The passing of genius

I know that many people have already written many things about Michael Jackson in the last 24 hours, but I have been surprised at my own strong reaction to his death. While it's true that Thriller was my very first cassette tape received as a gift at my very first sleepover party, that was the high point of Michael Jackson's influence on my life. Over the last several months, I have been revisiting his work, as Fok likes to give the kids their pop culture education from youtube on a regular basis. (Just ask K about Amish Paradise.) Watching him dance, you can see that he was one of those gifted (cursed even?) with the rare burden of true genius. Take the Scream video, where he dances with his sister Janet. Now Janet Jackson is no slouch, but compared to Michael's natural ease, she looks stiff and rehearsed. As a mathematician, there are many stories of genius snuffed out or gone insane, or just gone strange (Galois, Abel, Cantor, Nash, Grothendieck). People so talented, that without them some ideas would not have come into being. I remember sometimes feeling grateful that they had left some work for the rest of us mortals. So I guess that is why the passing of MJ has me sitting with some malaise on a beautiful Friday afternoon. We have lost a genius, and worse a genius that didn't ripen, but went strange. And maybe, like with Cantor, we carry some blame for the strangeness.