My Name is Blanket

February 11, 2003 9:57 PM

Selections from My Name is Blanket, © 2046 Blanket Jackson

"It was Geller who worked with my father to arrange for the design of the device which became known as the “Soul Harvester,” and who arranged for the shipments of orphans."

An excerpt from Michael Jackson's son's future autobiography.
posted by GriffX (21 comments total)

the last paragraph is wonderful. i'm very happy for him.
posted by Peter H at 10:08 PM on February 11, 2003

This is brilliant.
posted by Hildago at 10:41 PM on February 11, 2003

That is great! haha...
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 11:27 PM on February 11, 2003

Did no-one else find it a bit laboured and boring?
posted by skylar at 11:35 PM on February 11, 2003

I found it oddly moving, the allusion to his older brother's escape in particular.
posted by padraigin at 11:42 PM on February 11, 2003

In the distance a hippo lowed....
posted by zeoslap at 11:50 PM on February 11, 2003

With every orphan soul I harvested under the artificial domelight, I felt something die inside of myself. How could I escape this hell? My father grew younger and younger, preparing for the ultimate transformation. The orphans themselves we released to wander through California, ghosts in the half-light, unable to explain where they'd been or what had happened, speaking only of a ferris wheel that went impossibly fast. At the ranch, we saved that ride for last. It was called the Soul Centrifuge.

Stephen King meets Tim Powers. It captures the horror.
posted by y2karl at 11:50 PM on February 11, 2003

Eh.

The excution doesn't live up to the idea's potential.
posted by hippugeek at 12:57 AM on February 12, 2003

I have not read the link yet, but I have avowed my deep and abiding love for Mr Ford in public before, and were I to read the piece now and be forced to do it again, it would become embarrassing, so I'll hold off.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:52 AM on February 12, 2003

His presence was dreaded by Prince, Paris, and I.

...and me.
I was disappointed, where's his sister? or his future siblings. Michael said he was going to have two from each Content, a boy and girl whom he has one set & 1/2.
posted by thomcatspike at 4:37 AM on February 12, 2003

That was hilarious. I'm getting echoes of His Dark Materials, and also the Fallout games.

'Sixpack Chopra'. Indeed.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 4:55 AM on February 12, 2003

It's not quite Donald Barthelme, but still very, very good. It has a bit of a tossed off quality - could be brilliant with a few revisions.

Thanx for the link, griffX - it made my morning. I liked the goat tale too: "...budget cuts at the state level which led to the unlikely university-mandated merging of the biology department, operated by Dr. Megan Frandall, and the linguistics departments of Dr. Charles Hrum; the decision to merge Frandall's experiments in breeding goats to produce penicillin in their milk with Hrum's gorilla linguistics experiments; the subsequent breeding of a goatrilla, named Kiki, with the idea that she would produce penicillin in her milk and further research into primate cognition in one go, with an estimated savings of over US$200,000 per year...."
posted by troutfishing at 5:47 AM on February 12, 2003

Selections from My Name is Blanket

I know have "Luka" running thru my head,

"My Name is Blanket,
I Live out on Neverland,
My Daddy is a little off
And we all have to wear gloves on one hand..."

OK, that's all I got.
posted by jonmc at 6:02 AM on February 12, 2003

Uri Geller was my father's close companion during my childhood and after...His constant spoonbending meant that we only had forks for our cereal. And Uri brought awful visitors, like the doddering Ariel Sharon... and, too often, a notorious freeloading sham artist known to the staff as “Sixpack Chopra.”

I thought this was going to be worthless sensationalism, but on preview, I haven't read personal reflection and namedropping as good as this since Malachy McCourt's memoirs (and several installments of This American Life).
posted by Shane at 6:30 AM on February 12, 2003

Everyone knows this is a "speculation," right? Just making sure.
posted by Shane at 6:34 AM on February 12, 2003

Finally, a piece of writing on ftrain which I don't like. It was ill-conceived, poorly executed and laborious in length. Can't say any of that about the usual fare ...
posted by walrus at 8:35 AM on February 12, 2003

Best line:

"Nonetheless, I had my own giraffe."
posted by jmcnally at 8:40 AM on February 12, 2003

What a terrific bit of writing. Could have been better, sure, but what do you want for free?
posted by sacre_bleu at 10:00 AM on February 12, 2003

what do you want for free?

Paul Ford usually dishes out an extremely high standard for free. But I didn't like this piece. I did mean to be critical in my comment above, but not in a mean-spirited way, in case Paul ever reads this. If I were publishing stuff for free, I would hope for some free criticism in return, both positively and negatively weighted.
posted by walrus at 10:14 AM on February 12, 2003

Previous mefi discussions involving ftrain.com. I thought I'd said before how much I liked it, but I see now that I hadn't.
posted by walrus at 10:26 AM on February 12, 2003

Is this future biography something you need a time-travel machine to see? Because I do not own a time-travel machine.
posted by soyjoy at 7:53 AM on February 13, 2003