IS it surprising to see the world stunned at the news of Michael Jackson’s death, the world including the pop kid down the street, also your neighbor who’s turning 50 this year?

And remember your mother singing her favorite song? “One day in your life, you’ll remember a place….” has the lyrics written by the man who would become very famous for his singing and his dance.

To me, he will always be Michael Jackson, not just Michael, not just Jackson.

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And there are two ways to see him. In a blog, a comment goes. “He died a long time ago -- when he started getting weird.”

But remember him, the world will.

He came into the entertainment scene with his brothers, then alone---someone with familiar, yet new rhythm, and a moving body that side-glided with the beat in clips, shaking, stepping in and out, and back, then stepping back some more, hooking with his song, life-breathing on stage, walking on air.

In just the dance, he expressed movement, he didn’t move to express. A writer called this abstract dancing and it would be in those years the first of its kind, something you could and couldn’t imagine.

In this sense, Michael Jackson reminds me of Isadora Duncan who was the mother of modern dance. In an era where the ballet was the dance, its steps set and strictly prescribed, Isadora went on stage to move as she felt along the melody played, improvising, living the moment. Offering something new, she made heads turn.

That’s how the world will remember Michael Jackson.

The Jackson brothers together produced seven albums for the famous Motown in the 1970s, selling millions of copies.

Michael Jackson was an icon, for sure. They call him the pop star of all time.

He was the man who invented and popularized the moonwalk that kids love to mimic, and the circling, spinning in a “gravity-defying” dance. This, and his piping soprano, amazed the world in the best time of his career.

His first solo album in 1979 was “Off the Wall” which sold 10 million copies. But probably his best was the production in the early ‘80s as he teamed up again with his brothers. The hit here, where Michael Jackson was composer and co-producer, was “Thriller” with sales exceeding 41 million albums.

In the ‘80s, the “Thriller” album at a particular time was selling a million copies a week, then more. In just a year and up to now, it’s said to be the best-selling album of all time, estimated to sell between 47 to over a hundred million copies all over the world. “Thriller” won eight Grammy Awards in 1984 and was in the top list for songs in pop, R&B and rock.

As the King of Pop, Michael Jackson won 13 Grammys.

But there were the dark years. They included the bad business deals, the baby-dangling act, allegations of child abuse. Acquitted from the charges of child molestation and plotting to kidnap a boy, he turned into a recluse in 2005. There was also the strange physical transformation that would have been equivalent to changing a black icon to a white one.

This year with a concert that he said was going to be his last, things could have picked up. But it’s said he was $400 million in debt. Would it have been a new moonwalk?

But I think I know how the world will remember him even in the years after. The memory of his sad years in the later part of his life would not be as sharp as the sound of his voice and the picture of his dance.

(ecuizon@gmail.com)