Auther:Germaine Greer

Another beautiful boy is gone, wiped out in an instant. Michael Jackson, unable to cross the threshhold into manhood, has died at 50, still a boy, coquettish, fantasy-ridden, horribly vulnerable, unable to take control of his life.

His sudden death is a strange kind of victory. He had managed to prevent his ageing and even his growing up. There was no beard upon his chin; his voice was a childish treble. Instead of entering middle age and letting himself be chained to earth, he has floated away like a wisp, annihilated on the brink of a 50-date concert tour that I for one was dreading.

It's all very well for Madonna to be cranking out tour after tour. As she could neither dance nor sing at 25 no one is going to mind that she still can't do it at 50. But to see Michael Jackson faking it would have been heartbreaking. Among the hearts that would have broken is Jackson's own. It has snapped before the debacle. He has been spared.

According to Madonna "the world has lost one of the greats". We haven't lost Michael Jackson, because he cannot disappear. His three great albums will last as long as electronic media continues to exist, while the dross is forgotten.

The era of his astonishing creativity ended 20 years ago; most of what has happened since has been embarrassment. Jackson's kind of transcendental creativity is typical of very young men; it seldom survives into manhood, when the glory fades into the light of common day. Jackson succeeded in prolonging his brilliant boyhood into his thirties, but eventually he ran out of inspiration.

His art had been fuelled by the vernacular culture of the streets but it was many years since he had been able to run with the kids on the block. As his imagination faltered and grew dim, the fending off of maturity became desperate, demented and pointless. The struggle against ageing turned into self-harming and self-mutilation.

Ever since Dionysos danced ahead of his horde of bloody-footed maenads across the rocky highlands of prehistoric Greece, dance and song have been the province of boys. Like Orpheus, Jackson was destroyed by his fans, whose adulation and adoration prevented his living in any kind of normal society. The creativity ebbed away day by day. He became a parody of himself. It is time now to forget all that and salute the miraculous boy who will triumph over death as Dionysos did, becoming immortal through his art.

Nowhere will his contribution be more obvious and his influence more strongly felt than in the world of dance. No choreographer of the last 30 years has been unaware of Jackson's achievement. He rewrote the vocabulary of dance for everyone, from kids competing in talent shows to the royal ballets of Europe.

If the dance establishment did not often acknowledge his influence it was because there was no need. His shapes, his moves were everywhere.

Nijinsky and Nureyev also died young. They, too, were transcendent dancing boys, but they chose to interpret the choreography supplied to them by others.

By contrast Michael Jackson's art was astonishingly innovative. No one could dance like him, until he showed them how, and then they were never as good as he was. His concept of the dance was utterly 20th century, extravagantly multi-dimensional, and not in the least middle class.

Nijinsky may have been the greatest Spectre de la Rose, Nureyev the greatest Corsair, but these two candles pale in the light of Jackson's blazing star. The surprise is not that we have lost him, but that we ever had him at all.

像俄耳甫斯, 迈克尔·杰克逊为他的追随者所毁灭（选自英国卫报）

又一个美男孩走了，消失于瞬间中。无法迈进成年人的门槛，迈克尔·杰克逊在他50岁的时候辞世，依就还是个男孩，卖弄风情, 充满幻想, 极其脆弱，无法掌控自己的生活。

他的突然死亡可以说是一种奇特的胜利。他想方设法地阻止了自己变老，甚至是阻止了自己长大。他的下巴没有胡须，他的声音是孩童般的高音。没有让自己步入中年，让使自己现实起来，他反而是像一缕发丝般地飘走，在我一直担忧的50场音乐会即将来临之际，他被彻底地击溃了。

麦当娜的一场接着一场的巡回演出进行得很顺利。因为她在25岁的时候既不能跳舞不能唱歌，所以没有人会在乎50岁的她还不能唱歌跳舞。然而, 如果去看迈克尔·杰克逊弄虚作假，恐怕会令人心碎。在这些伤透的心中，也许还有杰克逊自己那颗破碎的心。在失败来临之前已经断裂，他已经是一个多余的人了。

据麦当娜的说法“世界失去了一位伟大的天才”。(可是)我们没有失去迈克尔·杰克逊，因为他不会消失。他那三张伟大的专辑会随着电子传媒的继续存在而存在，同时那些糟粕的东西将会被世人遗忘。

他那充满惊人的创造力的时代早在20年前就已结束，接下来发生的多是难堪之事。杰克逊的那种玄奥的创作力绝对是非常年轻之人所特有的，当这辉煌转变成普通生活的灯光, 这种创造力就很少会在成年人身上幸存。杰克逊成功地把其才华横溢的少年时代延伸到30多岁，但是, 最终还是耗尽了他的灵感。

他的音乐得到过来自当地街头民间文化的刺激，但是他已经许多年他没能和街头的孩子们一起玩耍了。随着他想象力的衰退, 贫乏，对成熟的抵抗逃避就变得愈发绝望地不惜一切、疯狂、毫无目标。于是这种成长的挣扎就演变成了自我伤害和自我毁灭。

自从狄厄尼索斯在他那大群的赤足血脚的女仕的队列前起舞，横穿古希腊的岩石林立的丘陵高地时起，舞与歌就是男孩的领地。像俄耳甫斯，杰克逊是被他的追随者所毁灭。他们的恭维奉承，他们的崇拜爱慕阻止着他生活在一种普通社会里。创造力在一天一天地消失，他都变成了他自己的拙劣模仿品。现在，是时候忘记所有这一切，向这位神奇的男孩致敬，他会和狄厄尼索斯一样，通过死而大获成功，通过他的艺术而不朽。

没有任何地方会比在舞蹈世界更能看到他的贡献那么明显，感觉到他的影响那么强大。在过去的30年里，从参加天才比赛的孩童到欧洲的皇家芭蕾舞，没有任何一个舞蹈界业内人士会无视杰克逊所取得的成就。他为每一个人重新抒写了舞蹈的词汇。

如果那些舞蹈界的权威机构没有时常承认他的影响的话，那是没有这个必要。因为他的舞姿，他的舞步，是随处可见。

尼金斯基和纽瑞耶夫同样早逝。他们也是杰出的舞者, 但他们却选择了去诠释他人的作品。

相反, 迈克尔·杰克逊的表演则是惊人地出新。在他表演之前，没有人能像他一样他跳舞，也没有人能跳得和他一样好。他的舞蹈理念是彻底的20世纪，拥有极度奢华的多维空间，没有任何传统色彩。

尼金斯基也许是最出色的玫瑰花魂（Spectre de la Rose），纽瑞耶夫是最杰出的海盗（Corsair），可是这两盏烛光在杰克逊的耀眼光芒下显得格外苍白。（杰克逊的猝死）让人吃惊的是，不是我们失去了他，而是我们从来没有拥有过他。