Shadowy Line

... the movement of an artist from the world of practice often comes with great mourning & even greater reflection ... Pina Baush preserved her dignity and spirit with considered if not miraculous attention ... others not so ...



... the present media frenzy surrounding MJ allowed me to reflect on an aged post: "it is impossible not to contemplate with a shudder the shadowy line between art, ecstasy and psychosis."

. . . Cox in his “documentary” about the Russian born dancer Nijinsky The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky is quoted: “Nijinsky was a beautiful spirit. He went mad because of his love of mankind. We live in a world that has gone crazy – it is no wonder that souls like Nijinsky go mad.” Words as if spoken towards any artist humbled by their own demons & excesses of a hungry sensibility, extreme traumatic periods & victim of time and place.

... further darker evidence:

"Once we commit ourselves to a passion, noble or sordid, it is of no importance, we are certain to proceed from torment to torment. The very aptitude to endure them shows that we are predestined to suffer. We love only because unconsciously we have renounced happiness. The Brahmanic adage is irrefutable: 'Each time you create a new tie, you drive another pain, like a nail, into your heart.' - Everything that fires our blood, everything that gives us the impression of living, of being a part of being, inevitably turns to suffering. A passion is in and of itself a punishment. The man who surrenders to it, even if he supposes himself the happiest man in the world, expiates by anxiety his real or imagined happiness. Passion attributes dimensions to what has none, makes an idol or a monster out of a shadow ..." (Cioran | The Fall into Time |On Sickness p.137)

- See: Memorium



:: note ::... connections between Nijinski & Michael Jackson may seem tenuous but a spirit tortured not ...