(no subject)

[felis_ultharus]

I just wanted to say that "vavasoress" is one of my new favourite aristocratic titles. A "vavasoress" is a woman's title, a rank below baroness, but it sounds like a carnivorous dinosaur.

It hasn't quite passed up "voivod" for me -- the title we translate as "count" for Dracula and "governor" for the head of a polish province. But it's better than "margrave" -- lord of a "march," where Christendom borders on pagan lands.

Otherwise, news of dead celebrities has pushed out news of nameless people in Iran dying for a democratic principle we can't even be bothered to support through voting in significant numbers. It's pushed it out even on CBC, which is supposed to be above that sort of thing. I'd rather hear about Iran.

Not that I bear Jackson any ill will. Didn't like his music much, but I always kind of felt sorry for him. I trust juries more than I trust trial by media -- where the verdict is always guilty, even if you're innocent -- so I rather felt he got a raw deal. He was just another emotionally mangled individual who had the misfortune of being in the world's eye, where his every neurosis was played out on the pages of newspapers.

I never post about celebrities. Star systems only interest me when they come with planets. It is a little strange when to think that one of the two people who supplied the soundtrack to my generation's childhood has died, though. The King of Pop is dead, leaving Queen of Pop Madonna undisputed ruler of the divided kingdom.

(Her tragedy was that she got boring. His tragedy was that he never did.)

Now the question remains, though, who's the Voivod of Pop? Or the Vavasoress? Who's the Margrave of Pop, brooding over the border he must protect, where Popdom joins the enemy country of the pagan hordes...?

Comments

[bronnyelsp.livejournal.com]

Otherwise, news of dead celebrities has pushed out news of nameless people in Iran dying for a democratic principle we can't even be bothered to support through voting in significant numbers. It's pushed it out even on CBC, which is supposed to be above that sort of thing. I'd rather hear about Iran.

I agree. Michael Jackson has pushed Iran off The Guardian's front page too -- this is the fist day since the election that they haven't had a liveblog for Iran, and instead they've got a (very slow-moving) one on Jackson.

I also agree that the outcome of his trial is more trustworthy than people who don't know him condemning him as a paedophile based on unsubstantiated rumours. I think it's just as likely he was a troubled, confused and naive soul who didn't understand that allowing children to sleep in his bed while he crashed on the floor of his bedroom would invite these sorts of allegations.

I think the saddest part is that he was almost certainly counting on his upcoming tour to turn his life (back) around, and now he has died before he got that chance at redemption.

But I'd still rather hear about Iran.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Agreed on all points :)

[montrealais.livejournal.com]

Who's the Margrave of Pop, brooding over the border he must protect, where Popdom joins the enemy country of the pagan hordes...?

It's astonishing how well this describes Neil Tennant, actually. I nominate the Pet Shop Boys for Margraves of Pop. Or maybe Grand Dukes (Austria was a margravate before it was a grand duchy, as it happens).

Although they were described as Popes of Pop following the "Absolutely Fabulous" video.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I agree about the Pet Shop Boys as the margraves of pop, but I don't think we can give them the title of the Archdukes of Pop. I suspect Franz Ferdinand has prior claim to that title :)

[em-fish.livejournal.com]

Her tragedy was that she got boring.

Well, publicly, anyway. I became a gossip-monger in the early 00's because it was the only way to keep my interest in her alive. Stories about threesomes with Paltrow and choking games are now the lifeblood of my fandom experience.

The Margrave is Girl Talk, btw. He is on the front lines of the copyright/copyleft battle, and he mashes up genres in ways the world has never seen.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

That actually does makes sense. Yet still we lack a vavasoress.

Re: Iran

[em-fish.livejournal.com]

Sairs and I had our own "mashup moment" yesterday, when we watched a countdown of Jackson's videos on music television... and I saw this, and cried. We put the tv on mute and I explained things to Sarah from the beginning - well, from the Islamic Revolution to today, anyway.

When one commenter on the drawing (search for "farshid", all lower case) translated what the father was shouting in Farsi, I lost it completely.

Yesterday, there was enough room in my day and my heart for MJ, and for Iran.

Re: Iran

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

There was room in my day for both, too. The problem is, there's not much room on CBC newscasts, and the one inevitably displaces the others.

It made sense for Michael Jackson to be all over Q, because that's arts and entertainment. And Jian did it well -- as Jian always does it well -- by finding a Canadian angle that suits the CBC by talking to Canadian artists who were influenced by him and had things open up for them.

On the news, though, it was another uncontextualized American celebrity story that cut a big chunk out of time I felt could have been used for much more vital things.

Re: Iran

[em-fish.livejournal.com]

And you take ME to task for not giving the general public enough credit! ;)

But seriously, I don't even pay attention to CBC online anymore. It's just too tempting to read the comments, and when I do, I wish I never had.... the worst were the comments on the story about the Winnipeg White Pride Mom. *shudder*

Urp, missed a paragraph... Anyway, I hope that by now, the newscasts are off MJ's passing and onto the situation in Honduras. I'm waiting to see how Obama will handle this while he's juggling Iran. US foreign policy reform - now, or later?

Re: Iran

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Oh, I give the public credit. It's media I'm cynical about, and I like to hold CBC to a high standard (which it usually matches -- it just failed me this week).

As for comments, I'm with you. I find that the people who post there are the ones who no one wants to hear from. Their views are usually greatly out of touch with the rest of society, and you get the same right-wing reactionaries calling Cross-Country Checkup and bothering clerks in stores.

I think Obama's strategy has been good -- hands off is the best approach for the US, after so many years of disastrous interventionism, and any attempt to interfere directly in Honduras would strengthen the coup in the long run by granting them legitimacy.

Oh -- and thanks for calling me the other day, and thanks for the tickets. That really made my day :)