FRIDAY
5-7pm

8pm: Rooftop Films: doc. The Last Train Home follows one family during the largest human migration in the world, when 130 million people left China’s industrial cities to return to their homelands. followed by filmmaker Q + A. Old American Can Factory, $10.

8pm: Talking Heads tribute band This Must Be the Band will be burning down the house at Brooklyn Bowl, $5

SATURDAY
Three words: Free. Crumbs. Cupcakes. The company is giving away 1,000 of them at their new Brooklyn Heights location. plus, score a free med coffee (iced or hot) with every purchase for the next two weeks.

11am: tiny pets of all sorts (even turtles welcome!) compete at the first annual Coney Island Sweetheart Pet Pageant. Coney Island Sideshow, $10.

1pm: Enjoy an hour-long chamber music concert on a floating barge at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Free.

SUNDAY
1-5pm: Pie! In the park! pie! $5 to enter, $10 to gorge.

gates @ 2pm: Free Sunday pool parties continue with performances by Dance Rockers !!!, soul man Lee Fields, more @ East River State Park, free.

doors @ 9pm: Icon Bash: Watch tributes to Chaka Khan, Grace Jones, Prince + Michael Jackson. Get it on the action and dress up – prizes for best look! Littlefield, $5 adv, $10 dos.

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Join fellow mourners as you sing your way through the MJ music video catalog, complete with lyrics. Dress up as the pop star and enter in the impersonator contest, and if you think you’ve got the moves, enter in the dance-off too. You might even win one of the “sweet” prizes (crossing our fingers these are up for grabs). And if you’ve never quite mastered the Thriller dance, don’t fret, “Thrill the World Dancers” will be performing and teaching the willing. Get there early and enjoy clips from various TV shows, films and yes, video games, including This is It and Jackson 5 appearances. Enjoy $3 Atomic Lagers, $5 Tecate/Schlitz and a shot specials all night long, and after the show, stick around for lots more dancing.

So start practicing your crotch grabs and “Oohs” now and head out to Legion to pay tribute to the man who taught us all how to walk on the moon—it’s how he would have wanted it. 9 p.m. Free.

Legion, 790 Metropolitan Ave. at Humboldt St., Williamsburg.

Image courtesy of burntfeather on Etsy.com.

Our friends at the brilliant, Brooklyn-based SMITH Magazine are continuing their six-word literature series by inviting readers to submit Michael Jackson obits. A few early Jackson 6 contest favorites: He touched us in different ways (Jeffrey Bryan); Michael, you beat it too soon (Bethe); From ABC to PYT to RIP (Mary Elizabeth Williams). The reader challenge ends today at 5; read what your competitors have come up with and find out where to submit your brilliant words here.

In other Brooklyn Michael Jackson news: Brownstoner says a bunch of MJ fans are gathering Tuesday night at 7:30 for a memorial run around Prospect Park. Dress the part and meet at Prospect Park West and 9th Street, winding up in a massive Thriller dance. More info here.

West Point uniforms with MJ-worthy styling. Photos by Betony Toht

The weekend’s endless loop of Michael Jackson videos inspired all kinds of reactions: sadness, nostalgia, fashion envy. Like his music, his trademark silhouette—boxy jacket with slim high-waters and white socks—is surely destined for a revival, or at least worthy of one. So for those who wish to honor the singer’s memory with an appropriately dressed moonwalk, where to look?

My first stop is the Carroll Gardens vintage shop 2 Silhouettes on the Shade (482 Court St., 718-858-9229). I have often seen the owners, Janet and Michael Marcus, sitting in lawn chairs outside the store, and I now I know why—it is so jam-packed with merchandise that they can’t fit inside. I burrow into the back and come across a stack of Isotoner fedoras ($12 each) alongside a rack of uniform jackets ($35-75). The epaulettes and brass buttons are pure Michael. Too bad they don’t come in black.

Off I go to the Baltic Bazaar (141 Atlantic Ave., 718-858-2900), a thrift shop that stocks fabrics and trims. I tell the clerk about my quest. “Oh, God bless you,” she says and helps me dig up spools of braid ($1-3 a yard). “I wish I’d brought my sparkly glove today,” she jokes. You and me both, sister.

Trimmings at Baltic Bazaar.

I walk up to the Fulton Street Mall. A street vendor is playing the Jackson Five while selling bootleg CDs and glossy photographs. The black market hasn’t yet produced anything in the apparel area, so I drop by ABC Superstore, (427 Fulton St., 718-522-5142‎) hoping to find some bargain-basement black jeans. There are none, but I discover 3-packs of irregular white t-shirts for $3.50—perfect for ripping open in front of a wind machine.

As I work my way through the mall, I am caught up in a continuous soundtrack of Michael music—all the stores seem to be playing the same radio marathon. “Is that another Michael Jackson song?” I hear one woman ask. “Man, he had a lot of songs.” Despite the promising atmosphere, I’m coming up empty—I’m starting to wish the King of Pop had favored nylon halter tops and poom-poom shorts. At Rainbow (493 Fulton St., 718-858-3771) the trend gods are finally on my side and I find a rack of Bad-esque studded belts ($6.95 each).

Belts at Rainbow.

