Michael Jackson "Extremely Well-Read," Had 10,000 Books
solyluna
Posts: 48
The King of Pop a dweeby book lovin' geek?
Apparently so, and hooray. He was an avid reader who had an appropriately majestic library at Neverland that held 10,000 volumes on its shelves, according to two recent Los Angeles newspaper articles.
In the midst of a lengthy interview in the L.A. Weekly, Jackson attorney Bob Sanger revealed the following as his last of three golden attributes that defined the Gloved One.
"Michael was extremely well-read…I knew Michael, but I got to know him a lot better at the trial. The judge was doing jury selection, and it was time for break. Judge Melville said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know that jury service is very, very important.' He's trying to convince people not to have stupid excuses to get out of jury service. All judges do this. He says, 'The jury system is a very time-honored system. It's been around for 200 years. We're going to take a break and come back in 15 minutes.'
"We stand up and the judge leaves, and Michael turns to me and says, 'Bob, the jury system is much older than 200 years, isn't it?' I said, 'Well, yeah, it goes back to the Greeks.' He says, 'Oh yeah, Socrates had a jury trial, didn't he?' I said, 'Yeah, well, you know how it turned out for him.' Michael says, 'Yeah, he had to drink the hemlock.' That's just one little tidbit. We talked about psychology, Freud and Jung, Hawthorne, sociology, black history and sociology dealing with race issues. But he was very well read in the classics of psychology and history and literature.
"He loved to read. He had over 10,000 books at his house. And I know that because - and I hate to keep referring to the case, because I don't want the case - the case should not define him. But one of the things that we learned - the DA went through his entire library and found, for instance, a German art book from 1930-something. And it turned out that the guy who was the artist behind the book had been prosecuted by the Nazis. Nobody knew that, but then the cops get up there and say, 'We found this book with pictures of nude people in it.' But it was art, with a lot of text. It was art. And they found some other things, a briefcase that didn't belong to him that had some Playboys in it or something. But they went through the guy's entire house, 10,000 books. And it caused us to do the same thing, and look at it."
"And there were places that he liked to sit, and you could see the books with his bookmarks in it, with notes and everything in it where he liked to sit and read. And I can tell you from talking to him that he had a very - especially for someone who was self-taught, as it were, and had his own reading list - he was very well-read. And I don't want to say that I'm well-read, but I've certainly read a lot, let's put it that way, and I enjoy philosophy and history and everything myself, and it was very nice to talk to him, because he was very intellectual, and he liked to talk about those things. But he didn't flaunt it, and it was very seldom that he would initiate the conversation like that, but if you got into a conversation like that with him, he was there."
I'll Be There
As reported in the L.A. Times. Doug Dutton, proprietor of the legendary and now, alas, defunct, Dutton's Books in Brentwood, was at a dinner with people from Book Soup, Skylight and other L.A. bookstores.
"Someone mentioned that Michael Jackson had been in their store," Dutton recalled. "Everybody said he'd shopped in their store too."
Doug first met Jackson in the early 1980s when the icon came in his shop wearing "very large sunglasses" and a suit of bodyguards. MJ was solitary and quiet. "There was no display of 'I'm Michael Jackson,'" he recalled. "I don't remember him actually saying anything." Jackson bought four-five books during visits.
Doug's brother, Dave, remembers getting a call in the late '80s - early '90s from an MJ minion, who requested that the shop be closed early so Jackson could privately shop. "We did close early," Dave said. Then, "about a quarter to nine he showed up in a big van. Once you got over the initial caution because of those burly guys with him, he was very nice. He loved the poetry section," Dave's son Dirk asserts that Ralph Waldo Emerson was Jackson's favorite author. "I think you would find a great deal of the transcendental, all-accepting philosophy in his lyrics."
I would have bet the farm that, considering his obsession, Michael Jackson would have been a compulsive collector of all things Peter Pan, the collecting completist's completist, acquiring every single edition of the book, every scrap of paper associated with it, and everything from the story's subsequent incarnations.
"He was a longtime and valued customer," a spokesperson for Hennessey + Ingalls, the renowned art and architecture bookstore in Santa Monica, said in the L.A. Times piece.
Turns out that Michael Jackson was a sort of Johnny Appleseed of reading, spreading books to all children. Former Los Angeles resident Cynde Moya remembers that "back when I worked at the Bookstar in Culver City, his people would have us keep the store open after hours, and he'd come in with a vanload of kids, who could buy whatever books they wanted."
As MJ's life got stranger over time, so did his book buying habits. He would wear a surgical mask during his book shop visits, and in a video of him from New Year's Eve 2008, he's at Hennessey + Ingalls browsing for books, a black umbrella, held by an assistant, shielding him from the unflattering glare of florescent lighting.
Or, maybe to prevent his love for books from being exposed.
