Tuesday, 30th June 2009
Broken Icons, Shattered Dreams
One of my favourite haunts, when I was a child, was the Greek Orthodox church in Valletta. Papas Borgia must have noticed this, for one day he presented me with an icon of Our Lady of Damascus, and explained several niceties about the genre of iconography; they are called "books for the uneducated" because each one "speaks volumes".
Icons of Christ have gold (for King), blue (for humanity), and red (for God), as well as three stars. Other effects - whether faces touched or did not, letters, styles, and so on, could be representing things by analogy or concretely.... Time passed, and suddenly I realised that the word icon had acquired a different meaning - perhaps as represented by the copy-and-paste Andy Warhol print of Marilyn Monroe.
The word was debased. Rather than standing for someone who represented something, it was perverted and applied to anybody who stood for anything. As a parallel, the word icon was also applied to the tiny pictures on computer monitors - stylised images of what, in the original connotation of the word, needed articulate and lucid explanations that had left one with a sense of wonder. River Phoenix and Heath Ledger were touted as "icons" of youth lost to drugs.
Marc Bolan and James Dean were used as ‘icons' to promote road safety. Since the beginning of the year, we have almost started counting deaths of celebrities by the dozen; Natasha Richardson; Bea Arthur; David Carradine; Ed McMahon; Patrick McGoohan; Farrah Fawcett; Gale Storm; Billy Mays; Wendy Richard; Ricardo Montalban; Dom DeLuise; Ron Silver... shall we add Jane Goody and Jett Travolta for good measure?
The latest to die is Michael Jackson. He died during the massive-build-up for his "comeback tour" for which several people, including his Number One Maltese fan Angie Laus, had bought tickets. It occurred to me to check whether, whereas the press is saying that "The promoters have lost $85million in tickets that they have to refund...." diehard fans like Angie would prefer to keep their tickets instead.
"I was ticking off the countdown to the concert. Actually, I do not yet have the actual ticket in my hand; they usually send them the week before the concert. I have received an e-mail that I will shortly receive information about how to claim my refund.
But I have written back, indicating I would rather have the ticket to keep as a memento. I will place it right next to the one of the concert I did attend...." Just for the record, there have been several other singers whose fans could have asked for refunds on tickets. Singer Gene Pitney died of heart disease, aged 66, on April 5, 2006. He was in the middle of his UK tour, and had just finished his show - for which he got a standing ovation - at Cardiff's St. David's Hall.
Roy Orbison completed the film in of the video for Mystery Girl in November, 1988. This was but one of the many things he did in between giving multiple interviews a day and giving shows. He returned to his home in Hendersonville for a hiatus before returning to London for more filming; more concerts were planned, too.
He spent the morning of December 6 flying model airplanes with his sons, and then had dinner with his mother in Tennessee. He died there, of a massive heart attack, aged 52. Fans of The Grateful Dead would know the story behind why Vince Welnick did not take part in the "Vince Welnick and Friends Tour", just as they would know the reasons why a scheduled concert never took place after Jerry Garcia died. Brad Delp, the lead singer of US rock band Boston ("More Than A Feeling"), was found dead before the fully-booked tour.
In 1997, Michael Hutchence was with INXS on a world tour, the final leg of which was to be in Australia, in November and December. Hutchence, then 37, was found dead in his room on November 22. In a way, the jury is still out on that one, too, because the death of Hutchence has been attributed to "accidental asphyxiation".
Fame is so fickle. Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina the Teenage Witch) had been overheard saying off-camera at KTLA Channel 5, that she hoped Farrah Fawcett wouldn't die before Hart had the chance to appear on the cover of People magazine, and consequently "steal" it from her... Ironically, Michael Jackson's death, and its ramifications, appear to have stolen the limelight from Ms Fawcett...
RSS
Comments
Re: Michael Jackson: I was extremely disappointed with our CTV station. Michael Jackson was mentioned in every news, and every other show. However, they seem to have forgotten about Farrah Fawcett. She was mentioned once announcing her death and than completely forgotten. They made too much fuss about Michael that it made me and others utterly sick.
Joseph Aquilina, Ontario, CANADA