My shopping stamina is lagging, but I’ve just been reading about Michael’s legendary 12-hour rehearsals and so I push on to Williamsburg in search of ‘80s gear. I ask the clerk in a high-end vintage shop if anyone has asked for Michael Jackson-style goods. “No, do you think they will?” she asks quizzically, then adds, “Actually, my friend was rocking a full-on red leather jacket last night.” She directs me to Vice Versa (241 Bedford Ave., 718-782-8847) to find something similar. Jackpot! They have racks of motorcycle jackets and even some red leather numbers for $30 each. Again, I ask the clerks if anyone has been looking for MJ stuff. “No, do you think they will?” one of them asks.

Red leather jackets at Vice Versa, $30.

Glove-wise, my six hours of shopping on Saturday did not unearth so much as an exfoliation mitt, so in the morning I Google costume shops. On my walk over to the Party City at the Atlantic Center (625 Atlantic Ave., 718-399-7252), I spy a girl wearing rolled up jeans, white socks and black loafers—could this be a good omen? Sadly, no. Party City has black gloves and lace gloves in abundance, but no adult white ones (And what, pray tell, is a Slutty Minnie Mouse supposed to wear?). I do find spats ($6.95) and a promisingly named Pop King Jacket ($39), which, based on the ample supply on the racks, does not seem to be in high demand.

On to Old Navy (139 Flatbush Ave. & Atlantic Ave., 718-636-5110) to find some high-waters. The first thing I spot on my way in is a mannequin wearing pitch-black skinny jeans. Unfortunately, there’s only one pair left on the display. I dig up some bootcut pairs and discover in the fitting room that the store’s vanity sizing has me in a 4, a number that hasn’t been on my waistband since Dangerous was on the charts. I’m understanding why the jeans are sold out.

Still, they aren’t what I am looking for, so I head to the third floor of the Atlantic Center and spy Pay/Half (625 Atlantic Ave., 718-399-0563)—what is this treasure? I immediately find some perfect black treggings (trouser leggings) and red jeans (very Victory Tour). The fitting rooms are closed, but it is clear from the sweat stains I find on the stash of bras that the store has a generous return policy, so I snap up a pair of each in a size 9 (Pay/Half hasn’t heard that I’m a size 4.)

Finally, high-waters in hand, I return to 2 Silhouettes on the Shade hoping that my old friends can help me with the glove situation. Sadly, all we come up with is a pair of elbow-length ladies’ gloves. I buy them, along with a fedora, planning a future D.I.Y. project.

Back at 2 Silhouettes, Fedoras

At home, I try on my get-up and discover that the pared-down MJ look is sort of working. Though I also sort of look like Debbie Gibson during the Electric Youth era, I am even more convinced that the King of Pop is fashion’s next muse. You just know that Karl Lagerfeld is listening to Off the Wall on his iPod right now and planning a $3,000 Chanel glove. Give me a few days and I’ll make you one for $30.

Photo by Ben Toht.

After the jump, a six-inch crocheted Michael Jackson, a Michael Jackson catnip toy, a Michael Jackson paper-doll cutout card and Michael Jackson rosary beads.

A six-inch crocheted likeness. Says the seller: “I was shocked when I heard the news about him !!  And makes me want to create this doll to be memories of that time in this world have a good singer like him.” Kinda sweet, actually. But the seller was only moved to make one, and it’s $24.

Nora Ephron’s neck has nothing on Jackson’s in this 8 x 10 print ($25), described as a “Buddhist-inspired portrait of the late, great Michael Jackson,” and called “Wacko Jacko.” That’s not very elegiac… or Buddhist.

Cosmetically, Jackson fares better in this calendar showing him as the Hindu deity Krishna playing a flute.

We love the guy, but does God really want to see his mug on your rosary beads? Wear to church at your own risk, $49.

This $5 Michael Jackson catnip toy shows two sides of Michael: young and fresh faced and… terrifying.

A paper-doll card is a fun idea (and only $5) but this poor person has spent an awful lot of time totally missing the fashion boat. Blue turtleneck sweaters and brick-colored socks?

This print, entitled 50 FOOT MICHAEL JACKSON ROBOT DESTROYS LAS VEGAS ((BA)), isn’t a piece of memorabilia so much as a twisted expression of pyromania: It has “a real working red laser beam eyes and moving head,” the artist writes. “His arms move in and out and in one hand he has a monorail train that I made out of Sculpey clay. The other hand has a red rocket with a flicker bulb for the jet flames… The miniature Las Vegas sign is lit up behind him, as well as a fiber optics effect that looks like explosions in the background.” This artist has put a lot of work into a $20 picture. Are the Pepsi commercial people hiring?

Michael Jackson at Brooklyn Museum in 2007, courtesy of Ebony Magazine/Matthew Rolston.

There’s a whole lot of Brooklyn love today for Michael Jackson, who was last here two years ago when the crew at Ebony Magazine did a gorgeous photo shoot with him at our very own Brooklyn Museum. Here he is, photographed by Matthew Rolston for a special collector’s edition on Jackson, 25 years after Thriller.

“Michael wanted to be photographed in an artistic setting and the Brooklyn Museum gladly accommodated us all,” said the magazine’s creative director, Harriet Cole. “We shot in the midst of ancient and contemporary history, and it was powerful to be in that space.”

Thanks for visiting, Michael. A lot of people around here really miss you.

Check back for details on Michael Jackson memorial events around Brooklyn this weekend, and please email any info to jonathan@brokelyn.com.