ANNIE HECKMAN

Having arrived on Earth in 1981 with three older siblings, I thought that most music was somehow tied to Michael Jackson. Like if I didn’t know who sang a particular song, maybe it was him, and I thought that Weird Al Yankovic was somehow Michael’s funny brother until I was in 3rd grade (I assumed that Yankovic just got to make the funny versions of the songs because they shared things). I see Michael Jackson through the inaccurate but enthusiastic lens of childhood.

So his passing is making me feel more mortal than usual, like I came from a specific time and place that’s going to be hard to explain to the little ones in my life, but that the explanation will somehow be part of my job as an adult. Just in case they’re already surfing the web to find out, I’m posting here some video of the first ever moonwalk, along with another classic (or as some have decided, the best ever) moonwalk. Thriller is a favorite, but is un-embeddable per the Michael Jackson YouTube preferences, so I’ll just link up to it here. That red jacket is amazing.