This is a problem that will never threaten the unread, book-hating and proud singing star Kanye West. It is a fact that intellect and pop entertainment values do not mix well in American culture: A pop star could never mysteriously disappear for a few days, drive family, friends, and the nation crazy with anxiety, then resurface with the rambling confession that he was incognito in Buenos Aires visiting the sultry, irresistible National Library of Argentina, full of hot-blooded Latin-American tomes, because he needed a change of scenery.
Completely unbelievable. There must have been something else, something seamy, going on, perhaps with La Biblioteca Nacional de la Republica Argentina's head of special collections, right? I mean, really, is nothing sacred?
Apparently so, and hooray. He was an avid reader who had an appropriately majestic library at Neverland that held 10,000 volumes on its shelves, according to two recent Los Angeles newspaper articles.
In the midst of a lengthy interview in the L.A. Weekly, Jackson attorney Bob Sanger revealed the following as his last of three golden attributes that defined the Gloved One.
"Michael was extremely well-read…I knew Michael, but I got to know him a lot better at the trial. The judge was doing jury selection, and it was time for break. Judge Melville said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know that jury service is very, very important.' He's trying to convince people not to have stupid excuses to get out of jury service. All judges do this. He says, 'The jury system is a very time-honored system. It's been around for 200 years. We're going to take a break and come back in 15 minutes.'
"We stand up and the judge leaves, and Michael turns to me and says, 'Bob, the jury system is much older than 200 years, isn't it?' I said, 'Well, yeah, it goes back to the Greeks.' He says, 'Oh yeah, Socrates had a jury trial, didn't he?' I said, 'Yeah, well, you know how it turned out for him.' Michael says, 'Yeah, he had to drink the hemlock.' That's just one little tidbit. We talked about psychology, Freud and Jung, Hawthorne, sociology, black history and sociology dealing with race issues. But he was very well read in the classics of psychology and history and literature.
"He loved to read. He had over 10,000 books at his house. And I know that because - and I hate to keep referring to the case, because I don't want the case - the case should not define him. But one of the things that we learned - the DA went through his entire library and found, for instance, a German art book from 1930-something. And it turned out that the guy who was the artist behind the book had been prosecuted by the Nazis. Nobody knew that, but then the cops get up there and say, 'We found this book with pictures of nude people in it.' But it was art, with a lot of text. It was art. And they found some other things, a briefcase that didn't belong to him that had some Playboys in it or something. But they went through the guy's entire house, 10,000 books. And it caused us to do the same thing, and look at it."
"And there were places that he liked to sit, and you could see the books with his bookmarks in it, with notes and everything in it where he liked to sit and read. And I can tell you from talking to him that he had a very - especially for someone who was self-taught, as it were, and had his own reading list - he was very well-read. And I don't want to say that I'm well-read, but I've certainly read a lot, let's put it that way, and I enjoy philosophy and history and everything myself, and it was very nice to talk to him, because he was very intellectual, and he liked to talk about those things. But he didn't flaunt it, and it was very seldom that he would initiate the conversation like that, but if you got into a conversation like that with him, he was there."
I'll Be There
As reported in the L.A. Times. Doug Dutton, proprietor of the legendary and now, alas, defunct, Dutton's Books in Brentwood, was at a dinner with people from Book Soup, Skylight and other L.A. bookstores.
"Someone mentioned that Michael Jackson had been in their store," Dutton recalled. "Everybody said he'd shopped in their store too."
Doug first met Jackson in the early 1980s when the icon came in his shop wearing "very large sunglasses" and a suit of bodyguards. MJ was solitary and quiet. "There was no display of 'I'm Michael Jackson,'" he recalled. "I don't remember him actually saying anything." Jackson bought four-five books during visits.
Doug's brother, Dave, remembers getting a call in the late '80s - early '90s from an MJ minion, who requested that the shop be closed early so Jackson could privately shop. "We did close early," Dave said. Then, "about a quarter to nine he showed up in a big van. Once you got over the initial caution because of those burly guys with him, he was very nice. He loved the poetry section," Dave's son Dirk asserts that Ralph Waldo Emerson was Jackson's favorite author. "I think you would find a great deal of the transcendental, all-accepting philosophy in his lyrics."
I would have bet the farm that, considering his obsession, Michael Jackson would have been a compulsive collector of all things Peter Pan, the collecting completist's completist, acquiring every single edition of the book, every scrap of paper associated with it, and everything from the story's subsequent incarnations.
"He was a longtime and valued customer," a spokesperson for Hennessey + Ingalls, the renowned art and architecture bookstore in Santa Monica, said in the L.A. Times piece.
