Brit Boy and I had a great weekend. On Saturday, we relaxed around home and watched movies that evening. Earlier in the afternoon, going into evening, we watched a Dolly Parton special of her performing and telling about her rise to fame. It was very interesting. I love biographies and things like that. It’s so intriguing to learn about peoples’ paths in life. I really enjoyed watching the special.
We rested up a bit and relaxed on Saturday in preparation for our outing on Sunday. We went into London to go to see the Michael Jackson Memorabilia exhibit at the O2, where we would’ve seen him perform back in July. We were quite disappointed like many others that we didn’t get to see him perform, so this was a way to still be a part of things.
At the beginning of January, I was sitting around watching videos on Youtube, and there was an ad that popped up advertising the exhibition and I said to myself, “Oh yeah.” I knew in the back of my mind that the exhibit was going on, but I hadn’t really brought it to the front of my mind and thought about going until then.
So after my “oh yeah” moment, I mentioned the exhibit to Brit Boy and we decided to go. Once we got the tickets, we realized that they were going to be doing work on the tube line that we needed to take to get to the O2 Arena, so we had to figure out another path. Here’s the thing, every time we plan to go to London lately, there is some kind of shutdown or strike. It’s like they know we’re coming. LOL. They love us there ;-)
Anyway, we decided on taking another route and it was a great adventure. We took the train into Paddington as usual and then we hopped onto the tube and took it to the Elephant and Castle stop (I’ve got to research why it’s called that) :-) And then we took the tube to the London Bridge stop.
At this point we walked over to the River Thames to catch a catamaran to the O2 Arena. This was a cool way to travel! We loved it! Here are a couple of short videos of us floating along down the river to our destination.
The first one is when we went under
Tower Bridge. You can see my camera and I do one of my
things, which is twist the camera to get the action. LOL. So I hope you all don’t get dizzy. The second video was taken when we were at a stop. I thought that the sun shining on the water was just so beautiful. I hope you enjoy them!
Here’s Mini Cam Moments #6 to continue my
series ! :-)
We really enjoyed traveling this way and we’ll have to do this again :-) The Michael Jackson exhibit at the O2 was great. We weren’t allowed to take photos, but it was very nice. They charted his early career with his brothers in the Jackson 5 all the way up to him preparing for the concerts in London. They had: several of his outfits, past and present; an early contract from when he was a boy; several awards; plaster replicas of his hands and face that were used for his Ghost mini movie; and various other personal items. The "Ghost" mini movie was quite long, but here's a link to a portion of the film. If you don't have time to watch it all, I totally understand, but if you get a minute please check this out from about 1:25 to 5:00 in
this video to see some of his best choreography in my humble opinion. We also saw this white shirt he wears in this piece at the exhibit.
My favorite bits of the exhibit were the handwritten lyrics to one of his greatest hits, “Beat It” and a video that they showed of his influences and how he incorporated them into the style that was all his own. I got the sense even more that his musical genius came from an acute understanding and appreciation of performance history. It is clear to see his homage to James Brown and the
Nicholas Brothers and Fred Astaire. He was a true student of performing and an innovator in his own right for sure. I also thoroughly enjoyed the various quotes from him that were scattered about the exhibit.
The thing that gave me a lump in my throat though was a small, unassuming exhibit in the corner of the room. Inside the case there were two plastic containers and a water bottle. These three pieces were from Michael’s children. You see, his children packed him a snack everyday in containers like these while he was in rehearsals for his “This Is It” shows. And I know that people say all manner of things about Michael Jackson, good and bad, but at the end of the day, he was a father to these beautiful children and my heart just broke for them all over again when I saw this simple part of the whole exhibit. A cynic might say that it was put there for effect, but I don’t choose to see it that way at all. To me, this signified love and a part of Michael Jackson that we will never know, but a part of him that his children will carry with them forever. So that’s good enough for me :-)
I came away from the exhibit being very glad that we went. We loved it. The exhibit can never replace the fantastic show that Brit Boy and I could’ve seen, but it was nice to see the exhibit on the very last day on a beautiful Sunday. It was a great weekend :-)
Please check out Brit Boy's take on our day at
his blog :-)