallible, frequently misfunctioning jumbles of bones and flesh and mysteriously intertwined organs, preposterously animated from the world's dust - to see that, as fallible as we are, we can sometimes create wondrous things. We can be inspired beyond our basic needs for food, sleep, and the occasional scratch behind the ears...

... to think up and follow through on projects - music or dance or architecture or paintings or poetry or things so individual nobody else could have even conceived of them, much less brought them into the world - which then have the ability to illuminate and energize other people who may never have known or even seen us.

My favorite parts of the movie:

• Watching the child-like tsunamis of enthusiasm the backup dancers and singers had while watching Michael, studying everything he did and knowing it was good;
  
  
• Watching Michael explaining to his keyboard player, who was watching him like a hawk, how to play further behind the beat. He wanted the offbeats to lag, lag, almost too late. That's a hard thing for a trained musician to do. The result was fabulous;
  
  
• Similarly, watching him ask for long stops and silences in his spectacle. He clearly reveled in the power of empty space.

And then, one day, each jumble of organs - which one could say never should have worked in the first place - stops working. The divine spark is extinguished. Michael, you tortured, brilliant spark - goodbye.