FAULTY FAME The pressures of being famous must be a great trial to those who attain to that level in our social system. We see unillustrated so often an our times as individuals come out of poverty to win sweepstakes; to gain sudden recognition for their artistic talents of one sort or another. We see them leap into prominence from obscurity and seemingly to demand and receive her adulation of vast throngs. The rocker/rapper and the nation's political leaders build a temple which lures worshipers from all over to pay loud homage and make generous tributes to advance the extent and worth of their new circumstances.
It was Andy Warhol, the artist who became famous largely for having painted a picture of an empty soup can on canvas in realistic exactness, who limited fame and rather severely at that. He gave each of us an alloted "fifteen minutes of fame". A fellow artist, Jackson Pollock was said to have placed stretched canvas on end and by dribbling paints of many colors over the upper edge - some say -sight unseen - to create what have become acceptable works of art in our time. Some writers even insist that actually stood erect and threw fistsful of paint at the empty canvas sections. He did his best work when blind-folded, they will tell you if you push them, but you can't do that because that fame-fashioned scribe will lie through his or her artificially whitened false teeth to enhance what makes people deserving of fame and public adoration today.
Being famous has become somewhat blended with be notorious.
Among fellow criminals, I suppose, the man or woman who merits having their photograph numbered and placed on the walls of the nation' post offices under a "Wanted" banner have become famous, but not in the opinion of those of us who see their being there for exactly opposite reasons.
Fame is often shallow. Fame is fickle. Fame is fanciful and fame can be false. Yet it still held to be something for which people might well strive.
Achieving fame today is often another case of the journey being more rewarding than the destination.
A.L.M. August 29, 2005 [c372wds]