Turns out that Michael Jackson was a sort of Johnny Appleseed of reading, spreading books to all children. Former Los Angeles resident Cynde Moya remembers that "back when I worked at the Bookstar in Culver City, his people would have us keep the store open after hours, and he'd come in with a vanload of kids, who could buy whatever books they wanted."
As MJ's life got stranger over time, so did his book buying habits. He would wear a surgical mask during his book shop visits, and in a video of him from New Year's Eve 2008, he's at Hennessey + Ingalls browsing for books, a black umbrella, held by an assistant, shielding him from the unflattering glare of florescent lighting.
Or, maybe to prevent his love for books from being exposed.
This is a problem that will never threaten the unread, book-hating and proud singing star Kanye West. It is a fact that intellect and pop entertainment values do not mix well in American culture: A pop star could never mysteriously disappear for a few days, drive family, friends, and the nation crazy with anxiety, then resurface with the rambling confession that he was incognito in Buenos Aires visiting the sultry, irresistible National Library of Argentina, full of hot-blooded Latin-American tomes, because he needed a change of scenery.
Completely unbelievable. There must have been something else, something seamy, going on, perhaps with La Biblioteca Nacional de la Republica Argentina's head of special collections, right? I mean, really, is nothing sacred?
Comments
pd:sorry for my English
The part about the DA taking those books in an effort to use it against Michael just shows the mission they were on. May God have mercy of them in their time of judgment.
I agree with everything you said, voice.
I read this article a long time ago, but it was great to re-read it (and to see the photos). Michael had Pinocchio! <!-- s:D -->:D<!-- s:D --> Thank you, solyluna - THIS is the kind of story (true story!) I want to see spread about Michael.
you have heard of children of glass?
CRYSTAL CHILDREN AND ADULTS AND INDIGO
I speak of children and adults indigo and crystal.
This classification, as it somehow relates to individuals who are born with certain psychological characteristics that clearly differentiate them from other humans, by the fact that come to fulfill a particular mission in the world to come, although now often feel uncomfortable in your own skin, as if they fit with the rest of the people.
It happens mainly to children, because they feel misunderstood by their parents, and educators, who often do not know quite how to deal with, since, especially indigo, to be "systems busters" are treated with medications, employees to treat hyperactivity syndrome, demonstrating that the traditional medical environment issue has not been accepted yet.
However, these children and adults have been studied since their widespread appearance in the 80's but there are adults who have also been coming, although to a lesser extent for years, in fact talking about Lennon, Einstein and others as Indigos, are people who in one way or another have been differentiated from the rest, although there have been, and there are beings who remain anonymous and for that reason they feel more lonely and misunderstood by the rest of humanity.
All in one degree or another have a specific mission to "wake up" in some ways to their peers. And that they are sometimes very difficult.
In the crystal, even as they, both children and adults, are much more vulnerable, are not aggressive, they are called "peacekeepers" and are the opposite of the Indigos, but have points in common.
Your Creative Power: <!-- m -->http://www.amazon.com/Your-Creative-Pow ... 371&sr=1-1<!-- m -->
Building A Dream The Art of Disney Architecture: <!-- m -->http://www.amazon.com/Building-Dream-Ar ... 498&sr=1-1<!-- m -->
Discovering Walt: The Magical Life of Walt Disney: <!-- m -->http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Walt- ... 593&sr=1-2<!-- m -->
Lennon Remembers: <!-- m -->http://www.amazon.com/Lennon-Remembers- ... 766&sr=1-1<!-- m -->
This Business of Music: <!-- m -->http://www.amazon.com/This-Business-Mus ... 857&sr=1-1<!-- m -->
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: <!-- m -->http://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Mal ... 980&sr=1-4<!-- m -->
"A room without books is like a body without a soul."
~ Cicero
"After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books."
~ Albert Camus
<!-- s;) -->;)<!-- s;) --> <!-- s:D -->:D<!-- s:D --> <!-- s:P -->:P<!-- s:P -->
- on the floor
- on the bed
- sitting in a chair
- standing
- getting out of a car!
WOW
I told you he was a genius he can read upside down.. <!-- s
And with sunglasses on! What can I say, he was THE MAN. <!-- s8-) -->8-)<!-- s8-) -->
Michael... a true Renaissance Man. <!-- s;) -->;)<!-- s;) -->
on the floor! On the bed!!! What about.....what about upside down....do you remember....in the tree...a book for you ......one for me.....he he
but seriously a man that is book smart is sexy and wonderful, sort of rare these days.
Yes, book smart is sexy. <!-- s;) -->;)<!-- s;) -->
I don't know what you might be referring to with the tree thing, but I found something along those lines. And I remember Diana Ross has a song that goes "Upside Down for Eternity!" If I could have a date with MJ just like this, hanging from trees and reading (and discussing Socrateez), I'd be super happy! <!-- s:D -->:D<!-- s:D --> <!-- s