Sha-MON.

Subtle.
Originally uploaded by swarthbore.

So I'm taking a break from writing my last art history paper at Swat (which, for someone who is planning on going to grad school for this stuff, I'm way too happy about).

Now, in an ideal world I would be able to just post the Michael Jackson "Ghost" video and let it speak for itself, but I'm stuck just showing you guys some screen shots. For the complete collection just click on any of these photos and check out the "Ghost" photo album on my flickr account.

For some background, this is a music video that Michael Jackson made relatively recently which doesn't really have any discernable song featured in it.

The basic plot is as follows:

There's a group of parents with their young boys who are carrying torches to Michael Jackson's scary mansion. They're being led by Michael Jackson dressed as a fat middleaged white guy. The dialogue at the gate is as follows:

Little Boy #1: Why don't we just leave him alone?
Little Boy #2: He hasn't hurt anybody! Can't we just go?
Little Boy #3: [to boy #2] It's your fault, jerk. You just couldn't keep your mouth shut.
Mother: You did the right thing.
Michael Jackson as middle aged guy: He's a weirdo. There's no place in this town for weirdos.

So, moving on...

They go inside. The parents are in awe of MJ, so they start apologizing. Then he decides to scare them with funny faces for some reason. His funny faces are...well...see for youself...


Entirely without the use of prosthetics, I assume. Anyhow, what really makes this great is that, repeatedly, whenever the townsfolk get scared they keep cutting to the little boys inexplicably removing their parents' hands from their shoulders. Observe:

There's the requisite zombie dance:

Which is interrupted by alot of weirdly extended Michael Jackson primal screaming:

And a good old fashioned Zombie stomp...that lasts a good 5 or 10 minutes.

And now I realize that I have definitely spent too much time on this and need to get back to work. Trust me that it's so much more hilarious and ridiculous, nay, redonkulous than I can possibly convey in blog form, but, well, this is the best I can do under the circumstances...

Anyhow, back to work.