FIFTEEN SECONDS OF FAME
Andy Warhol, who created attention-demanding art with a can of soup, long ago set the per person quota of fame at fifteen minutes. I think his estimate is about right, too. Fame is said to be “fickle” but I feel it is more stable than the public perception of those things deserving the verbal designation “famous”. We would have far more famous individuals if we had outward, spoken respect for the good things many people do without receiving any recognition.
True fame comes to the individual does a good thing for another person and both know it. But it never lasts more than fifteen seconds. I had the special, strange sensation his week the first time I heard the song of mine sung by a group dramatizing the actual building of the stone church in which we continue to worship over two hundred and sixty five years later. They seemed to be enjoying doing so, as were the six or so children accompanying the pipe organ and singers with a rhythmic sound pattern tapping stone together emulating primitive builders in the act of building a stone church structure. I literally tingled in my deepest being for a time hearing that unusual sound added - and , then, the sensation was a gone.
In 1970 I wrote the book for full-sized musical comedy and a local high school produced it and performed to capacity audiences for six nights and a Saturday afternoon children's performance. On opening night, when the kettle drums rolled and the curtain seemed to shiver a bit in anticipation with the first notes of the overture – the fame sensation hit me and lingered. That, too, lasted perhaps fifteen seconds or so.. And, since I was playing string base in the pit orchestra, I quickly returned to the work at hand we had a successful show. Fame was mine when I hear that overture setting for three songs which had been a part of me one time, and were, at that moment, translated to other lives.
Few people lay claim to notoriety, logically, yet I think we all have such moments in our lives. Mine was quit vivid and memorable. A short story I have written was published by a college magazine and illustrated with an arty drawing of a nude female. The major newsstand taped a dozen copies of the magazine open to story on the street-side window, the edition of the magazine was banned in at least three women's colleges, and finally, a local anonymous gossip columnist absolved me of poor taste but questioned the judgment of the magazine; editors in choosing the illustration as being a bit excessive. During that time, I sensed that phase of fame known as notoriety, and found it to be, in all honesty about the comparison.
Another incident in my life which has accorded me such a sensation.; made me feel worth. I was in attendance at a church gathering in which adults were being examined concerning becoming church officials. Each of the young people before the examiners outlined his or her religious experience I was surprised when one young man concluded his remarks by saying that he was where he was in life because of attending Sunday School for ;taught by a man who is in this room." rooms! He called my name and came over to shake my hand and thank me public ally. That got to me - way down.
I have experienced “fame” of a more rustic or informal kind when I have romped with grandchildren or other kids of no relative connection ...playing with them rather than just cavorting in their midst; not just among them but trying to feel what children feel among their own competitive, fame-seeking peers. While playing guitar, piano or the old melodian, to back their efforts, I have shared fame with such tiny singers who felt they had reached perfection as their song completed itself and pleased parents and grandparents.
Such shared fame is the very best, I think.
A.L.M. September 12, 2004 [c680wds]
