Random Moonwalk - Autobiography of Michael Jackson - Computer Generated in House of Nigel Tomm: TAGS Autobiographies, Famous People, Celebrities, Memoir Diary, Life Diaries, Moonwalker, Biography

by Nigel Tomm

"An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that PERSON," says Wikipedia. Artist Nigel Tomm has other definition of autobiography: "An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by a PERSONAL COMPUTER." Why it's so cool? Computers can combine simulations with reality or actual events, such as generating input responses, to simulate test subjects who are no longer present. Michael Jackson's computer simulated autobiography is the first autobiography fully written by the computer. It was created using Random Generator and slightly edited by Nigel Tomm. Find out more at Tomm's blog http://tinyurl.com/njjeo2

204 pages, Paperback

Published July 27, 2009

About the author

There has always been and possibly will always be an air of mystery about Nigel Tomm, but it is certain to the that he stands as one of the authors of contemporary literature today. His first work, a collection of remixed Shakespearean sonnets, was published in 2006. Since then, Nigel Tomm has written over 36 abstract novels and books. In 2008, he directed a series of film adaptations of classic literary pieces; each film consisted of a different color screen for a specific duration of time. (These full films can be viewed at IMDb.com) Tomm's most recent film is a 44-minute documentary about the hairless sphynx cat, and it can be purchased from Amazon.com

Nigel Tomm continues to release abstract literature and art frequently. It is rumored that his next novel will be a remix of Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex."

Reviews

[Marzi Margo · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1933, avantgarde author Gertrude Stein first published "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," a book that both dazzled and confused the general public. It seemed downright odd and peculiar for an autobiography of one person's life to be written by another person. By that time, however, the experimentation of modernist writing was becoming more and more welcomed by the readers who dared to embrace it in spite of society's frequent banning and boycotting.

Then came postmodernist literature toward the end of the century, which, while at first managing to centralize on a specific philosophical origin and school of thought, grew increasingly vast and even nihilistic into the 21st century. Postmodernism's fusions with other movements such as dadaism and minimalism have caused many nowadays to criticize postmodernist writers and other postmodern artists alike for the seeming apathy of their works. Back in 1933, yes, novels were banned and paintings were protested, but the majesty and bravery of the avantgarde was generally more respected and well-received than it is now. In a way, Gertrude Stein's autobiography of her lover was topical in relation to the blooming of avantgarde incorporation into modernism. Nigel Tomm's randomized autobiography of Michael Jackson is topical in that it was published hardly one month after the King of Pop's overall surprising death.

While the idea is at all similar to that of "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," "Random Moonwalk" is yet another example of Tomm's crusade of literary experimentation in hopes of redefining some truths and breaking some boundaries. It is a 200-page novel examining an iconic man and his iconic life completely on the basis of computer-generated nonsense. I myself had originally purchased the book with expectations of finding metaphorical meaning within this randomness, and although some sentences and paragraphs do occasionally actually pertain to Jackson's life somehow, my primary expectation was not met. I should've known, since one should only expect the unexpected when it comes to Nigel Tomm. What I instead found "Random Moonwalk" to be was a work of pure hilarity, up to the same caliber of the great silly comedic works from Shel Silverstein and Voltaire. This automatic biography could also serve as a grand exemplification of the English language and just how simply fantastic it can be. Only approximately seven different sentence structures (all of which are present-tense) compose the novel, but the celebration of words and phonics is still there.

So "Random Moonwalk" may never be officially selected by Oprah's Book Club, and Nigel Tomm may never be immortalized as a portrait by the Pablo Picasso of today, but this autobiography does deserve to be respected, regardless of how apathetic current postmodernism may be. It is absurd, it is anticlimactic, it is untrue, it is avantgarde, and it is (of course) random, but "Random Moonwalk," in that special manner that seems to be absent from the works of many authors anymore, pays tribute to the life and times of Michael Jackson very well indeed.